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Steve A. Mouzon - Sprawl Recovery: America's Greatest Place-Making Challenge

2,146 views · Published 9 May 2012 · 57:39 · Indexed 9 October 2026

Channel: TheIHMC · 2012 · Science & Technology

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Another lecture in IHMC's award winning lecture series. http://www.ihmc.us

The sprawling way the US has built since WWII has finally been exposed as being completely unsustainable. Since the meltdown, half-finished subdivisions and incomplete streets have cast a pall on real estate values in the outer rings. From WWII until now, there have been more buyers than sellers in the US market, but that is now tipping due to demographic waves, promising a downward pressure on real estate values likely to last for decades. Sprawl will be hardest hit, especially as transportation costs rise, but we can't simply walk away from it because far too many people have their lives' biggest investments there. This talk describes a strategy of recovering from our sprawl addiction by transforming it into compact, mixed-use, walkable, and sustainable places.

Steve has led or contributed to many advances in sustainable place-making and building design. He runs a veritable "skunk works" of sustainability, place-making, and building-making ideas and tools from his office in Miami Beach. He founded the New Urban Guild, which is a group of architects, designers, and other New Urbanists dedicated to sustainable buildings and places native to and inspired by the regions in which they are built. The Guild was instrumental in the creation of the Katrina Cottages concept. Steve's Katrina Cottage VIII, which opened the second generation of Katrina Cottages, was awarded a Charter Award by the Congress for the New Urbanism. The Guild's Project: SmartDwelling initiative sets out to redefine the American home much smaller, smarter, and more sustainable. Steve's SmartDwelling I was featured in the Wall Street Journal's Green House of the Future story alongside designs by three other notable green architects, including William McDonough.

The Guild Foundation is the non-profit educational arm of the Guild; it sponsors the Original Green initiative, plus a number of workshops, tours, and seminars that fill several of the gaps that previously existed between theory and practice.

Steve is also a principal of Mouzon Design, which produces a number of town-building tools and services. His house plans have been featured repeatedly as Home of the Month in Southern Living and Coastal Living. Steve is Town Architect at several new hamlets, villages and neighborhoods around the country, using a unique face-to-face method of design review he developed that many agree is the most effective in use today. Several of his projects are award-winners.

Steve's new book, the Original Green, frames sustainability in common-sense, plain-spoken terms. Bobby Kennedy, Jr. wrote the Foreword. Years ago, Bobby's wife Mary attended the very first Original Green Workshop in New York. Since then, Bobby and Mary have rebuilt their flood-damaged house according to Original Green principles. They have also engaged Steve to design a Katrina Cottage to replace their guest cottage that was destroyed by a falling tree. Steve has also collaborated repeatedly with other notables, including Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk of DPZ and the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, which is Prince Charles' organization.

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