BookS & booklets
Research, thoughts, theories, and findings that we’ve explored and shared with the world.
Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature
Sustainable Urbanism is both an urgent call to action and a comprehensive introduction to “sustainable urbanism,” the emerging and growing design reform movement that combines the creation and enhancement of walkable and diverse places with high-performance infrastructure and buildings.
Authored by Doug Farr, co-chair of the development of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) initiative,
Purchase Sustainable Urbanism here.
Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future
Doug Farr’s second book, Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future, poses one big question: how can we make the world we want in the least possible time? The answer touches on a good many things: our brain’s wiring, civilization’s long arc of progress, the unique and urgent challenges we face today, how long change normally takes, and ways to speed it up. The storytelling blends prose, graphics, and imagery. For individuals who are passionate about making the world we want, this book is for you!
Learn more about Sustainable Nation here. Purchase the book here.
Addressing Resistance to Mixed-Income Communities Through Empathetic Planning
This essay introduces the concept of empathetic planning: planning that elicits empathy from community members during a public planning process in order to move community planning goals forward. It is one of a group of essays in the What Works Volume issued by the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities of Case Western Reserve University’s Mandel School.
A Little TLC
Learn more about the TLC approach (Tactical, Lean, C[limax) developed by Farr Associates for the Downtown Rockford Strategic Plan.
This process focused on implementation strategies for the previously made recommendations, rather than just creating another shelf document that is years from realization.
Living Building Challenge: Chicago Collaborative Water Petal Implementation Guide
A Resource Guide for Chicago-area project teams considering a pursuit of the Water Petal through the Living Building Challenge.
The Implementation Guide discusses local resources, challenges, and opportunities on the way toward achieving Net Positive Water.
Design Behavior for Sustainability
A report from the Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on behavioral science for design, on which Doug Farr participated.
LEED 2009 for Neighborhood Development Rating System
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)—organizations that represent leading design professionals, progressive builders and developers, and the environmental community—have come together to develop a rating system for neighborhood planning and development based on the combined principles of smart growth, New Urbanism, and green infrastructure and building. The goal of this partnership is to establish a national leadership standard for assessing and rewarding environmentally superior green neighborhood development practices within the framework of the LEED® Green Building Rating System™.
LIVING CITIES: Transforming APEC Cities into Models of Sustainability by 2030
Since its founding 22 years ago, APEC has pursued policies that support free and open trade and investment as the surest way to accomplish greater common prosperity and stability in the Asia-Pacific Rim region.
This report, co-authored by Farr Associates and Northwestern University, makes the case that APEC should step up to a position of global “green” leadership by advocating its member countries to develop and redevelop their cities in the highly sustainable manner of “Living Cities” in the near term.
Code-Ready Sustainable Planning
This article discusses the types of gaps communities may have between plan recommendations and code provisions and provides a primer on how planners can use quantifiable planning objectives to guide the development of zoning provisions.