Connecting a fragmented city

Distrito Valle del Campestre, or DVC, is a community initiative that aims to carve out a safe, scenic, and sustainable pedestrian space for people who live and work in the San Pedro district. DVC had a plan with four goals: to maintain residential character, enhance the connectivity of the street network, improve mobility and safety, and increase public green space.

Hired to advance this vision with a landscape masterplan, Grain led a diverse team through over 200 hours of meetings, empowering stakeholders to shape their physical and social environments. Our plan called for pedestrian corridors to connect a fragmented city, calming traffic while creating a system of linked green spaces and defining a space between private and public. Over the course of the project, our team facilitated not only a change in landscape but a shift in the culture that encouraged both private landowners and public agencies to view the communal streetscape as a shared and valuable asset.

(A personal window into this change: when Grain principal Runit Chhaya first started visiting the site, he had to take a taxi from his hotel just a mile away. Runit went to the final meetings on foot, thanks to newly-installed sidewalks, alongside members of the San Pedro community).