• Experience is the new buzzword for walkable town centers

    As the retail market becomes less certain, mixed-use developers look to other ways to boost foot traffic and create a destination.
    Online retail sales are having a mixed impact on urbanism. Downtowns are thriving, but many walkable mixed-use centers in the suburbs are struggling, says retail expert and urbanist Bob Gibbs of Gibbs Planning . Some mixed-use developments are focusing on “experience” to create foot traffic and...Read more

  • Better alternatives to Mr. Potato Head architecture

    Background buildings don't need to be ugly or use pointless variety in the “break-up-the-box” style.
    I recently criticized the architecture of multifamily buildings that too often prevails in US cities this decade. Materials and façade elements are often varied and juxtaposed in a way that is incoherent, and the buildings convey little order or sense of place. They look similar in Dallas, Denver,...Read more

  • Terminated view, the old and the new

    State Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, designed as part of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th Century, was refurbished a few years back through a program called City Beautiful 2.0. The building at the end of the street is the Pennsylvania State Capitol. "I used to admire this street...Read more

  • Dragon boundary markers

    Iconic dragons, symbols of London, cannot slay the onslaught of hubristic architects and developers.
    Historically, property boundaries were generally demarcated by a physical object, either by a boundary marker or a fence to visually communicate the edges of land ownership. These were human impositions that represented a cultural, political, and social meaning upon a natural environment or within...Read more