The Bottom-Up Revolution is... Architects and Planners in Pursuit of a Stronger Town

Strong Towns member Michael Smith and colleague Aaron Holverson are working to make Rockford, IL a more economically resilient place.

Boring Buildings, Great Places

Good urbanism can save bad architecture any day—if your goal is to create a place worth being and maintaining and belonging to.

Herriges, Urban Design, Walkability, ArchitectureDaniel HerrigesJanuary 20, 2021architecture, walkability, Tokyo, urbanism, Japan

The Wisdom in Fences

Good fences—good edges of all kinds—make for good neighbors. They can also boost the economic vitality of our downtowns.

Architecture, Urban Design, Top StoryJeff SzyperskiOctober 29, 2020cognitive architecture, architecture, urban design

In Praise of Background Buildings

Our cities need buildings that are “boring.” Here’s why.

Architecture, Top StoryGracen JohnsonSeptember 24, 2020architecture, Leon Krier, incremental development

From Our House to “Godshuis”

The godshuizen of Bruges offer a strikingly beautiful example of homes designed for elderly to age in place.

Architecture, Top StoryThomas Dougherty & Dr. Randall SmithSeptember 22, 2020aging, aging in place, Europe, architecture

An Old Building Should Get A Birthday Present

The oldest buildings in your city have endured for a reason. They’re also the ones most likely to be around long into the future. Why not show them a little love?

Herriges, Architecture, Top StoryDaniel HerrigesAugust 24, 2020architecture, Joe Minicozzi, traditional development pattern

It's Time for Cities to Build "Lovable" Again

To save cities, build cities worth saving.

Architecture, Top StoryDJ SullivanAugust 4, 2020architecture, Ann Sussman, lovable, lovability

Американская Хрущевка (American Khrushchyovka)

What do Soviet-era construction and 21st-century American construction have in common? More than you might think.

Architecture, Top StoryJohnny SanphillippoJanuary 30, 2020architecture, montana, hotels, soviet union, centralization, capitalism

Stop saying that making our cities better, safer places to live isn’t “sexy”

Making places strong isn’t all about big, “sexy”, top-down projects. And the fact that we call these things “sexy” might be a part of the problem.

Greetings from Anywhere: Supporting Postcard-Worthy Places

Turns out, the things worth writing home about are the same things that make a place worth calling home. What would it take to develop postcard-worthy places again?

Urban3, Urban Design, Architecture, Top StoryJoe MinicozziNovember 20, 2019Joe Minicozzi, Urban3, Postcards, nostalgia, architecture

David Sim of "Soft City": Making the Places We Live More Human

People might think of city life as necessarily “hard.” But the creative director at a Copenhagen-based urban design firm begs to differ. There are a few simple principles that can “soften” our city, drawing us closer together and radically improving our quality of life.

The Spooky Wisdom of Cities

Ancient cities reveal the extent to which humans have co-evolved with their complex human habitats. As we were making our cities, they were making us. And yet we’ve discarded much of this hard-won wisdom of the past.

Refuge and Prospect: The Front Porch

The Poet Laureate of Mississippi reflects on her adopted South and on the Southern tradition of front porch-sitting: “No other architectural space is so deliciously not/and: not inside, not outside. Not public, not private. Not house, not garden.”

Architecture, Top StoryBeth Ann FennellyAugust 21, 2019front porches, architecture, mississippi

Celebrating the American Front Porch

Once ubiquitous, then endangered, the American front porch is making a comeback. From rocking chairs to rock music, a conference near Oxford, Mississippi celebrates the past, present, and future of the surprisingly powerful front porch.

To Build Sustainable Places, Look to the Past, Not Just the Future

“Sustainable” is a buzzword that often conjures images of technological wizardry aimed at solving environmental problems. But what if our ancestors knew a lot more about sustainability than we give them credit for?

Why We Should Build Cities for Our Unconscious Brains

Traditional architecture has evolved through millennia of trial and error to harmonize with our unconscious impulses, make us feel comfortable and encourage positive social behavior. Modernism too often throws those lessons out the window—and one architect thinks the trauma of World War I had something to do with why.

Savor Your Small Parcels, and Create More of Them

It matters what size chunks we build our cities in. Making room for many small-scale development projects on small lots is the universal historical model for a reason, and modern cities could stand to get back to it.

The Problem with Helicopter Urbanism

It is important when we design a building or a neighborhood to look at how it feels and interacts with the street. Too often, new development feels designed from a helicopter’s-eye-view.

Andrew Price, Urban Design, Top StoryAndrew PriceFebruary 12, 2019urban design, architecture