• Playa Vista: High density, happy residents

    A quarter century after the iconic Los Angeles development was launched, a community survey shows high levels of resident satisfaction.
    Playa Vista in Los Angeles was one of the most ambitious and artistically stunning early New Urbanist plans, designed in a 1989 charrette by two of the movement's founding firms. A major developer, Maguire Thomas Partners, called DPZ CoDesign, led by a young Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk...Read more

  • A vision of housing, public space for Baltimore

    Madison Crescent shows how infill development can offer housing solutions in historic cities. A University of Maryland, College Park design team won a Student Merit Award in the Neighborhood, District, and Corridor category of the 2026 CNU Charter Awards.
    Madison Crescent proposes a new use for a six-acre infill parcel in Baltimore that currently includes a former elementary school and community building slated for demolition. It shows how infill development in historic cities can create high-quality public space and unite diverse neighborhoods...Read more

  • Adaptive reuse of extraordinary impact

    The 1907 Block in Rogers, Arkansas, catalyzed the redevelopment of downtown and established the city as a culinary hub. High Street Real Estate & Development won a 2026 CNU Charter Award in The Block, Street, and Building category.
    The 1907 Block is embedded in a vibrant downtown, the revitalization of which it helped to launch. The developers saved a historically important but dilapidated building in Rogers, Arkansas, and constructed two new, context-appropriate residential buildings. With three James Beard Foundation...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