• Beauty is essential for sustainable cities

    Modern science explains the role of beauty in creating places that can save the planet. Fortunately, beautiful places are within our power to design and build.
    The motto of the CNU is Building Places People Love. To this end, New Urbanists have employed a variety of tools, but the one that’s rarely heard is the role beauty plays the built environment. Why is one of the most commonly used words in the English language not mentioned in the Charter for the...Read more

  • Linear park alleviates social and environmental ills

    Bulevar de Oriente converts a former sewage way into an exceedingly elegant linear park and a model for global green corridors. Alcuadrado Arquitectos SAS + Secretaria de Vivienda social y hábitat won the 2024 CNU Grand Prize Charter Award.
    Cali, Colombia's third most populous city, includes hundreds of thousands of households living in precarious circumstances. Many lack public services, mobility infrastructure, and adequate parks and open space. To address these problems, programs aim to improve public space in marginalized...Read more

  • Extraordinary vision for urban church site

    Revitalization of St. Patrick's and St. Hedwig's Parishes envisions a European-like village between churches in South Bend. The University of Notre Dame won a 2024 CNU Student Grand Prize Charter Award in the Neighborhood, District, and Corridor category.
    What to do with church properties, many facing dwindling congregations, is an issue across urban America. A team of University of Notre Dame graduate architecture students produced a vision for neighboring Catholic churches in South Bend, Indiana, that is extraordinary and powerful in its...Read more

  • 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