New Urbanist design comes to the Villages at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Today, the military hopes more attractive neighborhoods will help recruit and retain soldiers, and create a stronger sense of community to support military families.
Fort Belvoir's first New Urbanist village was occupied last year with 171 townhomes and houses designed in a local Georgian Colonial style. Herryford Village includes a "Main Street with shops and a clock tower, playgrounds, and village greens with open-air pavilions and centralized mailboxes where residents can socialize informally." In the past, suburban-style military housing looked like "the architectural equivalent of a uniform."
Joseph Scanga, a principal at Calthorpe Associates, works with the Army and the Navy to design housing. He says: "Military neighborhoods become ghost towns with heavy deployment. They struggle more than average to build and maintain community."
Read the full story: New Urbanism: It's in the Army Now
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Harvard University Graduate School of Design
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University of Cincinnati Online
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