• Five steps to super blocks

    Designing a sophisticated city, one block at a time.
    Here's a step-by-step process to designing a piece of a city. Don't be put of by the design complexity and follow these steps, one after another: 1) Draw a truly large block—it doesn't have to be stiffly rectangular either; the best way to accomplish irregular blocks is to simply cover the space...Read more

  • Car-pedestrian interactions and the parking ribbon: Campus design, part 10

    Giant surface parking destroys the geometrical coherence and pedestrian connectivity of a campus. The solution lies in limiting the width of the parking without reducing the number of parking spaces.
    Author’s note: This is the last in a series of ten essays that present innovative techniques for designing and repairing a corporate or university campus. These tools combine New Urbanist principles with Alexandrian design methods. The controlled interaction of cars with the pedestrian realm is...Read more

  • How life is influenced by physical boundaries: Campus design, part 9

    The boundary of a physical space counts for a major part of our spatial experience. Several distinct typologies for spaces contribute to a campus environment that is actively used.
    Author’s note: This is the ninth in a series of ten essays that present innovative techniques for designing and repairing a corporate or university campus. These tools combine New Urbanist principles with Alexandrian design methods. Some of us know how to generate coherent spaces. The method...Read more

  • Space is experienced positively only when it is coherent: Campus design, part 8

    Open space will be used when we feel that it encloses us with a semi-permeable, welcoming perimeter. The design of successful urban space therefore relies predominantly on human psychological responses.
    Author’s note: This is the eighth in a series of ten essays that present innovative techniques for designing and repairing a corporate or university campus. These tools combine New Urbanist principles with Alexandrian design methods. Architectural academia perversely condemned coherent urban spaces...Read more