Civic

Landmark buildings can more than pay for themselves through weddings and other functions.

Landmark buildings can more than pay for themselves through weddings and other functions.

New urbanists and health advocates call for overturning state standards that result in overly large school sites.��

Decisions on where schools are built and how much land they occupy are gradually beginning to reflect New Urbanism’s belief in the importance of physically fitting the schools into their communities.

At HomeTown, a 300-acre new urban development being built by Arcadia Realty in North Richland Hills, Texas, the Walker Creek Elementary School has been designed so that it forms a street wall and helps define an important corner in what will be a mixed-use town center. In keeping with the design standards of HomeTown and a charrette led by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, the school’s classrooms occupy two-story structures that border the sidewalks and are close to the streets.

On a Saturday afternoon in late December former Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for President of the United States before a crowd of 5,000 people gathered on the one-acre green at Southern Village, a new urbanist neighborhood in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In doing so, Edwards bypassed arenas, large auditoriums, and historic public spaces  in the region. The event illustrates, says Southern Village developer D.R. Bryan, how the creators of new urbanist public greens and squares can never imagine all the uses they will serve.

To meet a pressing need for inexpensive classroom space, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system in North Carolina is going to experiment with a schoolhouse prototype based on Katrina Cottages. A group at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, led by Tom Low, director of the firm’s Charlotte office, is designing a prototype 25-by-80-foot “Learning Cottage” that would contain two classrooms.

How to handle rainwater in ways that accentuate placemaking

In times past, engineers often integrated elements of civic art, architecture, and history into a city’s parkways, bridges, and other public necessities. In doing so, they enhanced the character of the urban environment. Today, when engineering often deals with the environment, there is an opportunity once again to serve civic purposes — by handling rainwater well.

Proposals in Miami and Memphis suggest hospitals and health institutions could be focal points for walkable, mixed-use districts.

Joanna Lombard, a professor of architecture at the University of Miami, has worked with students and others on how to apply New Urbanism’s principles to medical districts in Miami and Memphis, and now she is providing ideas for the Bon Secours Richmond Health System, which operates four hospitals in metropolitan Richmond, Virginia.