The teamwork at Putman Planning and Design & Development Directions, has been able to help create the communities, neighborhoods and many of the homes in which over 100,000 people now live, work, neighbor, learn, shop and play. Design-build and consulting services span over 3 decades of professional & practical experience. Cost- effective, preserved natural environments are blended with land forms, streets, buildings, amenity and identity features. More than 200 planned communities have been carefully and enthusiastically planned, designed and implemented for adapting and conserving over 30,000 acres, creating values in excess of $3 billion.

EDUCATION: For Marc Putman, a broad academic design curriculum culminated in a Bachelor of Science Degree and Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture with minor studies in Architecture and Applied Art from Iowa State University. He won the All University Art Contest and his Master's Degree thesis: “The Process of Private Land Development” became a required textbook. Early field reviews of the new towns of Reston, VA., Columbia, MD., the Prairie School design work in Oak Park, IL. and Taliesin in Spring Green, WI. were very influential.

ACROSS DISCIPLINES; PEMTOM: Experience was gained in construction, architectural, planning and engineering firms. Work in art, sculpture and university teaching of architectural illustration, was augmented with consultation contracts to national companies. This led to a position of primary planning & design responsibility with Pemtom, Inc., in 1970. As the Twin Cities’ largest development & building company, work successfully pioneered planned communities. Many projects achieved national recognition and awards for innovation and for sales success. Marc was responsible for master planning: blending of mixed uses... of attached homes, detached homes, pools, private & public parks, schools, commercial uses & private street systems. Identities, advertising & numerous marketing offices, displays, multi-media presentations, signage & scale models were created, coordinated, along with construction supervision roles.

ROBERT ENGSTROM ASSOCIATES: From 1973 to 1980 he was Director of Planning and an Associate of the Minneapolis consulting firm, Robert Engstrom Associates, providing planning, design and marketing services for the Twin Cities, midwest and mountain states to a wide variety of private, institutional and public clients.

AUTHORSHIP: Mr. Putman co-authored and illustrated the book Planning & Design of Townhouses and Condominiums. One of the publisher’s most popular books, this widely read, 245 page book, published by the Urban Land Institute, provides an unusually detailed view of the inter-related complexities of creating residential communities. The book proved that “smart growth” neighborhoods (before it was called smart growth) , with increased densities & amenities, can be very attractive, high value and achieve top levels of buyer/resident satisfaction. The book won the American Society of Landscape Architects’ National Design Award for Communication.

MIXED-USE DESIGN-BUILD: Marc took on planning, design and coordination tasks of multi-family projects in the position of vice-president of the Rochester, MN. design/build/development firm, Elcor Enterprises. Completing project start-up tasks, sales successes and winning design awards on numerous residential projects, he then founded Development Directions in 1982. To meet new client needs, principals and design team members returned to the Twin Cities in 1989.

ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHIC DESIGN MELDED WITH LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE: Co-founder Tierney Putman holds undergraduate arts degrees, as well as Minneapolis College of Art and Design degrees in both Graphic Design and Environmental Graphic Design. Her background in design history, research, and uncommon art & design talents lead to a full scholarship offer to the Taliesin design school, created by Frank Lloyd Wright. Her efforts bring distinctive award - winning identity, marketing value and enduring brand/identity for each client and project. Her graphic designs, are made permanent in the built environments of the firm's planned communities, neighborhoods, recreational and commercial environments. She is an expert in Computer Aided Design, graphic design and 3D modeling... and copyrighting. Responsible for all graphic publications, her compositions, content organization and graphic design provides for improved understanding of very complex matters. Capabilities in abstraction, identity, style and color are augmented by management & use of the firm's archive of over 30,000 photos. These are the result of extensive travel and research, illustrating the nation's "best practices" examples in a variety of design disciplines. Such communication talents and skills have played a key role in public and private sector support of our design solutions.

MORE DESIGN-BUILD: In 1993, while continuing on-going projects, Marc, fellow Principal/Graphic Designer Tierney Putman and other team members joined with the C. Cudd Company, one of the Mpls.-St. Paul metro area’s largest luxury home builder/developers. Marc held the position of Partner, Senior Architectural Designer and Vice-President of Planning. Tierney was lead Graphic Designer and responsible for all marketing materials, advertisements, identities and signage. Working with the entire team, neighborhoods, homes and project amenities won sales success, top Builder Association awards, Parade of Homes awards, Masonry Design Awards & others. Planning & design tasks involved luxury-level home "product line" design, land planning, detail home & site design, illustration, brochures & corporate marketing.

METRO TND PIONEERS: On-going consulting services were expanded to other graphics clients, builders & developers thru Development Directions/Putman Planning & Design, in 1998. The firms broadened & refined their interdisciplinary skills to large and small scale, mixed-use developments. Coordinated with land planning, housing product lines are designed & adapted. Architectural review committee work helps elevate design quality, protect & grow lot values while creating streetscape variety... places of memorable scale and impact. Planning/marketing/design tasks are also accomplished for permanent amenity feature design, theme creation, advertising, architectural illustration & signage. Municipal openspaces, thoroughfares and parks are dovetailed with design quality guidelines and planned mixed-use neighborhoods.

INSTITUTIONS & AUTHORSHIP: Marc was a Founding Advisor to the Builder Marketing Society, begun by the late Dave Stone, the internationally renowned new home sales and marketing “guru” and author. Traveling and consulting nation-wide with Mr. Stone, Marc and Tierney also contributed to both Dave Stone books, “New Home Sales” and “New Home Marketing”. These books remain industry standards today. Principals were responsible for creation and national distribution of Stone Institute and Builder Marketing Society reports and publications. Marc has also authored, illustrated and done photography for numerous articles, and addressed Industry professional groups regarding “smart growth” . His particular interest is in the integration of sustainability, affordability with city planning goals... with neighborhood land planning, amenity + architectural design, and marketing communications. He's taught real estate classes & juried university Landscape Architecture masters degree candidates.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, TOWN PLANNING, BUILDING DESIGN..."PLACE-MAKING": Marc is a registered landscape architect in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Numerous custom homes he has designed have won design awards, many located on very challenging sites. The firms' work shows that it is well versed in the various design styles. While personal favorites show a Craftsman and Prairie School emphasis, winning sales and design awards have been won for Colonial & New England style homes.

VARIETY: Planning and design work has also extended to Ecovillages, office campuses, malls and commercial villages, as well as numerous parks/landscape environments for both marina, urban & suburban settings. Many projects have received award recognition from NAHB, ULI, HUD, ASLA, AIA, AICP, Builders Associations in Chicago, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, New York, Architectural Record, American Wood Council, Housing Magazine and numerous other trade publications. Recent work focuses on planning & design for a number of large scale, high amenity, master planned neighborhoods. An on-going area of interest and effort has been to visit and analyze, nation-wide, numerous trend-setting developments utilizing “new” Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND)... Neo-traditional town planning/design techniques... and then apply the principles where appropriate.

ALWAYS "GREEN": For decades, we have pursued mixed-uses, traffic calming & resource conserving street designs, highly styled but affordable price brackets, open space systems, and public-private amenity features. Our work has always incorporated detail graphic environmental analysis as a basis for land planning, uses, buildings, activities, and values. These and other planning "pieces" are now recognized as "going green". Sustainable Design, EcoVillage concepts and affordable housing solutions are now being merged with the best of TND and prior market offerings. Marc is a U.S. Green Building Council member, and a Corresponding Committee participant helping to refine the LEED certification criteria.

THE TEAM: Fellow professionals include Ryan Mielke, with a degree in Architecture from the University of Minnesota. Architectural & Engineering CAD drafting, design, 3D CADD work , virtual reality creations, and presentations are provided for site and building planning & detailing. Ryan also provides assistance in production and technical support to the extensive computer, color output, publishing and digital presentation systems we employ to compose, print, and present planning & design solutions. Sue Timmerman, graduate of UW River Falls with a degree in Business Adminstration, handles the Office Administration and Bookkeeping duties.

TECHNOLOGY & TALENT: Team members offer unique artistic hand drawing skills that grow from and support an ability to “think in 3D”. This enables warm, accurate architectural, graphic and landscape architectural presentation illustrations of our design & planning work enabling better client and stake-holder understanding.

TEAMWORK: Alliances with architects merge our capabilities to provide complete architectural services as needed. Similar team relationships with civil & mechanical engineers, as well as environmental consultants, enable a tailored approach to offering of professional services. We have strong working relationships with numerous contractors and vendors. We are able to offer design-build capabilities, seeing design thru to completion via construction and marketing management services.

TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN & SMARTER GROWTH: With forward-looking municipalities, developers, builders and marketing professionals, the team adapted new (and old) traffic management intersections, patterns & streetscapes. With tailored housing solutions, a more broad range of buyer demands, budgets & municipal expectations have been accommodated. New neighborhoods, utilizing TND, New Urbanist and Sustainable principles, ranging from 2 acres to 1000 acres, are in various stages of design, approvals & sales.

LEADERSHIP & AWARDS: Liberty on the Lake, in Stillwater, MN., the first Twin Cities metro development employing these refined ideas is now enjoying its last few of residential and commercial lots. Liberty’s innovations have now been recognized: other new communities are influenced by its design. And, Liberty’s ideas and execution won the Smart Growth Award from 1000 Friends of Minnesota. Against some 600 entries from the nation’s best planning, design and development companies, we won the Builder Magazine’s Builders’ Choice, (national) Grand Award in the Site Plan Category. We also won the Professional Builder Magazine’s prestigious (national) Best In American Living design Award. The city, developer and builders have won priceless 3rd party recognition, marketing values, referrals, sales and enhanced reputation. This, while resident survey reports 3 times the average number of "families we neighbor with". Exceptional resale values and low time-on-market when contrasted with comparable sales are reported. Other Twin Cities Metro neighborhoods planned, approved and being implemented include Seven Greens, Stone Mill Farm, Victor Gardens, Towne Lakes, Discover Crossing, Heritage Green, Fable Hill, Spirit of Brandtjen Farm, Cobblestone Lake.

HELPING MUNICIPALITIES: Recent work with municipalities have included downtown river front visioning for Stillwater, Minn, "Regaining River Falls River-Centric Identity", "Downtown Visioning and Design Quality Guidelines" for the City of Hudson, Wis., and, "Gateway Village Centers and Vision Corridor" for the City of Gem Lake, Minn. We have also been active with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, presenting recent cluster development work at seminars on smart-growth.

ECOVILLAGES & AFFORDABILITY: New work includes the Ecovillage in River Falls, and "Flex & Grow Homes" model lines. The EcoVillage work presents leading edge work-force housing solutions in a sustainable, attractive village-like setting. Unusual municipal academic and non-profit organizational support is moving this work toward a constructed archtype. We believe our team work on EcoVillages will be as ground breaking and informative to municipalities and the realestate industries as Liberty on the Lake has been.

LENDER/OWNER ASSET PROTECTION: Recent housing and planning tasks integrate with detailed data-mining and cooperative research work with Market Graphics. Top level market data understanding now enables us to assist lenders and property owners with Action Plan Reports, as well as Repositioning Reports. Strategies for Asset Protection are evolved and Implementation managed.

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN & PLACE MAKING: We would be honored to help you with your efforts to create more sustainable, affordable, livable, safe and attractive Places. We thrive on creating new environments that become Places of character ... that reflect well on their municipal leaders, contribute to the fabric of community, that are profitable, that build tax base while helping to solve our environmental and sustainability challenges.

• Landscape Architecture: Master Land Planning, Detail Site Planning, Grading Design, Planting Design, Park, Green and Openspace Design, Amenity, Identity and Recreational Feature Design, Creating Dual Uses for Civil Engineering basins, structures, Innovative streetscapes, Modern Roundabout Use.
  

• Graphic Design: Identities, Logos, Themes and Theme Statements, Signage Systems, Brochures, Web sites.
  

• Environmental Graphic Design, Way-finding/Identity & Information Systems, Sales Center Planning, Displays, Decor, Installation.
  

• Approval Advocacy and Representation: 4 Color Approval Application Booklets, Displays, Marketing Illustrations, Scale and Virtual Models, Digital Graphic Photography and Video, Power Point/Keynote Presentations.
  

• Residential and Mixed Use Building Design: Builder Product Lines, Custom Residences, Additions.
  

• Planning and Design Quality Guidelines: Home/Garage Designation Plans, Guideline Manuals, Architectural Control/Design Quality Review Systems and Operation.
  

• Strategy, "Second Opinions", Counsel: Development, Building, Marketing and Sales.