• The Charter Awards at 20: Looking back, moving forward

    The year’s awards will celebrate design that takes New Urbanism to the next level and inspires a new generation of urbanists.
    Urban planner Geoff Dyer, CNU-A, is chairing CNU’s twentieth Charter Awards jury in 2020. CNU has officially opened up the period of submissions for awards in this special year. This year, the jurors are especially looking for projects that emphasize the importance of design to New Urbanism, and...Read more

  • Creating Temenos: An experiment in suburban retrofit

    An elegant plan to transform a struggling shopping mall into a mixed-use town center uses the same principles of sacred geometry that were employed by Pierre L'Enfant in the urban design of Washington, DC.
    “The catalog of forms is endless; until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born.” ~ Italo Calvino In an article early last year, I reported on the process by which Pierre L’Enfant designed the city of Washington, using various principles of what is known as “sacred...Read more

  • Why choose a grid?

    The decision of a city in Texas to plan for new growth using a grid of streets has inspired readers and makes a lot of sense.
    The recent article on Bastrop, Texas, struck a chord with a lot of readers. The city of about 9,000 people southeast of Austin has adopted a street grid for growth—one of the few cities that have taken that step since 1950. Bastrop is applying the grid in unique and flexible ways. The goal is to...Read more

  • Why buildings need ‘eyes’

    To understand architecture and design buildings successfully, we need to acknowledge core human tendencies that secured our survival.
    As a social species, we are built to see eyes, so we look for them all the time—everywhere—without conscious awareness or control. When we find them, they grab our attention, anchoring us in space, securing us to a place. So, it’s no surprise that tour buses driving through historic Cambridge,...Read more