Design + Planning A comprehensive understanding of how people's lives shape and are shaped by their environments is the starting point for AECOM's approach to the design and planning of places at all scales. Whether working on a multi-acre corporate landscape, a small urban park, or a year-round resort, our landscape architects and urban designers consider the site's physical surroundings and the needs of the client as well as the financial mechanisms, long-term community effects, implementation, maintenance, and management of the project. Our practice is not simply focused on buildings and sites but on systems: the physical framework of streets, squares, parks, plazas and gardens that contribute to a sense of place. Effective and sustainable design requires careful integration of the myriad features of a particular site, from issues of aesthetics to those of ecology, circulation, infrastructure, visual impacts, and economic viability. AECOM's interdisciplinary approach brings together the best creative and strategic thinkers to facilitate the often complex reciprocal relationships between sites and their surrounding context. Our work takes place in a variety of settings, from established downtowns to new communities to rural landscape settings. All our projects have in common the need for practicality, quality, and attractiveness. Underlying everything we do is the ideal of making places where we ourselves _ and ultimately, many others _ will want to be.