• School bridges both sides of the tracks

    Brookline High School Expansion knits the urban fabric with public school buildings that enhance the public realm in Brookline, Massachusetts. William Rawn Associates won a 2024 CNU Charter Award in the Block, Street, and Building category.
    Brookline High School is unusual—not a single building but a campus spread across several sites grouped around a historic park. Cypress Field is one of the first US municipal parks established as a playground, part of a park system planned by Brookline-based Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. The high...Read more

  • The Lean side of Seaside

    The well-known Panhandle beach town offers an early case study in frugal environmental design.
    Note: This article was written as part of the Project for Lean Urbanism and edited for Public Square. Seaside, the resort town in the Florida Panhandle, is best known for being compact, walkable and diverse in uses—and one of the first environmentally designed new towns. It should also be...Read more

  • How life is influenced by physical boundaries: Campus design, part 9

    The boundary of a physical space counts for a major part of our spatial experience. Several distinct typologies for spaces contribute to a campus environment that is actively used.
    Author’s note: This is the ninth in a series of ten essays that present innovative techniques for designing and repairing a corporate or university campus. These tools combine New Urbanist principles with Alexandrian design methods. Some of us know how to generate coherent spaces. The method...Read more

  • Do Complete Street laws make pedestrians safer?

    The carnage continues. We need to go beyond policies and transform streets themselves, according to a new report.
    Since 2009, complete streets policies nationwide have risen nearly 10-fold, but pedestrian deaths have also increased. More than 46,149 Americans were struck and killed by motor vehicles while walking in the 10-year-period ending in 2014, according to Dangerous By Design , a report by Smart Growth...Read more