Category: Placemaking and Design

Architecture, Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

Planning When it’s Not the Point: Urban Design Fun in a Non-City-Building Videogame

By Evan King Imagine, if you will, life as a pixelated farmer in a remote pixelated village. You live in a small hut with a bed and maybe a window but nothing else. You wake every morning to tend to your plot of wheat and head to bed as the sun sets. Similar sites are scattered over vast distances, but these villages are the only intelligent life occurring across your entire world.  A different kind of being arrives one day- an unfriendly … Continue reading Planning When it’s Not the Point: Urban Design Fun in a Non-City-Building Videogame

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Economic Development, Housing and Community Development, Long Form, Placemaking and Design, Public Art

From the CPJ Archives: Creative Placemaking

This week, we’re sharing an article that originally appeared in Volume 41 of the Carolina Planning Journal back in 2016. The theme of that edition was Just Creativity. To kick it off, DCRP Professor Andrew Whittemore reviewed the literature on placemaking and explored where the arts and creativity intersect with planning. Volume 41 and other back issues of the Journal can be found on our … Continue reading From the CPJ Archives: Creative Placemaking

Carolina Planning Journal Board
International, Land Use and Environmental Planning, Placemaking and Design

Can America Replicate Singapore’s Garden Cities?

By Lizzie Tong In the realm of sustainability and urban planning, Singapore is often hailed as a city-state worthy of envy and comparison – a Garden City. Through 40 years of rapid economic development and a transformation into an international financial hub, Singapore has been mindful to protect its natural environment, developing a reputation as a leader in green design. As a small island about … Continue reading Can America Replicate Singapore’s Garden Cities?

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

Life in Copenhagen, a Living City

In January, I set out on my own to spend a semester in Copenhagen. My professors had told me tales of cycling culture and ski-slope-power-plants, and I was determined to see it for myself. I was a little nervous, very excited, and more prepared than I thought for life in Denmark’s capital city. Some part of me had this expectation that all of Copenhagen is … Continue reading Life in Copenhagen, a Living City

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Housing and Community Development, Placemaking and Design

Planning, Design, and McMansions: A Conversation with Kate Wagner

Earlier this month, first-year Master of City and Regional Planning student Emily Gvino interviewed Kate Wagner, the creator of the viral blog McMansion Hell and whose work was recently included in the Web Cultures Web Archive through the Library of Congress. Kate’s writing focuses on architecture and design, and Emily was interested in hearing her thoughts on the state of housing today, new design trends, … Continue reading Planning, Design, and McMansions: A Conversation with Kate Wagner

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Housing and Community Development, Placemaking and Design

REPOST: Rural Studio & the 20K House

As a mission-driven, educational initiative, the Rural Studio has been able to commit almost a decade of rigorous analysis to the careful development of these affordable housing prototypes, illustrating the important potential of community design to explore ideas and provide services that the private market is unable to support. In 1968, civil rights leader Whitney M, Young Jr. addressed the National Convention of the American … Continue reading REPOST: Rural Studio & the 20K House

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Placemaking and Design, Public Art

The Battle for the Heart of [Downtown] Greensboro

Looking at a map of downtown Greensboro, it becomes apparent that something big is coming. The entire eastern side of the downtown is undergoing a major shift, and much of it is entrenched in public dissent tied to development choices being made by the City and local developers. This is apparent in various current projects in Greensboro, from the Tanger Performing Arts Center, controversy around … Continue reading The Battle for the Heart of [Downtown] Greensboro

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Landscape Architecture, Placemaking and Design

Undergrads analyze UNC spaces

As part of the Community Design and Green Architecture (ENEC 420) course with Eric Thomas, the Project Manager and Lead Designer at Development Finance Initiative, undergraduate UNC students evaluated public space. Using video and behavior mapping techniques, students evaluated how different local spaces are used, or not, at different times of the day and on different days. They noted weather and other factors that would … Continue reading Undergrads analyze UNC spaces

Carolina Planning Journal Board