General Meeting #2 | Between Core and Suburb: Reinventing the Urban–Suburban Interface

As the housing affordability crisis intensifies and conventional growth patterns prove insufficient, the territory between the traditional city core and the so-called “first-ring” suburb emerges as a critical arena for reinvention. This lecture explores how mid-rise and high-rise residential development can transform these transitional districts into complete, walkable neighborhoods grounded in transit access, civic life, and environmental performance. Drawing from FXCollaborative’s work across the region and beyond, Dan Kaplan FAIA argues that the task is not simply to add housing units, but to reshape this urban–suburban interface into a vibrant, sustainable, and socially connected place to live. The future of regional growth will not be outward — but upward — and its success will depend on the design of neighborhoods, not just individual buildings.

About the Speaker

 Dan Kaplan, FAIA, Senior Partner, FXCollaborative Architects LLP

As a senior partner, Dan serves in a design and leadership capacity for many of our complex, award-winning urban buildings. Adept at creating large-scale, high-performance buildings and urban designs, Dan approaches each project—from individual buildings to large-scale urban plans—with the viewpoint that it must contribute to a larger totality.

Dan was raised in Long Island by an interior designer mother who had studied under the seminal industrial designer Raymond Loewy and kept an active home studio, exposing him to design titles like Architectural Digest and Contract at a young age. After receiving his degree from Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning, Dan lived and worked abroad in Switzerland, studying the designs of his modernist heroes.

Dan plays an instrumental role in a variety of projects spanning the office, residential, mixed-use, and healthcare sectors. He has been recognized both nationally and internationally for his design excellence over the years by numerous organizations and publications, including the American Institute of Architects, Architectural Review, and the Boston Society of Architects.