Right to the City: Equity, Sustainability, and Single-Family Zoning, Part 2

Growing US cities face escalating housing costs, residential and commercial displacement, homelessness, and the suburbanization of poverty. As increasing numbers of households are pushed out of the city by rising housing costs, they are burdened with long commutes and increased transportation costs while their carbon emissions escalate. These challenges are exacerbated by a deeply embedded policy—single-family zoning—that accounts for 75% or more of the land area allotted for housing in many fast-growing US cities. Part 2 of this two-part series outlines policies implemented at the city and state levels to make existing single-family neighborhoods more inclusive, equitable, walkable, and sustainable. It illustrates innovative case studies at the building scale to increase access to these neighborhoods for both renters and homeowners. In addition, it reviews efforts by architects and AIA chapters to address this issue despite the controversy that surrounds it. Each part of Right to the City can be taken as an individual course.

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Approximately 1 hour, 15 minutes. Delivered online, at your own pace.

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Presenter Information

Name: Rick Mohler

Title: Contributing Author, NCARB Continuing Education Committee

Background:

Richard (Rick) Mohler, FAIA, NCARB, is a licensed architect and Associate Professor of Architecture in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, where he teaches design studio and professional practice. He leverages synergies between his teaching, research, practice, and advocacy to promote just, policy-driven cities that are shaped by principled design, addressing all scales of urban experience while building connections between the academy, profession, government, and community. Rick has over thirty-five years of experience in professional practice with over twenty-five years as a principal of his own firm. He has been recognized with over a dozen local and regional AIA design awards and in national and international urban design and housing competitions, and his professional work has been published extensively. He was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2021.

Rick won a 2021 ACSA/AIA Housing Design Education Award, and his students have been recognized twenty times in regional, national, and international student design competitions and awards programs. He won a 2020 R+D Award from Architect magazine for ADUniverse, an online application for homeowners to determine the physical and financial feasibility of building an accessory dwelling unit on their parcel. Rick is an effective advocate for housing affordability who writes and speaks frequently at AIA and ACSA national conferences and symposia and other venues. He is an Urban@UW Fellow, Affiliate Fellow of the UW Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, former cochair of the AIA Seattle Public Policy Board, and cochair of the Seattle Planning Commission.

He received BA and Master of Architecture degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and lives with his family in a single-family home (with an accessory dwelling unit) of his own design in Seattle.

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Right to the City: Equity, Sustainability, and Single-Family Zoning, Part 2

Presenter Information

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