Architecture Commons^™

Issue Brief: Auditing Your Town's Development Code For Barriers To Sustainable Water Management, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This issue brief is intended for town officials who want to understand how development regulations in their community affect local water resources. Municipal development codes – the set of regulations that control the built environment – can have a great influence on the availability of clean and healthy water for drinking, recreation, and commercial uses. This in turn affects the community’s social, environmental, and economic vitality.

Comprehensive plans, zoning codes, and building standards are just a few examples of regulations that intentionally or unintentionally regulate the way water is transported, collected and absorbed. Regulations that produce dispersed development or large …

The Architect As Developer, Samuel David Funari

Masters Theses

The current architectural landscape of strip malls and big box stores is the antitheses of what nearly every practicing architect avails to while in the security of the academy. Upon entering the real world of budgetary constraints and hard deadlines, it seems that most architects are content to simply earn a paycheck rather than produce meaningful work. This destructive method of designing is a result of a supposed lack of choices, and can only be combated when architects have more to lose than their principles. By architects playing the role of both designer and developer, it is possible to see …