Architecture

Infinite Suburbia is the culmination of the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism's yearlong study of the future of suburban development. Extensive research, an exhibition, and a conference at MIT's Media Lab, this groundbreaking...

A revelation of the spatial atrocities committed by specialists in development of African cities.For more than fifty centuries, cities were planned and developed by generalists. The town planners were Jacks of all trades yet masters of by product. In the...

Why do we decide that parts of our built environment are worth the special attention that heritage designation brings? How can the character of conservation areas and other historic places continue to evolve to provide new housing, release their economic...

A sweeping history of American cities and towns, and the utopian aspirations that shaped them, by one of America's leading urban planners and scholars. The first European settlers saw America as a paradise regained. The continent seemed to offer a...

Historically, many architects, planners, and urban designers solicit idealistic depictions of a controllable urban environment made from highly regulated geometrical organizations and systematically defined processes. Rather than working as urban...

Sustainable development has become a hot topic worldwide in recent decades. Following the Copenhagen Summit, politicians and the general public were once again faced with the reality of inevitable climate change. Is there anything we can do to stop...

This smart, provocative look at how the American Dream of single-family homes, white picket fences, and two-car garages became a lonely, overpriced nightmare explores how new trends in housing can help us live better. Over the past century, American...

Rising on the National Mall next to the Washington Monument, the National Museum of African American History and Culture is a tiered bronze beacon inviting everyone to learn about the richness and diversity of the African American experience and how it...

In Access to Eden, John Astley explores the influences that shaped the original public sector housing ideals in Britain. The essay surveys the cultural and legislative strands in story that is at once complex and beguiling, but which ultimateley reveals...

A young college grad buys a house in Detroit for $500 and attempts to restore it--and his new neighborhood--to its original glory in this "deeply felt, sharply observed personal quest to create meaning and community out of the fallen...A standout"...