CNU New York

Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns

CNU New York Congratulates John Massengale and Victor Dover on their important new book:

Street Design : The Secret to Great Cities and Towns

"This book could change the way people see the streets in their towns and cities. And it could help those towns and cities make streets for people, rather than their cars."

—Mayor Joe Riley, Charleston, South Carolina

"This fine book by Massengale and Dover is a treasure map to the long-buried trove of knowledge, skill, and principle needed to build better places for the human project to dwell in."

—From the Afterword by James Howard Kunstler

John Massengale and Victor Dover know how to fix America's neighborhoods, cities, and towns: Make them walkable again. That begins with great streets where people want to be, where they feel comfortable, safe, and charmed by their surroundings. Street Design looks at hundreds of streets old and new, shows us what works and what doesn't, and reveals the secrets behind designing beautiful streets and walkable places.

John Massengale, Victor Dover

ISBN: 978-1-118-06670-6

448 pages

January 2014

http://streets-book.com/

CNU New York Presents a Panel Discussion on Progressive Street Design Manuals

Presented with Generous Support from Sam Schwartz Engineering

Photo credit: Zeke Mermell

 Out with the Old: How Can Progressive Street Manuals Supplement or Replace the Traditional Triumvirate?

6:00 - 8:00 PM | Tuesday, April 23, 2013

AIA Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Pl, NYC 

RSVP on CNU.org at http://bit.ly/10TITxa
Credits Pending: ASCE, AICP, CNU-A
Cost: $10

This panel discussion will discuss the content and role of three progressive street design manuals in updating or replacing the previous triumvirate of the Green Book, Highway Capacity Manual, and MUTCD. The featured manuals are the National Association of City Transportation Official's (NACTO) Urban Bikeway Design Guide, the Sam Schwartz Engineering (SSE) / America Walks (AW) Steps to a Walkable Community, and the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU)/Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares guide.

Moderator:

John Orcutt - Policy Director, NYC Department of Transportation 

Respondent Panel:

David Vega-Barachowitz - Project Manager of NACTO's Urban Bikeway Design Guide and forthcoming Urban Street Design Guide

Laura MacNeil - Principal author of the SSE and AW's Steps to a Walkable Community Guide

Norman Garrick - Co-chair of the CNU's Transportation Task Force for the ITE/CNU Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares guide

The shortcomings and limitations of the old guard guides in the planning, design & engineering fields are increasingly evident in our nation's congestion, infrastructure, and obesity crises. How can new planning theories and methodologies address or replace the shortcomings of the Green Book, HCM, and MUTCD guides?

Wine and light refreshments will be served. 

Organized by Sam Schwartz Engineering and CNU New York

Sponsored by Sam Schwartz Engineering

RSVP at http://bit.ly/10TITxa

Archtober & CNU New York: Urban Retail Talk Postponed Until November - Details To Be Announced

8/14 - The Post-Olympic City

[Note: reposted from the Storefront for Art and Architecture website]:

Photo Credit: The Olympic City Project, ©2012. Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc, Barcelona.

The After-Match

August 14, 2012, 7pm - 9pm

Storefront for Art and Architecture presents a panel discussion on "The Post-Olympic City," with Gary Hustwit (Documentary filmmaker and photographer); Jon Pack (photographer);Noah Chasin (Professor of Urban Design, Bard College and Columbia University), Grace Tang (Field Operations, Project Manager, London Legacy Queen Elizabeth Olymipic Park), and Ellen Dunham-Jones (Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Georgia Tech, co-author Retrofitting Suburbia).

To read more about The Post-Olympic CIty, click here.

Join us for Laurie Volk: The New Housing Paradigm (this event has been postponed)

Please join CNU New York  for a lecture by one of the nation's foremost experts on housing and demographic trends, Laurie Volk of Zimmerman Volk Associates. This lecture will discuss changing trends in demographics across the country, the lifestyle choices that individuals make within the demographic groups, and how the trends impact urban housing formats, mixed-use developments, transit-oriented development, and revitalization of existing urban areas.  The lecturer, Laurie Volk, along with her partner Todd Zimmerman, have been retained by cities and developers all over the US for her expertise in this field.

 

 

Robert Moses on the Silver-ish Screen

Hot off the press! You many know The Power Broker as the thorough classic that's required reading in many city planning classes, or have seen it recently on a Planner's bookshelf. HBO will be adapting Robert Caro's 1974 biopic on New York City's "Master Builder" Robert Moses. It will be directed by Oliver Stone and produced by Stone, Peter Guber and James Gandolfini (of The Sapranos).

News courtesy of Hollywood Reporter and the New York Observer.

Image courtesy of Streetsblog.

10/24 - Janette Sadik-Khan with David Bryne

For all you avid bicycle planners and enthusiasts, an event that's sure to be of interest.  This Monday, Oct. 24 (5:00-6:30 pm) at the Center for Architecture, acclaimed NYC Dept of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will be in conversation with David Byrne (of the band Talking Heads), author of Bicycle Diaries.  In Diaries, Bryne reports on pedal-powered observations & insights during his global travels.

Afterwards, stay for the Trust for Governors Island President Leslie Koch in conversation with David Haskell of New York Magazine, 6:30-8:00 pm.

Reception to follow at 8:00 pm.  Purchase a ticket - Free for AIA members; $10 for non-members.

This month's installment of the Oculus Book Talk series is a program of Archtober, Architecture & Design Month in NYC; and is organized by the AIA-NY Oculus & Public Architecture committees.

10/8 - Retrofitting Suburbia

Join June Williamson, co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia, for a hands-on repair workshop. Through images and sketching, learn how to apply “retrofitting” tactics to build healthier, happier, and more sustainable suburbs.

Saturday, October 8, 2011 | Noon - 3pm

BMW Guggenheim Lab

Houston at 2nd Ave | New York, New York

Free and open to the public.  The Lab space is open to the elements so dress accordingly.

EVENT INFO PAGE

RSVP on Facebook!

Sprawl dominates American cities. Its monotonous, low-density, single-use, auto-dependent landscapes are making us sick and endangering the health of the planet. Can Anywhere, USA, be fixed?



Photo by Christoph Gielen

Also, stick around for the panel Sprawl: Past, Present and Future- 6 - 8 pm, also on 10/8.  Williamson will moderate a discussion on the history, development, and future of sprawl with panelists Rachel Heiman, an urban anthropologist at the New School specializing in the comforts and anxieties of the American middle class; Galina Tachieva, an urban planner and author of The Sprawl Repair Manual; and Christoph Gielen, a photographer exploring sprawl and the intersection of art and environmental politics through photographic aerial studies of infrastructure.

6/28 The Agile City: Skyscraper Museum Lecture

On June 28, 6:30pm to 8:00, the Skyscraper Museum will host the James S. Russell Book Talk, on THE AGILE CITY: Building Well-Being & Wealth in an Era of Climate Change (Island Press 2011).

The gallery & exhibition are open for viewing beginning at 6 pm. RSVP to programs@skyscraper.org (be sure to mention the lecture in your RSVP).

More info at the Skyscaper Museum's website:

In a very short time the developed world has realized that global warming poses real challenges to the our future. The Agile City engages the fundamental question: what to do about it? Journalist and urban analyst James S. Russell argues that we’ll more quickly slow global warming—and blunt its effects—by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. The Agile City shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly.

James S. Russell is the architecture columnist for Bloomberg News. He has written about cities, architecture, and environmental design for more than 20 years.

There's a rich roster of events at the Skysraper Museum all summer, including another book talk not to miss on July 21 about architectural photography.  The Museum is at the edge of the acclaimed New Urbanist development Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. Directions here.

Tactical Urbanism Heralded on Grist

Tactical Urbanism has been gaining some great press lately.  Grist, a web-based environmental news and commentary site has a recent article written by Sarah Goodyear.  In "The new New Urbanism: Fast, nimble, flexible, and tactical," Goodyear writes about CNU-19, newer efforts New Urbanism has been focusing on, and of course Tactical Urbanism.

Read the article in full here.

Tactical Urbanism is a working project of The Street Plans Collaborative (an urban planning & advocacy firm) and NextGen (a group of next generation New Urbanists).  The project encompases strategies by individuals, local community groups & municipalities.  Focus is on incremental, small-scale improvement; positioned well within the current economic environment.  More information and a download of Volume 1 are available at The Street Plans Collaborative.