Urban Design

Atlanta BeltLine Perkins&Will, Atlanta The success of the 22-mile-long looping corridor that encircles Atlanta tells an unlikely story of how dense, urban, pedestrian-oriented, landscape-forward development can thrive in a car-dependent, low-density American city. Now 15 years into the project, which is 60 percent complete, this linear arboretum filled with public art and native Piedmont meadow grasses has attracted $9 billion in investment, the vast majority from the private sector. With a simple material palette of granite, concrete, and stainless steel, and design motifs inspired by its former identity as a rail corridor, the BeltLine connects 45 neighborhoods and has, critically, reoriented commercial and cultural activity across the city into a pervasive landscape design context. The success of the BeltLine, an early and influential example of urban industrial landscape adaptive reuse, encompasses a…