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Variety within structure
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New Urban News Article with images, 1/1/2007
The secret of the Place Des Vosges and other beautiful places.
The most-loved places around the world vary enormously. At first glance, there seems to be no common thread, because it is the uniqueness of each of these places that makes them notable. Further observation, however, yields at least one common thread: each of them exhibits great variety within a very narrow range. And it is precisely the narrow range that gives them their identity. Look at photos 1 through 3 on pages 12 and 13. Is there any doubt as to what part of the world in which each is built? Many can probably name the town and maybe even the neighborhood.

Making casinos open to the city
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New Urban News Article with images, 12/1/2007
The prevailing concept of a casino — a windowless place closed off from its surroundings — is under assault in Mississippi. The Mississippi Renewal Forum urged that casinos on the Gulf Coast be rebuilt to a new standard as part of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Instead of being designed to keep visitors indoors from the time they arrive until they head home with empty pockets, casinos would be integrated into their cities or towns.

In central Vancouver, modernism and New Urbanism mesh
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New Urban News Article with images and sidebar, 12/1/2003
Modernists have the upper hand in shaping the architecture of the city’s center, and the results fit into generally effective streetscapes.
Probably the most stunning new skyline in North America is that of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. In the past decade, a succession of “point towers” — high-rises with thin profiles, filled mostly with rental and for-sale apartments — has shot up within walking distance of the Canadian city’s center.

A house that makes a point
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New Urban News Article with images and sidebar, 1/1/2009
In the nation’s capital, Jeff Speck’s new home reconciles Modern architecture and L’Enfant’s street pattern.
The most urbanistically interesting new house in Washington, DC, belongs to Jeff Speck, design director of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2007 and, before that, director of town planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co.

An in-depth way of organizing how we build
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New Urban News Article with images, 4/1/2008
Stephen Mouzon’s latest book shows where designs of every sort, from “vernacular” to “classical,” fit on the Transect.
In the 1980s, Seaside, Florida, introduced architectural codes capable of organizing buildings into pleasingly unified yet varied streetscapes. In the last several years, New Urbanism’s organizational impulse has moved up the ladder, to the “Transect,” which shows how to arrange development across entire regions — from rural preserves to dense urban cores.

Houses, no matter how small, could fit the coast
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New Urban News Article with images, 1/12/2005
Designs from less than 300 square feet on up aim to reinforce South Mississippi’s character.
The Gulf Coast of Mississippi needs to gird itself against a flood of mass-produced houses that have little in common with the homes built in the region over the past two centuries. So said many of the participants in the Mississippi Renewal Forum as they went about creating dozens of designs that would strengthen the established — and now endangered — character of the coastal communities.

Architectural styles and building types
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Chapter 16 of the New Urbanism Best Practices Guide

What kind of architecture to use, and where to use it, have been intensely debated among new urbanists. This chapter looks at questions of architectural style, arguing that either a traditional or a modernist mode of design can, when properly handled, produce a satisfying community environment. A key factor is the need for buildings that interest pedestrians, who move slowly enough to notice architectural details.

The benefits of a town architect
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New Urban News Article with images, 6/1/2006

As a planned community founded in the early 1880s, Winter Park, Florida, has been studied as a prototype for Florida’s New Urbanism, especially with regard to its town center, Park Avenue. It also has a rich residential architectural tradition. In recent years, the city of 26,000 residents near Orlando has used principles of New Urbanism to enhance the qualities that already make it a good place to live.