• By Laurence Qamar

    A context-based, form-language for mixed-use, main street buildings

    How to design buildings with human scale and proportion (and Modernism’s ongoing inability to get it right).
    A housing crisis and subsequent apartment building boom has overtaken many America cities in the post Great Recession twenty-teens. Similar transformations have not been experienced in American Cities since the decades following the two World Wars. With rising homeless rates, and spiking real...Read more

  • Connecting to a hidden natural asset

    A CNU Legacy Project explores the potential of an underutilized creek corridor that runs through more than dozen neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky.
    The South Fork of Beargrass Creek meanders through 13 or 14 diverse neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky, yet few nearby residents take much notice of the waterway. The creek has long been channelized, hidden, and used as part of the city’s stormwater system. During storm events, overflows often...Read more

  • People and placemaking potential of small downtowns

    In the era of "winner take all urbanism," why are many small towns coming back to life—and why might they be good places to invest?
    The New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an article last week about the civic minded attitude in rural America, and it got me thinking about small-town urbanism, Opportunity Zones , and the placemaking potential outside of metro areas. Brooks writes : Everybody says rural America is...Read more

  • Main street as a microcosm of the world

    With a stronger identity and coordinated planning for Woodlawn Avenue, Beechmont may be the next hot neighborhood in Louisville.
    CNU partnered with a strong nonprofit, the Center for Neighborhoods (CFN), on a highly productive Legacy Project to restore and reimagine the future of Woodlawn Avenue, the commercial heart of the Beechmont neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky. “In three days, we got to the point of fully focusing...Read more