• Four steps to affordable housing

    Urbanists must use the fundamentals of construction to build affordably in an age of soaring housing costs and interest rates and avoid “cheap-washing.”
    Four steps lead to building affordable housing outside of pure subsidy, Fernando Pages Ruiz argues. These are: Design for affordability Collaborate towards affordability Build affordably Use new land strategies that are becoming more available to cut land costs Fernando, who presented to CNU’s On...Read more

  • Activation and intervention: two sides of the Tactical Urbanism coin

    Setting the stage for, and learning from Tactical Urbanism.
    A few months ago, I finished reading Lydon and Garcia’s Tactical Urbanism . Living in Washington DC, I was enthralled to see how my city had pursued tactical urbanism and observe the community-led initiatives that blossom from it. The book defines Tactical Urbanism as “an approach to neighborhood...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

  • Infill micro-housing for the homeless

    Prototypes of small, private, dignified housing with access to transportation and services address a growing homeless problem in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
    Hamilton County, including Chattanooga, has a population of about 380,000, of which about 1,000 are counted as homeless. That number has been rising since the pandemic, and many are estimated to simply need more affordable housing to make their way out of homelessness. The rest need a combination...Read more