Of course it does. Everything we make is the result of design. Design knows no scale. To paraphrase Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, the most famous design school of the 20th century, design should cover everything from the teacup to the city.At the scale of the city and its infrastructure, design can be overwhelmingly complex, taking enormous time and effort.

This year, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) decided that a ribbon-cutting alone would not suffice. The agency announced the opening of the first phase of its long-awaited Silver Line—a heavy rail extension through the suburbs and edge cities of northern Virginia—with a singular video. In it, suburbanites are roused from their homes by an irresistible groove.

There are the investors, who want to see as many units squeezed into a property as possible. There are the towns, which demand projects abide by intricate sets of local zoning regulations. And there are the residents, who sometimes cast a skeptical eye toward what an application will mean to their schools and traffic. Guiding a transit-oriented development (TOD) through to fruition can be an exercise in navigating competing interests. For architects, finding ways to artfully compromise can mean compromising art.