A Year of Building Optimism: 365 Days of Beautiful Modern Buildings
The North American development pattern has a reputation for producing bland, interchangeable buildings and disposable places. As James Kunstler famously observed, the landscapes of postwar America often amount to a “Geography of Nowhere”: places without a sense of cohesion, local character, or reason for us to continue to value them over the long term. It’s easy to look at these unimaginative places and point out the ugly and the banal. But last year, Strong Towns member, urban developer, and writer Coby Leftkowitz decided to challenge himself by collecting a photo every day of the year depicting some of the best newer buildings in North America.
It's nearly impossible to imbue new places with the unexplainable magic that older organic ones have. Catfiddle Alley, breathtakingly, does this.
— Coby (@Cobylefko) January 12, 2022
24 homes on 1 acre, magically integrated into Charleston
Designed by many masterful firms & developed by @urbanergonomics pic.twitter.com/meEh0Mxh2u
“If we just say the modern world is awful, we become pessimists. And it's pretty sad,” said Leftkowitz. “But if we have something positive to look forward to, not only will that make us feel better about the world around us, but will make us feel more hopeful for the future.”
What started out as an interest in finding and sharing images of delightful buildings became a full-fledged project focused on encouraging human-scale places, titled A Year of Building Optimism. The mission of this project was “to find the best new buildings in the U.S. and Canada and to post one to Twitter every day from December 2021 to December 2022.” These 365 buildings were pulled only from the last 20 years, with most of them built between 2010 and 2022.
Built in 2017. We can still create places of extraordinary beauty in the US!
— Coby (@Cobylefko) October 29, 2022
Benjamin Franklin College & Pauli Murray College, Yale University. pic.twitter.com/p35JdkAcyJ
“You need to give people a reason to believe that something can realistically happen in their own backyard,” said LeftKowitz on why he only looked at recently built buildings. “The goal of this project was, and remains, focused on forming an optimistic belief that we can still create great new places in America.”
Coolest house in America? pic.twitter.com/QN9tovzEDZ
— Coby (@Cobylefko) April 9, 2022
When asked about what criteria Leftkowitz held for each building to make it into his collection of photos (beyond time frame and location), he said he never laid out a specific standard at the beginning of this project. But it became clear, throughout the year, that the images had recurring themes: “They're usually at a human scale. They're usually using natural materials or non-imposing materials that can look fairly elegant. They have some level of symmetry, or if they don't have symmetry, they have a disorder that's really compelling.”
“It's possible to create great places anywhere in the world,” said Leftkowitz. “If you focus on building a walkable, human-scaled environment, the buildings shape that environment.”
Seairra Jones serves as the Staff Writer/Story Producer for Strong Towns. In the past, she's worked as a freelance journalist and videographer for a number of different organizations. She currently resides between small-town Illinois and the rural Midwest with her husband, where they help manage a family homestead. When Seairra isn’t focusing on how to make our towns stronger, you can find her outside working on the farm, writing fictional tales in a coffee shop, or reading in a hammock.