SWA Project Team David Thompson, Susan Martin, Xiao Zhou
For a planning project with no market study behind its project program, where do land planners or landscape architects begin? It’s often the case that we are asked to influence a project program, but it is a unique situation for land planners to essentially invent a program for a development in an emerging market. Such is one of the many challenges facing SWA Dallas within the Istra Town Master Plan. As is the case with any master plan, SWA has worked through several iterations of the master plan, as client goals for the project change and become refined.
Dallas
istra town master plan
The main site constraints for Istra Town planners lie in the nature of the land configuration and a legal setback from the lake’s edge. Much of the client’s land is not in contiguous pieces. Within the framework plan, this condition has influenced the creation of several villages throughout the site, each having a unique landbased identity. Secondly, this development is being marketed as a lakeside weekend resort community for Muscovites. However, it is not immediately obvious that a lake exists behind a 150M belt of protected tree cover between the land to be developed and the Istrinskoye Reservoir shore. The master plan addresses this issue by placing neighborhood parks and recreational amenities such as docks, clubhouses, and parking near the lake shore to serve as vehicular and pedestrian gateways to the lake’s edge.
Initial road layout + development massing concepts.
Based on site photographs and a rough survey, SWA was charged with the task of creating a meaningful site analysis and project program including housing prototypes, recreational program opportunities, and a basic framework plan for the 1148 HA development. The August master plan was based on the first round of conclusions SWA drew from the site analysis process.
Dallas
istra town master plan The December 2006 Master plan is the second iteration or design for Istra Town. This plan has a park system that is a mixture of a green space network tying the most interior parts of villages into the lake’s edge. Through the use of linear parks, often placed in low-lying drainage areas, SWA offers an open space-rich resort town. For this version of the master plan the client gave SWA the freedom to propose a quantity and placement of alternative housing prototypes to the typical “single family cottage” (e.g. the garden apartment and cluster house).
December Master Plan Exhibits
Dallas
istra town master plan This plan is the current stage of the Istra Town Master Plan. The client has requested plan modifications based on a reduction in the open space system and variety of housing products. The open space system in this product is much more based on interior ‘central’ parks that are surrounded by housing products.