"Thank God for hospitals," I said to myself a few weeks ago while speeding to the local emergency room, doubled over in the back of an ambulance. Only after the painkillers had deadened a hitherto-undetected kidney stone could I begin to think about hospitals from an urban-design standpoint. >>read more

Making a public park out of a Superfund site is a rarity. If Maywood, a city in the old industrial belt of South Los Angeles County, ultimately succeeds in creating a 7.3-acre park along the Los Angeles River, the result would be inspirational. >>read more

Developer Jeff Dritley acknowledges he did not set out to run a municipal airport when he first started talking to the City of Hawthorne two years ago. Dritley, who is managing director of Kearny Real Estate Company, is a developer with industrial and office projects on his resume, not necessarily the bona fides for running a general aviation airport for profit. Yet Dritley had a very good reason for agreeing to assume management responsibilities for the airport late last year. >>read more

I recently had an unsettling experience in a parking lot in Lompoc. I was standing in the middle of an enormous asphalt parking lot, surrounded by large buildings emblazoned with the logos of national retail chains, and, for a split second, I didn't know where I was. >>read more

Here is a list of one-liners about suburbia, inspired by comedian Jeff Foxworthy, originator of the popular "you-know-you're-a-redneck-when" jokes. You know you're in suburbia when: The only ethnic restaurants you can find are Italian and Chinese. The churches are all bunched together in a "religious-use" district. The synagogues have no Hebrew lettering on them, only English transliterations that make sense in no language whatsoever...

Behold the common skateboard, a machine that can give new life to parks, especially those areas that previously seemed unusable. Little more than a plank of wooden laminate, this machine is shaped like a surfboard.

Any comparison between Cal Poly Pomona and a hermit crab is likely to be met with skepticism. It is absurd to suggest that a 1,050-acre university campus in Los Angeles County has anything in common with a crustacean scuttling across the ocean floor. Except for one thing, that is: Both the university and the deep-sea creature want to set up housekeeping in structures left behind by others.

What should a historic district look like? The question is a philosophical sand trap -- one which the City of Benicia is trying to avoid. >>read more

One of the peculiarities of architects is their love of design method - and their love, equally great, of talking about it. The problem is, almost nobody really gives a toss about design method. Sometimes, however, design method is genuinely interesting, such as the five-year process to design and approve the Viewpoint School, a private academy for 1,200 students in the City of Calabasas. >>read more

In 1999, the landowners of the Broadview Water District (BWD) in the grasslands of western Fresno County collectively decided that it might be in their best interest to quit farming their land. Five years later, they appear on the verge of closing a deal to sell their land and water supply in an unprecedented deal. >>read more