• The emperor's new buildings

    A book review of Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism by James Stevens Curl.
    For most reform-minded urbanists today, the complicity of architectural Modernism in the urban fiascoes of the last century is not in dispute. A representative (and seminal) criticism was Jane Jacobs' withering 1961 attack, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, in which she described Le...Read more

  • Better alternatives to Mr. Potato Head architecture

    Background buildings don't need to be ugly or use pointless variety in the “break-up-the-box” style.
    I recently criticized the architecture of multifamily buildings that too often prevails in US cities this decade. Materials and façade elements are often varied and juxtaposed in a way that is incoherent, and the buildings convey little order or sense of place. They look similar in Dallas, Denver,...Read more

  • Dragon boundary markers

    Iconic dragons, symbols of London, cannot slay the onslaught of hubristic architects and developers.
    Historically, property boundaries were generally demarcated by a physical object, either by a boundary marker or a fence to visually communicate the edges of land ownership. These were human impositions that represented a cultural, political, and social meaning upon a natural environment or within...Read more

  • Pattern retrofit for resilience planning

    This is part 3 of a series on retrofitting urban patterns to create more resilient places where decentralized capital can flourish. A key step in that direction would be a specific kind of community planning exercise.
    Note: See Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.​ Have you noticed how most city plans sit on the shelf? After several years working in planning, I have become disillusioned with all the useless plans—land use plans, comprehensive plans, sustainability plans—all of them doing very little to address...Read more