• The case for the return of the 3-5 story city

    Medium-height, medium-scale buildings, slightly larger than typical Missing Middle housing, are the backbone of great neighborhoods. We need to emphasize this scale more.
    Urban conversations in North America often seem trapped between competing visions. Contemporary discourse often swings between detached suburban development, low-scale missing middle housing, and high-rise intensification. An alternative lies in a form of urbanism that has shaped some of the world...Read more

  • How art shaped decades of New Urbanism

    The movement has been heavily influenced by art, as Volume 2 of The Art of the New Urbanism makes clear.
    The Art of the New Urbanism Volume 2 (2010-2025) is now available and is even more impressive than Volume 1 , which was published in 2025. There are well over 600 individual images, compared with about 350 in the first volume. Some are groups of images brought in after a single image in the series...Read more

  • Reclaiming a Main Street as a walkable center for growth

    A CNU Legacy Project shows how a historic Main Street can be reclaimed for pedestrian activity and a center for new growth that preserves the countryside in a fast-growing region, Northwest Arkansas.
    Cave Springs, Arkansas, is a City by jurisdiction but a village in physical terms, surrounded by suburbanizing countryside. It is close to the airport in Northwest Arkansas, one of the fastest-growing regions in the US, which is why Cave Springs is experiencing tremendous pressure for growth. The...Read more

  • Turning a bridge into a civic amenity

    Hybrid Bridge turns utilitarian infrastructure into a compelling, multifunctional civic space. The Addis Ababa River City Research Project of Tulane’s architectural school won a Student Merit Award from the 2026 Charter Award jury.
    Hybrid Bridge proposes a multilevel, mixed-use bridge across the Upper Kebena River in the Kazanchis neighborhood of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The seven-acre academic project includes a public market, residential uses, and connections to the riverfront from the surrounding neighborhoods...Read more