Steve Mouzon

The pattern-hunting process is so difficult to do right because we're programmed to think like historians instead of story-tellers. Here's why it pays great dividends to make the break and learn: originalgreen.org/blog/the-pat...

The Black Warrior River. Just over a mile’s walk from home.

A prevailing attitude is "I won't live anywhere more than 7-10 years; why should I care about a house that lasts for a hundred years? This results in buying cheap junk thrown up quick that will fall apart in a few years. Many individual throwaway choices make a throwaway city.

A Tale of Two Buildings

Many have asked what I mean by "re-skinning" buildings so here's the post, finally, with the normal Good-Better-Best triad of Recycle-Repurpose-Reuse plus the Re-Skin hybrid... and why recycling should get a Meh instead of Good: originalgreen.org/blog/a-tale-...

Straw man. Highway speeds aren’t the big issue; how many people do you see walking on a highway in the countryside? The big issue is speeding in the city, which gets people killed and maimed for life.

Yet you’ve gone silent on 25 mph posted speed where people far too often speed closer to 40, which is deadly most of the time.

A highway? Try a residential street with a 25 mph speed limit which nobody obeys. 40 mph speeds are common there, resulting in death or lifelong injuries.

Walk out in front of a car speeding at 40 mph to find out whether you experience death or just a lifetime of suffering with permanent injuries.

On the other side of recent architecture passings of Leon Krier and Robert AM Stern, I just saw where Frank Gehry joined the list today.

A hand holds a paperback book, “The Shoup Doctrine”, in front of a residential street lined with parked cars in London.

“What can cities do to recover from this great planning disaster? Here are three reforms that can help. First, remove off-street parking requirements. Second, charge market-rate prices for on-street parking. Third, invest the resulting meter revenue to improve public services on the metered blocks.“

If a parking spot is empty on Black Friday, it never needed to be built in the first place. Today is an opportunity to document the physical footprint of excessive parking requirements while you happen to be out shopping.

45 years ago this afternoon I took a mystery home with me that forever changed so much, including my career: originalgreen.org/blog/mystery... Never leave a mystery behind.

The Black Friday Challenge

Wanna go on a mission today that's beyond just shopping? Take the Black Friday Challenge and change your town! Here's how: originalgreen.org/blog/the-bla...

This is the founding principle of the modern suburb.

www.realtor.com/news/trends/walkable-neighborhoods-premium-home-prices

You gotta pay more for houses with walkability because we don't build nearly enough of them...

Walkability shouldn't be a "perk"

It should be the default

Right, Right, and Left at the Light

Here's what happened on our spooky Urban Guild Summit "afterparty" lost in the mountains:
originalgreen.org/blog/right-r...

A second-level balcony on a mixed-use building helps shield residents of upper levels from the lights of the sidewalk level, helping those who are actually sleeping at night in the French Quarter.

It’s hard to tell whether the post lamp was deformed by flying hurricane debris or by humans to accentuate the branding of the French Quarter, but twisted lamps like this are on countless T-shirts tourists take home.

The French Quarter masterfully mixes uses. In this building, there’s a shop to the left and the arch to the right leads to a courtyard accessing multiple apartments behind and above the front; a good Missing Middle Housing Commercial Apartment Block.

Outdoor space tends to expand closer to the street, with individual balconies above, a full and deeper balcony on the middle level and the full extent of the city accessible from doors on the street.

Humbler materials have their places on a street, like the utility brick on the right building accentuating the refinement of the front and the roof tiles used ornamentally in the balustrade of the left building.

Never end a building face with the side wall material coming all the way to the corner because it makes the front look pasted-on. At the VERY least, turn the cornice and front wall material at least a little bit like this, if not further.

It’s quite appropriate for a product strongly associated with a place, like Tabasco in the French Quarter, to have its own storefront, as visitors tend to “extend the stay” by taking culinary things home with them.

It is natural, even if not essential, for the first level of a building to be clad in a different material than levels above. In a mixed-use quarter like much of the French Quarter, it calls attention to the street-level businesses, among other benefits.

Placing a balcony on a chamfered corner takes advantage of a rare opportunity in urbanism: the ability to look down all four streets of the intersection from one vantage point.

It’s great when food and beverage establishments open important locations like a street corner window to the sidewalk on all but the more extreme days of the year; it invites people in and helps condition them to Live In Season.

It is sometimes assumed that the most important civic buildings should express only the highest ideals of a civilization, but the Louisiana Supreme Court building subtly reflects its French Quarter home with its metalwork.

The Louisiana Supreme Court building is clad in stone in a highly refined manner, as all important civic buildings should be, as they should communicate their importance to both residents and visitors.

This should be easy in Mac Pages, but is there a way to have sections within a document come up as tabs at the top of the window, like tabs on a website?

I'll be speaking at International Making Cities Livable 62 in Potsdam next month; any recommendations for great German towns to photograph in the Berlin region?