202 Sessions are advanced learning courses led by thought leaders and innovative practitioners. These sessions include high-level instruction that goes beyond that of a typical breakout session. 202 Sessions are longer—typically lasting three to four hours—and more in-depth; they're geared toward professionals who already know the basics. The courses are much more personal than breakout sessions, and are hands-on and interactive. 

202 Sessions require an additional fee. You can add a 202 Session during the registration process.

Detroit is the king of lean urbanism ideas and methods, both intentionally and unintentionally. Lean Codes seriously up equity and social justice in a sort of do-it-yourself urban way.

This day-long workshop would take Lean Codes that have been written in 2015-2016 as inspiration, and write one to apply to a neighborhood that is walkable from the venue. Advance preparation for the workshop would include a webinar series before CNU 24 begins, to explore concepts, have discussions, and lay the foundation for a day of coding.

Hazel Borys, Managing Principal, PlaceMakers
Susan Henderson, AIA, LEED AP, CNU-A, Principal, PlaceMakers LLC
Matthew Lambert, Partner, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company
Marina Khoury, Partner, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company
Jennifer Hurley, President & CEO, Hurley-Franks & Associates

This session will demonstrate how principles of modern retail development can be combined with the best practices of traditional urban planning and landscape architecture to create successful and sustainable mixed-use urban commercial centers and historic town centers. In addition, this program will discuss integrating large format retailers in the city and new town centers.

Participants will learn the nuts and bolts of how to program, plan, and develop both historic downtowns and new urban town centers, including market research, site selection, land use, office, residential, parking, building, site planning, streetscape, zoning, tenant mix, and store design. The participant will gain an insider's look at how leading shopping center developers, retailers, department stores, and architects program, plan, design, and manage some of the highest-performing commercial centers in the business.

This session is ideal for architects, developers, planners, retailers, and public officials.

Robert Gibbs, President, Gibbs Planning Group
Terry Shook, FAIA, Founding Partner and Principal, Shook Kelley, Inc.

To truly engage your community, communication plans need to be less billboard and more pop-up shop. Learn how to establish quick and nimble tactics for your team to help the public solve a problem and organically build a voice for change in your town. If you feel your department lacks community advocates for your plan, this session is for you!

In Innovative Public Engagement, a 202-level session, participants will learn how to select and use new public outreach methods to engage community members. Ordinary citizens are tired of conventional communications plans—public notices in the local newspaper just don’t cut it—and most don’t have the time or desire to wait through a long city process. This session will teach attendees why it’s important for community members to ‘see it to believe’ in what you are trying to accomplish and how to show it to them in the most effective way.

Matthew Lewis, Assistant Director of Planning & Development Review- Urban Design Long Range Planning, City of Austin
Samantha Armbruster, Main Street Program Manager, City of San Marcos

Architecture, sensitively designed, can reinforce the special character of the places where it is built. In this exciting hands-on class you’ll get to roll up your sleeves, grab drawing supplies and then learn step-by-step how to produce new contextual architecture.

First, we’ll focus on methods for identifying the physical DNA of a place’s existing architectural vocabulary, from overall building massing to the articulation of building elements and details.

Then, we’ll utilize this information to methodically inform the creative design of new architecture that is sensitive to its context.

James Dougherty, Director of Design, Dover, Kohl & Partners Planning

The concept of house-scale medium-to-high density housing types known as Missing Middle Housing has caught fire since the last session at CNU in Dallas. It was most recently highlighted in NextCity’s online article titled, "Will U.S. Cities Design Their Way Out of the Affordable Housing Crisis? “Missing middle” architecture could ease rents — and allow more Americans to build real estate wealth.” This session will bring a panel with diverse areas of expertise in housing design and development to present and discuss the following:

1. Examples of innovative small-scale residential infill housing from across the country;
2. The role of modular housing in the future of Missing Middle types;
3. How sustainability and green building design can inform the MMH conversation;
4. What zoning changes need to be made to enable these types to respond to the demand;
5. Comparing approaches in infill contexts versus new communities; and,
6. How conventional development classifications of multi-family or single family housing may need to adapt to address these types.

In addition, the panel will provide some basic insights into how to select sites, challenges and recommendations on financing, and how to market these types. The session will be a combination of presentations, panel discussions, and breakout table “speed dating” on the topics above.

Do you have a great idea to make your community stronger and more sustainable? Whether you’re dreaming of building new urban farms in food deserts, making streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians of all ages, or activating vacant spaces, crowdfunding could be a great way to fund your idea with fast cash. Last year, crowdfunding platforms raised more than $34 billion globally in investment for new projects, causes, ideas, and inventions.

Join ioby co-founder Erin Barnes for a crash course on crowd-resourcing—a unique blend of crowdfunding and resource organizing that allows residents to tap the financial, human and social capital they need to bring their projects to life from within the community itself. Erin and co-founders built their platform specifically to support community-led, neighbor-funded projects that make neighborhoods stronger and more sustainable.

If you have a burning idea — whether it’s a half-baked daydream or backed by a trove of research, renderings, and master plans — this session will teach you how to successfully fund it. This course will be tailored to the participants’ needs based on survey results, and will make sure that everyone leaves with a full understanding of crowdfunding, online communications planning, and campaign planning.

Erin Barnes, Executive Director/Co-Founder, ioby