https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com Writing on American architecture and the built environment. Essays, building notes, and field observations from Jackson Laurie, based in Miami, Florida. en-us Copyright 2025 Jackson Laurie jackson@jacksonlauriearchitect.com (Jackson Laurie) jackson@jacksonlauriearchitect.com (Jackson Laurie) Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/favicon-192.png https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/little-havana-and-the-politics-of-preservation https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/little-havana-and-the-politics-of-preservation Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Preservation Miami Culture Little Havana is one of the most culturally significant neighborhoods in the United States. It is also one of the most threatened. The question of who gets to decide what is worth saving is not an architectural question. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/the-return-of-the-american-street https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/the-return-of-the-american-street Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Urban Design Streets Walkability After seventy years of designing cities for cars, American planners are rediscovering the street as a place for people. The results are uneven, but the direction is right. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/wynwood-and-the-art-district-formula https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/wynwood-and-the-art-district-formula Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Miami Gentrification Public Art Wynwood turned murals into real estate value. The artists who made it are mostly gone. What replaced them is a lesson in how American cities consume their own creative class. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/miami-architecture-sea-level https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/miami-architecture-sea-level Tue, 18 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Miami Climate Infrastructure Miami is building faster than any American city. It is also sinking. The tension between those two facts is the defining architectural story of our moment. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/what-gets-demolished-and-why https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/what-gets-demolished-and-why Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Preservation Florida Urban Policy The decision to tear down a building is rarely about the building. It is about land value, political will, and the stories a city chooses to tell about itself. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/the-problem-with-new-urbanism https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/the-problem-with-new-urbanism Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Urban Design Florida Planning New Urbanism promised walkable streets and civic life. What it delivered, in many Florida developments, was a stage set. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/floridas-brutalist-civic-buildings https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/floridas-brutalist-civic-buildings Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Brutalism Florida Preservation The Brutalist buildings that Florida built in the 1960s and 1970s were acts of civic confidence. Most of them are now threatened. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/death-of-the-american-mall https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/death-of-the-american-mall Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Retail Public Space Florida The enclosed mall was a Florida invention, in spirit if not in patent. Its decline is a story about what Americans wanted from public space. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/parking-as-urban-policy https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/parking-as-urban-policy Wed, 19 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Parking Zoning Urban Policy Minimum parking requirements are the single most destructive zoning instrument in American urban history. A close reading of what they did and what they left behind. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/the-highway-and-the-city https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/essays/the-highway-and-the-city Thu, 05 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Infrastructure Urban History Race The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 reorganized American cities more thoroughly than any other single policy. A reading of what it built and what it destroyed. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/sarasota-school-buildings https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/sarasota-school-buildings Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Building Notes Florida Architecture Six buildings from the Sarasota School of Architecture, visited over two days. Notes on what survives, what has been altered, and what has been lost. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/miami-city-hall https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/miami-city-hall Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Building Notes Miami The 1958 Miami City Hall is one of the few mid-century civic buildings still in active use in the city. A close reading of its facade and its waterfront context. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/brutalist-federal-buildings-miami https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/brutalist-federal-buildings-miami Thu, 11 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Building Notes Brutalism Three federal buildings in downtown Miami, all built between 1964 and 1977. Notes on their condition, their context, and their uncertain futures. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/paul-rudolph-florida https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/building-notes/paul-rudolph-florida Fri, 07 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Building Notes Paul Rudolph Paul Rudolph spent his formative years in Florida. A survey of the buildings he designed here, from his early houses to his later civic work. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/journal/walk-through-downtown-miami https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/journal/walk-through-downtown-miami Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Journal Miami The Flagler Street pedestrian mall was a mistake that took decades to undo. Walking it now, you can still see the seams. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/journal/why-the-sarasota-school-matters https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/journal/why-the-sarasota-school-matters Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Journal Florida Architecture Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell were building a Florida that took the climate seriously. Most of what followed did not. https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/journal/case-for-saving-brutalist-buildings https://jacksonlauriearchitect.com/journal/case-for-saving-brutalist-buildings Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jackson Laurie Journal Brutalism They are ugly to people who have not looked at them carefully. They are irreplaceable to anyone who has.