News Archive

Leon Krier Becomes Honorary Member of New Urban Guild

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 08:22:39 -0400

Leon Krier, whose thinking has had a profound influence upon the New Urbanism since the very beginning, has accepted an honorary membership in the New Urban Guild! The honor, in reality, is all ours. It was Krier’s lecture in Miami in 1980 that completely changed the careers of Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Without Krier, Duany and Plater-Zyberk likely would have still been designing high-rise condos, and the nearly 300 towns and neighborhoods they designed would not exist. One wonders whether, without Krier, the New Urbanism as a movement would even exist?
Krier’s work wasn’t defined by a single virtuoso lecture thirty years ago... not by a long shot. His writings have had, and continue to have, a profound effect on two generations of architects and planners... and counting. His most recent book, The Architecture of Community, is an essential resource for anyone hoping to contribute to sustainable place-making.
This work continues a long track record of unusually idea-rich books such as Architecture: Choice or Fate and several others. You can’t just flip through a Krier book in a couple hours... there’s so much content there that you could spend weeks digesting it all.
The brilliance, however, is that this wealth of ideas can be easily digested in small bits. Those bits are built around Krier’s highly-provocative cartoon drawings. Never in the architectural world have so many ideas been skewered so thoroughly with so little ink.
And when Krier sets about to advance a great idea rather than rebuke the regrettable ones, he’s equally incisive here as well, articulating principles with such clarity that they are likely never to be forgotten.
The New Urban Guild has, since the beginning, placed high value upon great ideas. At the same time, the Guild has been an eminently practical organization, focused on ideas that work as opposed to the purely theoretical. It’s no mystery, therefore, why we have always held Leon Krier in such high regard: he is a consummate man of ideas, but he puts them forward in such a way that they effect real change in the way we build our places and our buildings. Welcome aboard, Mr. Krier!

Follow the Guild at CNU 18

Wed, 19 May 2010 10:28:18 -0400

The New Urban Guild will be presenting a number of ideas at CNU 18 in Atlanta May 20-22 in conjunction with the Open Source Congress. Follow #NUGatCNU on Twitter for times and subjects of the sessions. One issue certain to be dealt with is the imbalance of urbanism and architecture in CNU discussions. Architecture is the primary building-block of urbanism, yet some insist that the specifics of the architecture are inconsequential to urbanism. This goes all the way back to those four words in the Charter that “...this issue transcends style,” which has been taken ever since by some to advocate that the specifics of the architecture don’t matter.
But is this really true? The emergence of sustainability over the past several years as a front-burner issue to many Americans opens a train of thought that casts this assumption into question. New Urbanists have long advocated for sustainable places, and that’s clearly an important part of the equation. But sustainable places with unsustainable buildings aren’t any better than sustainable buildings in unsustainable places. The Original Green, an initiative of the Guild Foundation, has from the beginning advocated that sustainable places and sustainable buildings are equally important. And truly sustainable buildings participate heavily in their own conditioning instead of counting on the machines to do all the work... so the specific character of the building actually does matter.
In the interest of this, the New Urban Guild will continue to explore ways that architecture can do its part in the interest of sustainability... including working to open a few eyes within the ranks of our friends and colleagues within the Congress for the New Urbanism. #NUGatCNU.

Guild Architects Heavily Represented in 2010 Awards

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:10:29 -0400

In what is likely the best showing to date, New Urban Guild architects received a number of national design awards so far this year. Here’s the rundown:

• Historical Concepts, which is headed by Guild member Jim Strickland, took home the 2010 Arthur Ross Award for architecture. This award is given on a body of work; only one is given each year in each discipline.

• Khoury & Vogt Architects, composed of Guild members (and husband-and-wife team) Marieanne Khoury-Vogt and Erik Vogt, won the 2010 Palladio Award for Parks, Plazas, Gardens, and Streetscapes for their Lake Marilyn, Somerset Bridge and Seagarden at Alys Beach, Florida.

• Michael G. Imber, Architects, led by Guild member Michael Imber, landed the 2010 Palladio Award for Residential Sympathetic Addition for additions to Medina River Ranch in Medina, Texas.

• Braulio Casas Architects, P.A., directed by Guild member Braulio Casas, took the 2010 Palladio Award for Residential New Design & Construction - Less Than 5,000 SF for a new residence in Seaside, Florida.

Congratulations to all these winners!

Southern Living’s New Urban Guild Collection

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:09:16 -0400

The New Urban Guild is delighted to announce the culmination of a project that has been under development for nearly a decade: the New Urban Guild Collection of home plans for traditional neighborhoods... and it’s brought to you by Southern Living, widely recognized as the purveyor of the highest-quality home plans. Look for them online later this year... right now, we're starting to put the collection together.
This collection is being assembled by the New Urban Guild, but is open to plan submissions from anyone who has great home plans designed for traditional neighborhoods. Plans are selected by a jury of New Urban Guild members that currently consists of Bill Allison, Eric Brown, Eric Moser, Frank Greene, Gary Justiss, Geoffrey Mouen, Julie Sanford, Maricé Chael, Steve Mouzon, Tom Low, and Victor Deupi.

Project:SmartDwelling

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:37:04 -0400

The New Urban Guild has fostered a number of initiatives over the years, but none have had more potential influence for good than the Project:SmartDwelling. The Wall Street Journal apparently agrees, because on April 27, they published SmartDwelling I in the cover story (The Green House of the Future) of their special section on sustainability. Check the Original Green blog for the continuing SmartDwelling I story... but check back here regularly for updates on the entire SmartDwelling Project.