Founded by Harry Dodson in 1986, Dodson & Flinker (formerly Dodson Associates, Ltd.) is a landscape architecture and planning practice offering a wide range of services to both private and public sector clients. The firm has pioneered the use of site planning and design principles based on historic precedents and environmental sustainability to blend new development with the traditional patterns of communities. The range of services offered includes site design and construction observation for institutional, commercial and residential clients; design of urban neighborhoods, parks and streetscapes; regional planning, growth management and watershed protection; scenic resource analysis; and greenway-based open space planning.
Clients include landowners, developers, private and public institutions, non-profit organizations, local, state and national governments, universities, architects, engineers and businesses. For site-scale master planning and landscape design, Dodson & Flinker has the resources to carry a project from initial concept development and presentation graphics through the approval process and into working drawings, cost estimating and construction observation. For planning projects, the latest GIS tools are combined with skill in photography, illustration and communication to make complex issues more accessible to decision makers and to the public.
This broad range of skills and experience allows Dodson & Flinker to bring to each project an understanding of how the site fits into its larger social, economic and environmental context. Likewise, detailed knowledge of site-scale design and construction brings a unique perspective to planning at the scale of the town and region. This approach has earned Dodson & Flinker a national reputation for projects that fit in with their surroundings, allowing growth to continue in a way that enhances, rather than erodes, historic urban centers and rural landscapes.
Principal authors of the award-winning book, Dealing with Change in the Connecticut Valley, Dodson & Flinker practices and promotes contextual design: the blending of new construction with its natural and cultural environment. The firm has implemented these principles for clients across the US and abroad, including Regional Plan Association and The Nature Conservancy and the NY Department of State.