Eric is principal in charge of all environmental planning, urban design, community design and development as well as street and infrastructure projects. He will lead the CDC planning and design team and lead our collaborative design process with our client’s and the community.
Mr. Schmidt’s 33-plus years of planning and design have helped many a community transform themselves through both community based self-help as well as large public works projects. Through working with various NGO’s, to design leadership positions in City and State agencies as well as the private sector, and academia, Eric has worked to investigate, innovate and inspire others to help build more sustainable places to live, work and play. From building new communities which previously had no running water or sewers, to reshaping downtown commercial districts through significant public and private investment projects, Eric looks to implement innovative design and development strategies that will foster long term sustainable progress at all levels of the built and natural environment. Mr. Schmidt’s professional experience spans communities across the America’s. Through these projects, Mr. Schmidt has integrated a range of public parks, streetscape designs, public facilities, various scaled public and private housing, and mixed use developments as well as infrastructure projects into rural, urban and campus environments.
He has extensive experience incorporating Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles, SMART Growth principles, Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) and sustainable design principles in a verity of complex design and planning projects involving multiple public agencies, funding, and diverse community interests.
Prior to founding Cascade Design Collaborative, Eric was the Director of Downtown Planning and the Director of Urban Design for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. His role and responsibilities were regulatory and in project design execution. Community values, real estate development, infrastructure, public space and the economy were drivers that required inclusion and balancing for every project. Primary projects included; Central Artery Air-Rights Park Open Space Plan, HarborPark Open Space Plan, Several downtown and midtown district redevelopment plans as well as various street, transit and open space plans. Prior to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Eric taught architecture and planning at the University of Texas, Austin and worked for Kevin Lynch and Lawrence Halprin offices on projects such as the Rio Salado Reclamation and Redevelopment Plan, the FDR Memorial in D.C. and Freeway Park in Seattle respectively.
When he opened CDC in 1995, he sought to implement a planning design philosophy that would foster collaborative public dialogue throughout the design process and build high quality public realm projects. CDC believes in working locally, researching globally and fostering incremental change in how we build, enjoy and preserve the places where we live, work and play.
| Landscape Architecture | Urban Design | Community Planning |