The Walkable City with Jeff Speck

Date: Thursday, June 20 - Friday, June 21, 2019 | Register Now

Location: Harvard University Campus

CEUs: 14 AIA/CES (HSW) | 14 AICP/CM | 14 LA/CES (HSW)

Tuition: $1,500.00

What makes a place walkable? What do design professionals, engineers, developers, and public officials need to know if they are to make, streets, landscapes, and communities more attractive to pedestrians? Join Jeff Speck, who literally wrote the book -- two, in fact! -- on walkable cities, for a comprehensive two-day course on the most effective arguments, techniques, and tools for reshaping places in support of walking, biking, and transit, including a design charrette with Somerville chief planner George Proakis.

We’ll start by asking why walkability is desirable: most communities support the concept of walkability as a matter of course, but this commitment can waver in the face of countervailing pressures from entrenched interests. You will learn the most powerful economic, epidemiological, and environmental arguments for making a sustained investment in walking, biking, and transit.

The central segment of the course will focus in great depth on ten strategies for making better places: Put Cars in Their Place; Mix the Uses; Get Parking Right; Let Transit Work; Protect the Pedestrian; Welcome Bikes; Shape the Spaces; Plant Trees; Make Friendly and Unique Faces; and Pick Your Winners.

Our instructors have completed seven Walkability Plans for American municipalities in the past five years, and will show you how to complete such plans for your communities.

Finally, you’ll get some hands-on experience. The nearby City of Somerville has been working on the redevelopment of neighborhoods surrounding new rail stations on the MBTA’s planned Green Line extension. City of Somerville chief planner George Proakis will join the class for a half-day mini-charrette, during which you will visit several locations in Somerville and return to the classroom to design possible solutions by applying the walkability principles you have learned.

Learn more and watch Jeff Speck's TED Talks on walkability or explore other Harvard Graduate School of Design summer offerings on Master Planning, Urban Retail, ADA Accessibility and Fair Housing, and much more.

INSTRUCTORS

Jeff Speck, AICP, CNU-A, LEED-AP, Honorary ASLA  | Principal, Speck & Associates LLC

Author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time and Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places (Planetizen Top 10 Urban Planning Books of 2018).

George Proakis, AICP | Chief Planner, City of Somerville