• The Charter Awards at 20: Looking back, moving forward

    The year’s awards will celebrate design that takes New Urbanism to the next level and inspires a new generation of urbanists.
    Urban planner Geoff Dyer, CNU-A, is chairing CNU’s twentieth Charter Awards jury in 2020. CNU has officially opened up the period of submissions for awards in this special year. This year, the jurors are especially looking for projects that emphasize the importance of design to New Urbanism, and...Read more

  • Why buildings need ‘eyes’

    To understand architecture and design buildings successfully, we need to acknowledge core human tendencies that secured our survival.
    As a social species, we are built to see eyes, so we look for them all the time—everywhere—without conscious awareness or control. When we find them, they grab our attention, anchoring us in space, securing us to a place. So, it’s no surprise that tour buses driving through historic Cambridge,...Read more

  • Learning from Manhattan’s urban imperfections

    New York is a great city that breaks many rules of urban planning. Here's what its imperfections can teach us about city building.
    “New York is the perfect model of a city, not the model of a perfect city,” Lewis Mumford, 1979.​ The above quote is featured on a wall in the Museum of the City of New York, which I visited on a recent trip to our most unequivocally urban city. Later, as I walked down 5 th Avenue, Mumford’s keen...Read more

  • Testing new ideas with cottage courts

    This missing middle housing type is a highly adaptable tool for developers and builders in many locations.
    Cottage courts, a popular form of “missing middle” housing that is often used in new urban developments, were recently profiled by Forbes magazine. “Today many people are feeling lost and disconnected. They don’t need a great deal of space, but they would like to feel more connected to their...Read more