A Fresh Start for Founding Culdesac Residents and Businesses

Vertical construction on Culdesac Tempe is now well underway, with several buildings in the main entry plaza almost fully completed and future residents ready to make it their new home in 2022. The country’s first car-free community built from scratch promises a vibrant, walkable community that includes a restaurant, grocery store and coffee shop, amongst other amenities. While it is hard to find these types of retail tenants, especially early on in a mixed use project like this, Culdesac not only made it a priority, but also made a special effort to find small, locally owned businesses to support the local economy and reinforce a unique experience within the Culdesac community for residents and visitors.

Memphis 3.0 Community Anchors: Reinvesting in Local Neighborhoods to Positively Impact Memphians

The Daniel Burnham Award-winning Memphis 3.0 Comprehensive Plan charted a bold new vision for how the City of Memphis, Tennessee would “grow up, not out” as it embarks on its third century. Opticos Design was thrilled to assist the City of Memphis as they lead the innovative 3.0 Comprehensive Plan on behalf of a multidisciplinary team of national and local consultants. It was a pleasure to be invited back to help the city implement the plan through a series of small area planning projects.

Rebuilding for Those in Need: Opticos Designs for Wildfire Cottage Initiative

In October of 2017, wildfires in Northern California burned at least 245,000 acres and over 5,000 acres in Sonoma County alone. Since then, Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County has explored ways to expand its programs across the board to serve households displaced by October’s devastating wildfires, including its latest initiative: the Sonoma Wildfire Cottages.   Opticos is proud to be part of the team, led by Marianne Cusato, renowned designer of the Katrina Cottage, and the Cypress Community Development Corporation selected by Sonoma Habitat, to design and build a series of model cottages on the Fountaingrove campus of Medtronic in Santa Rosa, California.