Tag: community-planning | ArchDaily

The Inheritance Problem: Urban Planning and Community Engagement in U.S. Cities

Olivia Poston — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Urban planning is often confused with adjacent disciplines: urban design, environmental policy, civic strategy, local politics, and data analytics. Truthfully, the overlap makes the field difficult to define clearly. In practice, it is often easier to recognize bad planning than to articulate what good planning is. When planning works well, it disappears. It removes friction from daily life so completely that people rarely think to credit a planner at all. At its core, urban planning is the relationship people have with their environments, and when that relationship is functioning, the mechanics of housing, transportation, affordability, access, and inclusion should feel ordinary and expected.

City-Making Through Participation: Lessons from Utopian Hours 2026

Mohieldin Gamal — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Who has the right to the city? Henri Lefebvre's writings question the structures that control urban space and, instead, put the citizens at the center of decision-making. His ideas have influenced the way architecture and urban design are practiced, bringing about community participation and co-design. These have been some of the most prominent themes at Utopian Hours 2026, the festival of city-making, the first part of which was held in the Dutch city of Rotterdam to mark its tenth anniversary edition.

Cities Need Care, Not Perfection: Rethinking How We Build the Urban Future

Olivia Poston — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

What does optimism feel like in cities that can no longer rely on perfection as their ultimate ambition? Across the world, urban environments bear the weight of overlapping pressures: climate volatility, spatial inequality, political fragmentation, public distrust, and chronic infrastructural disinvestment. These realities render the idea of an ideal city increasingly detached from lived experience. Yet the hope for building better systems persists. While utopian visions may seem like an escape from the growing complexities of the modern world, the greater challenge for contemporary city-making is to confront those complexities rather than avoid them.

The Impact of Wildfires on Building Codes: Reflections on the Recent Los Angeles Fires

Jonathan Yeung — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 04:00:00 +0000

It has been nearly three weeks since one of California's most devastating wildfires began, triggering an immense effort to combat the blaze and mitigate further damage. As firefighters work to contain the remaining flames, the city braces for its first significant winter rainfall, raising concerns about flooding and landslides that may exacerbate the already extensive destruction.

The Beaten Path: Connecting Towns and Identity through Appalachian Trail Networks

Olivia Poston — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Every year, over a thousand people complete the 2,192-mile (3528-kilometer) Appalachian Trail between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. Millions more follow the trail for a shorter stretch by spending time at the countless overlooks, walking along the wooded ridges, or meandering through the small town centers, making this network one of the world's most visited and widely recognized trail corridors. However, the proposal for this expansive trail corridor, originally entered in a 1921 Journal of the American Institute of Architects article by Benton MacKaye, was far from a mere recreational outdoor amenity. This "project in regional planning" was a radical critique of the industrializing modernity that sharpened the divide between expanding cities of the Eastern coast and waning towns of the Appalachian mountains.

Designing Shared Rural Environments: Defining Public Spaces beyond Urban Metrics

Olivia Poston — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 06:30:00 +0000

Rural environments are often difficult to define in administrative and professional contexts and carry notable biases and complexities. Population and density thresholds are the most common determinants for drawing administrative boundaries, yet other factors, such as infrastructure, employment, and services, contribute to the characterization of rural environments. In the United States, the Census Bureau defines rurality, not by its characteristics or resources, but by absences, as "any population, housing, or territory not in an urban area." For the design and planning community, it is important to define the future of rural environments, not through the metrics of urban resources or infrastructure, but to design a new framework for flexibility, adaptation, and health.

What Is Co-Creation in Architecture and Urban Planning?

Maria-Cristina Florian — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 05:30:00 +0000

In recent years, the term “co-creation,” a buzzword in the business and management sector, has made its way into the architecture and urban planning discourse. The term is used to define a large concept that describes working intentionally with others to create something jointly. But architecture is already the result of a collaboration between multiple actors, architects, clients, investors, developers, and local administration, to name a few. Can the term still apply to this field, can it bring forth new forms of knowledge, and does it differ from the concept of participatory design?

"On Access to Green & Public Space": In Conversation with Co.Creation.Architects and POCAA

Maria-Cristina Florian — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 06:30:00 +0000

When the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) announced its winners of the 2022 edition, 20 projects were selected for their excellence in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community development, and preservation and improvement of the environment. Among them, one project in Jhenaidah, Bangladesh, managed to capitalize on the strength of the local community to reverse the ecological degradation of its riverscape and create a functional and socially inclusive public space along the riverbanks. ArchDaily’s Managing Editor, Christele Harrouk, had the chance to interview Suhailey Farzana, and Khondaker Hasibul Kabir co-founders of Co.Creation.Architects, and Rubaiya Nasrin from Platform of Community Action and Architecture, POCAA, part of the team behind the Co-creation of Urban Spaces by the Nobogonga River, in Bangladesh. The project also won the 5th category of the UIA 2030 Award for the Access to Green and Public Spaces.

Walt Disney World Announces Construction Of Affordable Housing in Florida, USA

Paula Cano — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 04:30:00 +0000

Community development proposals in Disney World come from back days. One of Walt Disney's last visionary projects was the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), a center for American enterprise and urban living. Disney advocated that the problems of cities were the most critical issues facing society and planned a city that could develop in a controlled manner, contrary to the urban expansion in the USA during the first half of the last century. After Disney died in 1966, the "EPCOT" concept was abandoned as the company was uncertain about the feasibility of operating a city. Fifty- five years later, after a thorough search, Walt Disney World chose The Michaels Organization for its experience in building and managing attainable housing communities.

BIG, ICON, and Lennar Announce Community of 3D-printed Homes in Texas, USA

Paula Cano — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 05:30:00 +0000

Pioneer in large-scale 3D printing, ICON announced the construction of a 3D-printed 100-Home Community co-designed by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group and developed by Lennar. Located north of Austin, in the city of Georgetown, "The Genesis Collection at Wolf Ranch" will become the first and largest house estate in the world built by a fleet of robots integrating additive construction techniques.

A New Digital Tool Allows Users to Investigate Spatial Equity across New York City’s Communities

Maria-Cristina Florian — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 06:30:00 +0000

The Transportation Alternatives and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have initiated a new digital tool, Spatial Equity NYC, to help users understand how space is distributed and restricted across the neighborhoods of New York City. The tool asses the use of streets, sidewalks, and public spaces, as they are key factors that influence data such as pollution, traffic fatalities, accessibility, or air quality. The data collected shows a direct correlation between neighborhoods with low-income communities and communities of color and the detrimental ways in which public space is used, leading to health and mobility issues in those communities.

Construction Starts on Mecanoo's Brink Tower in Amsterdam

Paula Cano — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 05:30:00 +0000

Brink Tower by Mecanoo was just granted planning permission and construction works are planned for mid-October 2022. Located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the 90-meter-high building, developed by Xior Student Housing and DubbeLL – winners of the competition for this tower together with Mecanoo Architecten in 2020- will offer a mixed program, including spaces to live, work, and relax in a healthy environment. The residential tower is set to create an" energy-positive, green, and inclusive neighborhood" and contribute to the development of Overhoeks in North Amsterdam.

Handel Architects Designs Third Tallest Tower in Historical Downtown Los Angeles

Paula Cano — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 05:30:00 +0000

Handel Architects designed the third tallest in Los Angeles, a 63-story high-rise 265 meters high in the Historical Downtown L.A. Featuring a 150 meters second tower, affordable residential housing, and community spaces, the "Angels Landing" will be the largest and tallest development to be built by Black developers in the United States, marking a milestone in the real estate industry, as in L.A.'s skyline. In partnership with The Peebles Corporation and MacFarlane Partners, the complex is scheduled to open in 2027 and will create more than 8,300 new jobs during construction.

How the Power of Place Shapes Cities

William Fulton — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 03:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Chinese Architect and Planner Wu Liangyong Explores 70 Years of Design and Teaching

Eric Baldwin — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 05:30:00 +0000

Chinese architect and town planner Wu Liangyong was recently featured in a new interview from the International Union of Architects (UIA) about his life and teaching. As the former Vice-President of the UIA and the Architectural Society of China (ASC), Liangyong won the Jean Tschumi Prize back in 1996. Today, he reflects on his academic career spanning 70 years at the Tsinghua University School of Architecture.

Partisans Imagines Master Plan for the Next Generation Community in a Small Town in Canada

Christele Harrouk — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 09:00:00 +0000

The Orbit illustrates Partisans’ vision for a cutting-edge community where small town and rural lifestyles are enhanced by the benefits and attributes of urban living. The award-winning Toronto-based architecture studio imagined a new urban fabric that inspires citizens.

Co-Housing Movement Sweeps through Europe

Holly Giermann — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In the Spanish suburb of Alfafar, conditions were looking grim as economic hardships plunged over 40% of its residents into unemployment and left significant portions of its housing vacant. In response, a group of young architects have developed a co-housing plan for the area to accommodate its shifting needs, enabling residents to exchange and share space as needed. Using the existing buildings as the framework, the line between public and private will evolve over time with changing conditions, following in the footsteps of other European countries that have successfully employed similar undertakings. Read more about Alfafar's co-housing plan, here.

Tiny-House Villages: Safe Havens for the Homeless

Holly Giermann — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As the need for smart housing solutions rises, so does the appeal of tiny-house villages, not just as shelter for the homeless, but as a possible look to the future of the housing sector. The new article, Are Tiny-House Villages The Solution To Homelessness? by Tim Murphy, takes a closer look into the positive and negative aspects of these controversial communities, as well as their social and political ramifications so far. Through interviews with residents of several tiny-house villages, Murphy investigates the current impacts they have had on the homeless populations within major American cities, and questions how the lifestyle will evolve in the future. Read the full article, here.