An in-depth way of organizing how we build
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.
Now Stephen Mouzon has taken the organizational imperative further still. His Charter Award-winning new book, A Living Tradition [Architecture of the Bahamas], offers advice and insight on how to build appropriately in virtually any locale that’s suitable for development.
Most of the 298-page book tells how to build intelligently in the Bahamas, but the theories and principles he presents in its first 26 pages are aimed at helping new urbanists make good decisions no matter where they practice.
