CNU 17: A Hotbed of Housing Design Innovation

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When the Wall Street Journal devoted several pages this week to featuring four “green homes of the future,” one of those homes was by CNU member and two-time Charter-Award-winning architect Steve Mouzon, who will share his design expertise in several sessions at CNU 17. Unlike the three other homes featured, Mouzon's design (shown here) didn't look particularly futuristic, though every inch of it was green, with features ranging from solar panels embedded in the roof to "melon cradles" that allow heavy vegetables and fruits to grow up walls and a central "breeze chimney," an ages-old form of air conditioning. The design fits Mouzon's philosophy of Original Green, which draws on centuries of traditional design knowledge to create designs for sustainable and "lovable" buildings.

Two big names in traditional design, Marianne Cusato and Andrés Duany, will join Mouzon in a much-anticipated Friday session on housing for the "new era" of weak economies and energy volatility. With the changing economic climate presenting an opportunity to redefine home design in favor of smaller, more efficient dwellings that perform better environmentally and cost less to build and inhabit, two initiatives—the SmartDwelling and the New Economy Home—seek to integrate the best lifestyle elements of the McMansion decade with the efficiency, endurance and elegance of traditional architecture. Learn about "new" forms of housing and their benefits given today's state of affairs. Tim Halbur, Managing Editor of Planetizen, moderates.

And don't miss Ben Bolgar and Hank Dittmar of the Prince's Foundation with Steve Mouzon in an in-depth Thursday New Urbanism 202 seminar on integrating craft, architecture, and urban design in the practice of New Urbanism. Countering the critique of many new urbanist developments that the architecture and build quality do not measure up to the quality of the urbanism—and addressing the fear that desperation in the development community will lead to a race to the bottom in terms of craftsmanship—this session will examine the role of long-lived, resilient and quality-centered approach to building. It will examine the tools new urbanists use to move from the master plan to the architecture and construction, while exploring the potential for good craft-based jobs to be a factor in a resurgent economy of value rather than consumption, looking at examples in New Orleans, Jamaica, and Britain. Only at CNU 17. Register now.