About
Welcome to STUDIOleed : A meeting place for Land use Efficiency and Eco Design.
These pages provide a portal to our projects, research, and ideas on different aspects of urbanization and development. We are urban and architectural designers, and town planners. We are sustainability professionals. We focus on the importance of morphology and embedded eco-systems, and see ecological economics as an engine for sustainable development. We see Design as a catalyst for successful implementation.
What we do:
STUDIOleed offers professional consulting services for those who stand to benefit from redevelopment and adaptive reuse of existing commercial and residential properties, who wish to rethink and recreate their properties potential, develop mixed use or multifamily projects, care about the future economic vitality and livability of their community. Studio experts understand the process and are experienced in finding the right solutions. When necessary, we team up with other professionals to better service project goals.
We will strive to help you reach sustainability goals and balanced development.
We will guide your design process through understanding your needs and developing strategies that work for you.
We develop planning and land-use recommendations that enhance the character and quality of life for your community residents.
We are experts in preparation of Design Guidelines, visualizations, renderings.
STUDIOleed offers professional planning and design services to:
- property owners and investors,
- developers
- municipalities
- non-for profit planning organizations
- civic leaders
- architects
- landscape architects
- engineers
Who we are:
Ela Dokonal
AICP, LEED AP
Ela’s work has an emphasis on compact, mixed use development with mixed housing types for mixed income and inter-generational, appropriately dense, human scale, pedestrian oriented development, linked by mass transit. She is an advocate for light imprint methodologies that offer tools and a range of environmental strategies for different landscapes and urban conditions, adjusted according to the appropriateness of their use in each transect zone and used collectively at the sector, neighborhood and block scale. Ela is co-author of several adopted Design Guidelines formulated with innovative approach.
Ela is certified by the American Planning Association’s professional institute- the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and by the US Green Building Council as a LEED AP; and holds a Masters degree in Architecture and Urban Planning (MArch) from the University of Zagreb, Croatia.
Ela Dokonal is a graduate of the Form Based Code Institute.
Form Based Codes foster predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code. They are regulations, not mere guidelines, adopted into city or county law. Form-based codes offer a powerful alternative to conventional zoning. Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public realm, the form and mass of buildings in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks. The regulations and standards in form-based codes are presented in both words and clearly drawn diagrams and other visuals. They are keyed to a regulating plan that designates the appropriate form and scale (and therefore, character) of development, rather than only distinctions in land-use types. This approach contrasts with conventional zoning’s focus on the micromanagement and segregation of land uses, and the control of development intensity through abstract and uncoordinated parameters (e.g., FAR, dwellings per acre, setbacks, parking ratios, traffic LOS), to the neglect of an integrated built form. Not to be confused with design guidelines or general statements of policy, form-based codes are regulatory, not advisory. They are drafted to implement a community plan. They try to achieve a community vision based on time-tested forms of urbanism. Ultimately, a form-based code is a tool; the quality of development outcomes depends on the quality and objectives of the community plan that a code implements.
