• Do you know the way, San Jose?

    A sprawling land that’s crossed by freeways—put a few thousand down and rent a room. Be a part of the next technology boom.
    In the late 1960s, when Burt Bacharach wrote the most famous song about San Jose, the small city was a sleepy source of nostalgia for someone living in fast-paced LA. Now San Jose is the nation’s tenth largest city and home, in its northern part, to more Fortune 500 companies than any other place...Read more

  • Weaving a ‘weft’ for Anchorage

    A horizontal weave brings disparate threads together and creates a fabric—a metaphor for resilience.
    Anchorage, Alaska, describes itself “at the center of the periphery,” an apt expression for a city that is so distant from most of the US it is closer to Beijing than Washington DC. Yet with 300,000 residents, the city is the center of economic activity in Alaska and America’s gateway to the arctic...Read more

  • Missing middle close up: Bungalow courts

    A bungalow court consists of a series of small, detached structures, providing multiple units arranged to define a shared court—an important community-enhancing space.
    We’ve closely documented lots of examples of the Missing Middle housing and explored the world of carriage houses . This time, we’re looking at a charming, clustered type of Missing Middle Housing: the bungalow court. Like a lot of other Missing Middle Housing types, bungalow courts are present in...Read more

  • Planning a neighborhood square

    With a mix of local stores below apartments that provide “eyes on the square,” shade trees, and places to sit, a European-style neighborhood square is a place where everyone belongs.
    Unlike a city’s main square that, from time to time, brings together representatives from all over the city for major festivals, concerts, and special events, a neighborhood square has certain unique social functions: it is frequented every day of the year by those who live in the neighborhood; it...Read more