• Your city legalized triplexes. The building code said no

    To build more affordable 'missing middle' housing, changing zoning laws is not enough. We need small multifamily buildings to be regulated under the residential code.
    The urbanist movement has won real fights on zoning, parking, and single-stair reform. But there’s a bottleneck that doesn’t get enough attention: the building code draws a hard line between two dwelling units and three. Once you cross that line, you leave the International Residential Code and...Read more

  • Why single-stair reform leads to more livable, adaptable infill

    Allowing more single-stair buildings in the US will positively affect quality of life, public health, infill flexibility, family-friendly units, costs, and even climate adaptation.
    The way we design and build multifamily housing in the US is an anomaly. The typical US multifamily building is a double-loaded corridor—a building with a corridor down the middle and units on either side. This means our multifamily housing is designed and built like a hotel or dormitory. In most...Read more

  • New Walmart headquarters embedded in urban fabric

    The mass-timber Home Office in Bentonville, Arkansas, is built into the street grid with a regional bike-ped trail through the middle.
    Visitors to Northwest Arkansas can't help but notice the pervasiveness of Walmart. The largest corporation in the world by revenue with 2.4 million employees, Walmart is everywhere in the US. But around Bentonville, it is different. Buildings all over—massive buildings—bear the Walmart logo. Stores...Read more

  • A new model for walkable community colleges

    An innovative plan in Northwest Arkansas would convert a commuter campus to a 24-hour college community.
    Enrollment is declining at higher education institutions nationwide—community colleges, which grew by 4 percent in 2025, are an exception. Many students are turning to community colleges to avoid high student debt and get training in in-demand fields. Community colleges also tend to be the most...Read more