Steve Mouzon

Freedom can be both freedom from and freedom to.

Don't work furiously. Work curiously; it's much more fun. So many interesting things lie beyond the Curiosity Portal.

A building that needs a certification to tell you it's green probably isn’t.

If you fake it, fake it well. This is a frightful and fragile fake of brick, with an absurdly short lifespan, unlike the real brick to the left.

It is utterly impossible to continue what I do not begin, including a journey.

Putting up buildings inferior to their predecessors should be considered architectural vandalism.

Who must have expressways in cities? Not city-dwellers; they're already there. Expressways in cities are a must only for suburban commuters. Help people live happily in the city to reduce expressway scars. originalgreen.org/resources/in...

Build as if you’re building for the ages, not just the eight years you may be planning to inhabit this place. Leave good traces of who you are and what you stand for in the places you build, and see to it that they lift both your spirits and the spirits of those who come after.

Build as if walking to school was normal and legal again. This means putting more eyes on the street to see the kids as they go, and also kids walking together rather than alone. Walk them to school or walk them home if you can, or befriend a neighbor who can. Or do it together.

Build as if you care about the youngest and the oldest. They usually don’t drive. The youngest are distracted by the wonders of childhood and the oldest are slowed by the rigors of age. Build streets safe for them, and you’ve built streets safe for us all.

Build as if your neighborhood will be sustained by the young who can afford to move in, rather than becoming a geriatric enclave that dies with you. They need accessory dwellings, efficient multi-family housing, and other places they can afford. Around the block, not across town.

Build as if you want your kids to stay, not move away. In their teen years, don’t bore them with subdivisions and office parks. If a Millennial won’t work there, don’t ask your kids to play there. After school or service, where can they afford to live in your neighborhood?

Build as if your land could nourish you. A home garden won’t supplant all trips to the grocery, but the freshest food comes from closest around. And why not plant edible things? Don’t let your yard lay fallow while you spend more of your money at the grocery store.

Build as if your neighbors were your friends, not just your subdivision cohabitators. You’ll need a front porch for visiting, but also a very private courtyard where you can be alone with your family because we are at our best when we have places to be both public and private.

Build as if daylight were your first light, and artificial light was reserved for the night. The windows you’ll add will also be great for cross-ventilation in warmer months, and everything in rooms with light on two sides (including the people) will be more beautiful.

Build as if your children will inherit your house and pass it down to future generations. To do this, they need to live there after they turn 18, so design the 3-generation house, which is necessary to keep a home in the family. Why live somewhere you don’t want to keep?

Build as if we had no cars so you can make a living where you’re living and walk to the grocery store. Power yourself artificially to distant places when you have to, but travel under your own power on everyday trips. You’ll be lighter, healthier, and happier by doing so.

Build as if you had only the sun to warm and the breezes to cool. Entice yourself outside with great outdoor rooms to condition yourself to the local environment so you can throw the windows open most days. On extreme days, use small but highly efficient AC equipment.

Build as if you only had a wheelbarrow, and you’ll preserve much more of the character of the land and streams, and also many of the trees. Your lots will be more valuable and far less boring in the early years than land scraped flat as per standard engineering practice.

Build as if you can’t afford to throw it away, and you’ll build smaller, better, and more meaningfully. Small is the new luxury. We indulged the luxury of throwaway places long after World War II, but discovered they were no luxury at all, but lowered our spirits at every turn.

LEED is absolutely perfect for about 1% of the world's population.

Shutters are things that shut. Things that screw on the wall and do nothing aren’t shutters. They're "screw-on do-nothings."

Mies was wrong. Less isn't more. Less is better. More is worse. Choose quality over quantity. Better over bigger.

Working at home should be a basic human right. If it were harmful, humanity would have perished long ago.

The machine's answer to hard ground is a bigger plow. Nature's answer is a gentle rain.

That which can reproduce and live sustainably is green. This is the standard of life. Life is that process which creates all things green.

Benefit of a Unified Life: the people I love, things I love, and things I do largely coincide: others say “I'm going to work”; I say “I'm going to live.”

Don’t buy the lie about a war on cars. They’ve been waging a WAR ON WALKING for a century. #UrbanTruth #WarOnWalking

Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.

There is no stronger indicator of a seriously flawed urban code than buffer requirements. Excellent codes encourage buildings and their landscapes to be good neighbors, not artifacts that must hide their ugliness.

Solar Is Now the Cheapest Way to Produce Energy in Human History - why are there still some detractors? I understand fossil fuel industries, protecting their dinosaur sources, but who else doesn’t prefer less expensive energy?

Must-watch @ noon ET today! New Urbanism 2.0 Andres Duany has controversial arguments and compelling critiques on where the movement went wrong and how it can be renewed! Register here: newurbanism.app.neoncrm.com/forms/otpb-n...

WATCH: The BEST public art is MORE than just art — it’s functional too. This really smart integrated art in a recent project in central OSLO draws you in, supports both place-making and way-finding, and reveals all the mid-block nooks and crannies that you might NEVER know about without that art!

My favorite quote from a Dutch traffic engineer: if you need a sign, it’s a bad design. Photo: @urbancyclinginstitute

My first time ever with a $50+ tank of gas in Tuscaloosa.

Of all the words that should never again be used in real estate, "luxury" tops the list because it's totally meaningless. Thanks to @bobbyfijan.bsky.social for the image.

Hey Alabama people, check this out! Of the top 100 best places to live in the US in 2026, Huntsville is #1 in 5 of 9 livability metrics, including the top overall livability metric! livability.com/best-places/... I was born there, but had very little to do with this, but can certainly understand it.

This isn't a hypothetical data center. This is the University of Alabama's nearly-complete High-Performance Computing Center. Don't yet know its noise level, but they don't have to be ugly, and can be good neighbors to the buildings around them.

Dead Internet Theory, and how it's going: apple.news/A1_DFQuzKSA-... Might there be a register or some other device someday soon to classify sites as 100% human, 100% AI, and hybrid? originalgreen.org, for example, is 100% human.

Never forget that when Seoul, Korea removed the Cheonggyecheon expressway in 2003 and replaced it with a restored stream, 1000 acre park and improved public transit, not only did it TRANSFORM the city’s public life and economic success, but the car traffic got better. The car traffic got BETTER.

Total driving in the US last year was over half a light-year! Let that sink in.

Car dependence is not inevitable... it is the result of planning choices that have pushed daily needs farther away. The real goal of urban planning should be clear: bring essential services closer, improve accessibility, and give people back their time. usa.streetsblog.org/2026/04/27/u...

NEW: The One-Hour City Conspiracy! “Here's the REAL conspiracy: Too many people are forced into car-dependent lives, with more health harms, crashes, noise, air pollution, social isolation —& less space for everything our streets should be giving us.” Thanks @usa.streetsblog.org #1HourCityConspiracy

So very well put, Professor! I'm likely to use the 1 hour-15 minute distinction widely, and encourage others to as well!

Bravo, Sir!!! The term "masterclass" is used loosely so often, but your address to Congress today sets a standard rarely approached, and I for one, greatly appreciate it, as I suspect millions of my countrymen do as well!

We need raised crosswalks everywhere. A level crossing prioritizes human movement and accessibility, while the physical rise acts as forced friction, demanding speed compliance from motorists. We must stop relying on signs and start relying on physical design.

An app in a restaurant is like a front door in a building: a first impression. What’s the first impression in your business?

If you want to know a little about who I am by where I'm from, Huntsville, Alabama is where "Splashdown!" is bigger than "Touchdown!" It was a great scene in Big Spring Park yesterday for the watch party at the Art Museum: youtu.be/R_67II5vrjA?...