January 2015
On August 1 of 2013, Geoff Dyer accepted the position of Director of Design for the City of Lafayette, Louisiana Downtown Development Authority. A professional Urban Designer, Geoff was previously the Principal and Director of Design for U.S Based Placemakers llc, and Founder and Principal of Placemakers Canada Inc. He is a regular educator, lecturer, and writer on the subject of sustainable urbanism, urban design, alternative land use regulations and development standards - particularly form based codes and the SmartCode, and is an expert in the design of walkable, mixed use environments.
For over ten years he has run a successful Calgary-based urban design firm focused exclusively on the design and implementation of walkable, mixed-use urbanism that exemplify Smart Growth, New Urbanism, LEEDND, and the many other contemporary movements towards human scaled urbanism. To date he has completed over 100 projects in 19 U.S. States and 4 Canadian Provinces as a professional, principal urban designer. Of these projects, he has served the role as Project Principal and Lead Designer for 60 projects, and 27 of these with the additional role of Project Manager. As a partner and principle in U.S based Placemakers llc, Geoff served as the design team lead, managing the design component and collaboratively co-authoring most of the firm’s over 40 form-based codes and SmartCodes, of which over 25 have been adopted to date.
Geoff holds a Master in Environmental Design (Urban Design) from the University of Calgary, a Bachelor of Science in Design (cum laude) from Arizona State University, and received a Knight Fellowship in Community Building from the University of Miami. He is an accredited member of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU-A: A Designation earning one LEEDND point), a member of the New Urban Guild, served as a jury member for the 2008 CNU Charter Award chaired by Andrés Duany, and has received several awards. Geoff is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.
Today he fills the unique position as Director of Design for the City of Lafayette, Louisiana Downtown Development Authority where he has turned his attention toward building an innovative national model for implementing and building an ambitious downtown redevelopment plan.