Bruce Donnelly explores a new way to examine city life that could increase the effectiveness of urban design.
"We usually look at familiar urban places as our habits dictate, rarely changing from our default viewpoint. We shop, go to work, go out for the eveningâ€"hardly thinking about how we think about the interaction of beauty, people's stories, and the ways people represent themselves.
This narrowed perspective limits our effectiveness as designers, planners, and citizens. By consciously cultivating the skill to switch between ways of thinking about places, we can notice and compare those layers, as well as how they do or do not comport with the circumstances at hand.
There are, of course, many different experiential layers to urban experience. However, three essential layers, in an effective order, are:
Once we learn to pay attention, we can combine the layers with the circumstances of a particular situation to decide, say, whether the beauty of a place and the stories of its lives mesh."
FULL STORY: Experiential Layers of the City
Florida Considers Legalizing ADUs
Current state law allows — but doesn’t require — cities to permit accessory dwelling units in single-family residential neighborhoods.
Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing
Manufactured housing communities have long been an affordable housing option for millions of people living in the U.S., but that affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?
HUD Announces Plan to Build Housing on Public Lands
The agency will identify federally owned parcels appropriate for housing development and streamline the regulatory process to lease or transfer land to housing authorities and nonprofit developers.
EPA Terminates $116 Million in Grants for Reducing Emissions from Construction Materials
C-MORE grants were earmarked for industry trade groups and universities.
BART Closes $35 Million Deficit
Cost control and revenue generation measures prevented service cuts.
The New Parisian Hearse is a Bicycle
Sleek, silent, and sustainable, a green trip to the graveyard has hit the streets of the French capital.
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This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
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