• A requiem for the River Arts District

    The flagship for authentic incrementalism in Asheville, North Carolina, is gone, flooded by Helene.
    If you identified as an artist and sought to surround yourself with like kind, there was only one place in North Carolina to go: The River Arts District . I was in the mountains on September 27th, 2024, immediately after Hurricane Helene hit. Few areas were hit harder than River Arts. Much of the...Read more

  • Design for reduced carbon emissions and climate resilience

    Graduate student housing in Ithaca, New York, employs climate-friendly urbanism while meeting aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals.
    The Maplewood housing development in Ithaca, New York, was an exercise in new urbanist design that also meets aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals . The project’s energy strategy aligns with Tompkins County’s “ Energy Roadmap ” to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next 40 years...Read more

  • Sustainable urbanism at a glance

    Like a periodic table of urbanism, the Sustainable Urban Design Framework provides a comprehensive view of the relationships between policies and urban forms at all scales. The framework is the basis for a new Sustainable Urban Design Handbook.
    Nico Larco, professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Oregon and director of the Urbanism Next Center, presented the Sustainable Urban Design Handbook on On the Park Bench this week . Ten years in the making, the Handbook published by Routledge this year is organized around...Read more

  • Suburban retrofit with a focus on green

    Pike and Rose is a new transit-oriented downtown in Montgomery County, Maryland, with a botanical public realm.
    As the Washington Metropolitan region rapidly grows, most of the population increase is outside the core city. The more sustainable regional growth often turns underutilized parking and shopping areas into high-density, mixed-use living. Pike and Rose in Rockville, Maryland, is a leading example of...Read more