Archive for the ‘Community Design’ Category

I was invited to expand a previously written post found here about NOMA and it’s importance on the organization’s 40th anniversary. This article was written for the American Planning Association (APA) Planning and the Black Community Division’s (PBCD) Winter newsletter which focused on social equity. You can download the entire newsletter here.


An article was recently published in Atlantic Cities showing that over time cyclists and pedestrians spend more at local businesses because they visit the businesses more frequently than drivers. The data and graphs supports effort to make communities more pedestrian and bike friendly. This quote about Portland, Oregon really struck me as I think about […]


Earlier this summer, The Brookings Institution released a great paper discussing the problem of transit and jobs. Basically, the authors say transit exists where the jobs are but not where people live so people have a hard time actually getting from residential areas to employment centers.


Woman at party says “I have seen your work.” I think jokingly “am I famous? are the paparazzi hunting me down?” At that party [tonight 9/24/2010] a few years ago, I was reminded of how small the circle of black women architects is. I was standing in a room of affordable housing/community development folks and […]


Last week in a Richmond newspaper, Style Weekly, an article was written about developers building apartments with no windows. I was shocked as I was reading that this is now becoming practice in the city. When the number of units in a building that is needed to make the pro forma pencil is more than […]


It is a great thing to see a community come together to support those who can’t do for the themselves. One of the great examples of this is Seattle’s Urban Rest Stop. The idea came about in 1990 after a survey found that Seattle had almost no public rest rooms. The Low Income Housing Institute, […]


The vehicle that got me out to San Francisco and knee deep in community design, the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship, has just opened the new round for applications in Asheville, NC, New Mexico, Los Angeles and MIssissippi. Get details on the Rose Fellowship website.


Tea Kung Fu Photo by Michael Camilleri After dinner, a cup of tea or coffee is always welcome. Consider this my after dinner post to wrap up this edition of the dinner series. For the last couple of weeks, I have been writing about food and community, particularly focused around dinner. I had a lot […]


Photo by Shannon Eck I had the pleasure of stumbling onto a new radio show, The Promised Land, hosted by the extraordinary Majora Carter. The show spotlights people “with innovative ideas about changing lives and transforming communities.” Instead of just interviewing her subjects in a studio, Ms Carter actually spends time with them in their […]


Brandy wraps up her thoughts on the conference. Architecture for change – or at least the seeds of it. Brandy H. M. Brooks Director, Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence Photo by Katherine Williams Each of the four speakers – and many others at the conference I don’t have room to name – presented huge […]



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