Overview
The Arroyo Group provides professional planning and urban design consulting services to both public and private sectors. For the last thirty years, we have been known for the creativity and practicality of our plans.
Our planning and design approach has been developed and refined through three decades of planning practice. This approach seeks to balance community participation, economic realities, and the unique place – the physical, natural and contextual setting – to develop plans that foster livable communities and vibrant downtowns.
Most important to The Arroyo Group is the creation of plans, which respect, reflect and create a unique sense of place and are responsible to the realities of existing and potential market demand. It is the actual revitalization of communities in which The Arroyo Group takes the greatest pride. Plans do get built.
History and Philosophy
The Arroyo Group derives its name and approach from the Arroyo Guild, an assembly of turn-of-the-century California architects, planners, engineers, artists and craftsmen who lived along the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena. Common to all their creative efforts was a careful consideration for the unique beauty and meaning of the environment in which they worked, and an overriding concern for quality, craftsmanship and detail. Their association was characterized by intense dialogue across traditional professional boundaries, and mutual respect for the contribution each could make to the other's work. The Guildsmen left a legacy of work that is to this day functional and beautiful in itself and in its setting.
Today our context, our problems and their solutions are infinitely more complex. Urbanization, population growth, and the realization of limits to our natural and financial resources have brought into sharp focus the critical interdependencies between people, their institutions, and the environment.
We believe that sensitive and workable relationships between people and the environment can be achieved today and integrated with the sound social and fiscal considerations so essential to successful design, planning and development. Our practice strives to reflect the spirit of the Arroyo Guild through a respect for quality and detail and by tapping the wisdom and experience of individuals of varying professional and experiential backgrounds. Our concern is for the lasting value of our plans to our clients and their communities.
Since its founding by Larry Morrison (link to Founding Principal) in 1975, The Arroyo Group has successfully serviced a broad array of private and public clients and has, through its work, proven the validity of this multi-disciplinary approach.
Personnel
The Arroyo Group's key personnel have acquired experience in both private practice and public service. All are familiar with the business, political and technical aspects of project development, design and execution. They are experienced in the management of complex projects and are accustomed to delivering quality work on budget and on time.
We work with government agencies, business and community groups, decision-makers and other professionals in California and the Southwest to develop long-range plans, find solutions to urban and environmental problems, resolve differences, develop consensus on important, and sometimes contentious, planning issues, and create livable communities. We provide high quality products under rigorous schedules. The Arroyo Group is known for the creativity and practicality of our plans.
Founding Principal
Over the past thirty-five years, Mr. Morrison has been principal of his own planning and architecture firm, head of a public agency planning division in a major city, officer of a major west coast planning and engineering firm and project architect or planner for several nationally known firms.
As principal of The Arroyo Group, Mr. Morrison has directed a full range of planning and implementation projects including specific plans, general plans, downtown development programs and economic development programs. Projects under his direction include planning, urban design and revitalization programs for Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Pasadena, Riverside and Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. He has a special interest in urban design, campus planning, implementation programs, historic preservation, and citizen participation. A number of plans prepared under his direction have received various professional and community awards.
Mr. Morrison served as a member of the Pasadena City Planning Commission, Cultural Heritage Commission, and Relocation Appeals Board of the Redevelopment Agency. Mr. Morrison is currently on the Board of the Pasadena Educational Foundation and serves as Vice President of the Foundation. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the American Planning Association (APA), and the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP). Mr. Morrison is also a Registered Architect. He has authored a number of articles on city planning and urban design and presented papers at state, national and international planning and design conferences. Mr. Morrison is also a music composer and lyricist with composer and publisher memberships in the American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers (ASCAP).
Mr. Morrison has served as a visiting lecturer and critic at the Universities of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Southern California, California Polytechnic University and Drexel and Temple Universities. Mr. Morrison currently serves on the Planning and Design Review Committee of the University of Arizona and has been awarded the Planning & Design Review Advisory Committee's Distinguished Service Award. He was also awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the California Downtown Association and a Recognition Award for participating in the Bridge to Bridge, River to Railroad Design Charrette in Kennewick, Washington.
He was educated at Stanford University, the University of Arizona and received Master Degrees in Architecture and City Planning at the University of Pennsylvania.