Sustaining Place

Reflecting on Bridges to Home

How familiar settings suggest the universal while reawakening who we are. Tonight, from Mercer Island, two light paths cross the water, forming gateways to my…

Exploring the Pier of Dreams

On the evening of November 17, 2021, I stepped onto the pier at Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight. I walked to the covered area…

Learning the Layers of Place

How experiencing things left behind spurs a diverse understanding of places, and human nature. Safe harbor for pirate ships, a bustling multi-use harbor today in St. Julian’s…

A Path Remembered

Sometimes, many years later, we understand why certain images remain indelible. On April 22, 2004, I took a picture of a ruined stone house — or some…

Recapping the Launch: Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character

Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character (American release, February 22, 2021, UK and European release, Spring 2021) focuses on how to understand the innate identity of…

Listen up — our cities have things to say

I bet a lot of us have complained to our neighbours about our local areas losing their “character” or signed petitions against new developments we…

Explaining ‘Rosetta Stone Urbanism

Why respect the distinctive character of cities? We invariably are products of our upbringings, which in my case has led me to write a third, well-illustrated…

Place Parts, Episode 18: Landscape Ghosts, with Shannon Nichol

How do we unearth and rediscover landscapes which we can no longer see? Personal and collective memories in defining a place’s culture and character have…

Tidbits and Events, Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character

Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character provides a catalog of techniques that emphasize “bottom up,” resident-based input. Such input includes local history, building forms, natural and…

Place Parts, Episode 17: Understanding the Blends

Today’s episode in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, recalls the look and feel of urban blends discussed in Sustaining a City’s Culture and…