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About John Massengale
John Massengale, AIA, is an international thought leader on the connections between urban design, architecture, walkability, and placemaking. As principal at Massengale & Co. and the author of three books, he has more than 25 years' experience designing projects in Europe and across America and shares with his audiences innovative and proven strategies for success. His planning work spans a range of situations from suburban retrofits and designing new towns to urban infill and urban regeneration. At every scale--from arranging rooms to arranging buildings to organizing street plans--Massengale emphasizes context and the importance of making places where people want to be.
Massengale is co-author with Victor Dover, FAICP, of Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns (Wiley, January 2014) with foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales. Through more than 150 examples and hundreds of photos of streets old and new, Street Design guides readers through what works and what doesn't, and reveals the secrets to designing beautiful streets that encourage people to get out of their cars and walk.
Massengale has been sharing his insight and research on cities and urban design for many years. He was co-author with Robert A.M. Stern and Gregory Gilmartin of New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890-1915 (Rizzoli, 1983), the first architecture history book nominated for a National Book Award, and The Anglo-American Suburb (St. Martin's Press, 1981). A Board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Massengale was previously the founding Chair of CNU New York. He also served as a Director of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art and as a Board member of the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County.
Before founding Massengale & Co., Massengale served as the Town Architect of Seaside, Florida, which Time magazine called "the most astounding design achievement of its era." As an architect, Massengale is known for creative and beautiful work in regional and Classical traditions from New York to New Mexico. An authority on the architecture and urbanism of the Eastern United States, particularly as found New York and New England, he has worked in affordable housing, speculative housing, and historic preservation, and received awards from magazines such as Metropolitan Home and Progressive Architecture as well as from several chapters of the American Institute of Architects. [Published in the New York Times and the Daily News, written for the Wall Street Journal and local papers.]
Massengale has taught architecture and urban design studios at the University of Miami School of Architecture, the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. He holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a Master's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.
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"The best streets in the world's villages, towns, and cities—whether modest or grand—continually remind one that simplicity is part of the recipe for success in this art. The advice of Victor Dover and John Massengale, their historic examples and their own designs, reflect that simplicity."
—From the Foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales
“Street Design is a lucid, practical and altogether indispensable guide for envisioning and creating vibrant 21st century towns and cities. It should be required reading for every local political leader, planner, architect, real estate developer and engaged urban citizen in America."
—Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 and author of True Believers
"We are going to start walking around the places we live again, and as that occurs and becomes normal, we will rapidly redevelop a demand for higher quality in building at the human scale."
—From the Afterword by James Howard Kunstler
“Your charrette traveling library must include the important Street Design book by Victor Dover and John Massengale.”—Bill Lennertz, Executive Director, National Charrette Institute
“What an amazing resource! For those who wish that my book, Walkable City, had pictures, this is the book for you. If either your work or your play includes the making of places, you will find Street Design to be an invaluable tool.” —Jeff Speck, AICP, CNU-A, LEED-AP, Hon. ASLA
Written by two accomplished architects and urban designers, this user-friendly street design manual shows both how to design new streets and enhance existing ones. It offers step-by-step instruction and shares examples of excellent streets, examining the elements that make them successful as well as how they were designed and created. Topics also include strategies for shaping space in the public right-of-way through correct building height to street width ratios, terminated vistas, landscaping, and street geometry. This book is a valuable resource for urban designers, planners, architects, and engineers.
With guest essays from: Kaid Benfield, David Brussat, Javier Cenicacelaya, Hank Dittmar, Andres Duany, Douglas Duany, Emily Glavey, Chip Kaufman, Ethan Kent, Marieanne Khoury-Vogt, Léon Krier, Gianni Longo, Thomas Low, Laura Lyon, Chuck Marohn, Paul Murrain, John Norquist, Stefanos Polyzoides, Gabriele Tagliaventi and Erik Vogt.