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An Algorithm for Creating Enduring Places

The Netherlands is the perfect example of a country with a long history of places that inspire a sense of pride.

When I first arrived here, I stood at an intersection in Amsterdam. While watching the city flow in front of me, I had an epiphany. I was amazed how everyone–including pedestrians, cyclists, and car drivers–knew what to do and how to respectfully interact with each other, even without stoplights or traffic signs. And even though the compact streets were busy, I heard and say no honking horns or road rage.

Typical carfree lane in a Netherlands town center.

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The Town That Facebook Built

Despite Facebook’s turn as a tool of the empire, this video tells the story of their experiments in office park and urban design. 

Ultimately, though, we’ve gotta give them credit for pushing Silicon Valley well outside its car-park comfort zone to offer a pedestrian pocket of productivity in a sea of some of the most banal, soul-crushing, suburban wastelands around.

We cheer Facebook’s human-scale building strategies, while still reminding everyone that Frank Gehry’s industrial modernism is best when used sparingly. It should be seen as filling in between an existing historic urban fabric. But this is California after all, so even doing as much as they have is a true miracle.

The upcoming Willow Campus residential-focused, vertical mixed-use development earns 4 out of 5 B4place stars for pushing so hard, when most of their contemporaries are still contributing to the sprawl.

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Rural Pre-Viz Series

We’re collecting plans and renderings of exemplary compact rural developments. These will include computer-generated and traditional illustrations.

Here’s a sampling from Driehaus Competition, Cities: Skylines, Dennis R. Holloway Architect, and Starr Sanford Design:

Starr Sanford's "Sky, Florida"
Starr Sanford's "Sky, Florida"
Starr Sanford Design promotes compact developments and the preservation of farmland and open space in rural areas.
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