Projects

  • San Dimas, California: A new light rail station located at the western terminus of the City's main street provides the catalyst for a new planning vision with robust preservation strategies that will maintain the downtown's historic character.

  • Montclair, California: The North Montclair Transit Village Specific Plan mitigates the City’s sprawl by establishing a framework and development strategy for a pedestrian-oriented retail and residential district surrounding the city’s regional transit center.

  • Fresno, California: This new plan addresses the long-term challenges of Fresno’s 7,200-acre core area, including the Fulton Corridor, the historic Fulton Mall and surrounding neighborhoods.

  • Los Angeles, California: Leveraging recent public investment in four new Gold Line stations, this new plan will enhance the public realm through a variety of innovative design, landscape, transportation, economic and preservation strategies.

  • Paso Robles, California: The Uptown/Town Centre Specific Plan provides a vision for a 1,000-acre, 245-block planning area, merging rich historic traditions with contemporary needs.

  • Santa Ana, California: Santa Ana’s historic center is being transformed, rectifying the urban renewal-based practices of the past 40 years and leveraging the area’s historic and cultural character to attract new investment and reaffirm the City's identity.

  • Downey, California: The redevelopment of Downey Studios creates a true town center on an historic 80-acre property in one of Southern California's Gateway Cities, the birthplace of the Apollo space program.

  • Freeport, New York: The Building a Better Freeport Vision Plan has become a regional and national model for revitalizing aging commercial corridors with transit-oriented development to establish economic vitality and community place-making.

  • Hercules, California: Hercules Town Center, a mixed-use transit-oriented development just north of San Francisco, integrates a proposed train and ferry terminal into the City’s fabric and defines a mixed-intensity residential quarter that cascades to San Pablo Bay.

  • San Antonio, Texas: A form-based code with a detailed implementation strategy provides the framework for transforming an under-performing area immediately north of downtown San Antonio into a lively pedestrian-oriented district.

  • Pasadena, California: Moule & Polyzoides developed design guidelines for the City of Pasadena that promote architectural and design excellence in the residential, retail and mixed-use development found along many of Pasadena’s principal corridors.

  • Ventura, California: The new master plan and form-based code for the 50-year-old, 330-acre Ventura Harbor District encourages new development, enhances recreation and establishes a highly sustainable infrastructure.

  • Cotati, California: The faded downtown of Cotati, a Sonoma County city with a rich local history, has been revitalized with a charrette-led specific plan and form-based code that articulates historically sensitive restoration and new development.

  • Santa Paula, California: The 500-acre East Area One Plan is organized as three walkable neighborhoods and a civic facilities district, preserving agricultural land in the hills.

  • Ventura, California: The Community Memorial Hospital District Master Plan introduces a replacement hospital building into a revitalized new hospital district.

  • City of Sunland Park, New Mexico:This master plan for Sunland Park, an important cross-border region, includes a new international border crossing, a downtown district with new civic and entertainment centers and a mixed-use corridor that includes residential and retail development.

  • Placentia, California: This 110-acre transit-oriented district restores Placita Santa Fe, Placentia’s original town, and creates two new neighborhoods on derelict industrial land.

  • Ventura, California: The Ventura Downtown Code is one of the first Form-Based Zoning Codes in California—the result of an extensive and detailed analysis of downtown Ventura’s existing streets, blocks, buildings, public open spaces and landscape.

  • Beverly Hills, California: The character of the Golden Triangle has been strengthened by transforming the area into a park-once district, adding improved landscape and lighting, and adopting a code to guide the design of future buildings.

  • Azusa, California: The Azusa General Plan and Development Code transforms the City of Azusa from a typical postwar suburb of production house tracts and commercial strips into a town of distinct, compact neighborhoods surrounding a vibrant downtown.

  • Azusa, California: A component of Azusa’s new General Plan and Development Code, Azusa Station established the new Gold Line light rail station as the northern anchor to the City’s downtown.

  • Los Angeles, California: The transformation of downtown Los Angeles into a highly connected, 24-hour, living-working city is being guided by the 30-year Los Angeles Downtown Strategic Plan.

Recognition

Press

  • Civano is a test case for New Urbanism versus sprawl. The former generates more value according to economic, environmental, and social indicators.

  • Elizabeth Moule & Stefanos Polyzoides discuss their practice, New Urbanism, their partnership and their life together in Pasadena.

  • Los Angeles Times interview with Stefanos Polyzoides, who reflects on his early years and education, the New Urbanism, pet peeves and current projects—plus living, loving, and working with his partner, Elizabeth Moule.

  • A guide to form-based coding, with a forward by Stefanos Polyzoides.

  • The Los Angeles Times reports about the controversy between New Urbanist and Modernist architects stirred by the post-Hurricane Katrina charrette in Biloxi.

  • New York Times article about the national charrette that provided emergency urban design services for the reconstruction of Biloxi, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

  • The Planning Report interviews Stefanos Polyzoides about the opportunities that the Los Angeles region faces.

  • Los Angeles Times article profiling the partners and the philosophy behind their practice.

  • John Dutton's book explores how many American architects have reclaimed urban and suburban land development as an important, contemporary architectural issue. Included are critiques of Alvarado Center, Hueco New Town, Civano, Los Angeles Downtown Strategic Plan and Playa Vista.

  • Catalog to the 1994 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which included Playa Vista and the Los Angeles Downtown Strategic Plan.

  • A guide to the New Urbanism, with case studies of many pioneering projects, including three by Moule & Polyzoides: Playa Vista, University of Arizona Highland District Master Plan and the Los Angeles Downtown Strategic Plan.

  • A survey of Los Angeles' most provocative buildings and landmarks, with an architectural analysis of the entire period of the city's development. Includes contextual discussion of several Moule & Polyzoides projects: Pomona College Harwood-Lyon Court, Beverly Hills Golden Triangle Enhancement, Los Angeles Downtown Strategic Plan and Playa Vista.

Talks

  • Stefanos Polyzoides spoke to the Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association about form-based codes and how such planning tools can help guide thoughtful development that will preserve and protect Pasadena's valuable historic, architectural and cultural resources.

  • Presentation by Stefanos Polyzoides at CNU XVI: New Urbanism and the Booming Metropolis

  • Presentation by Stefanos Polyzoides to AIA Pasadena & Foothill Chapter, Pasadena California

  • Associate Alan Loomis participated in panel discussion about form-based codes and transit-oriented development at Rail~Volution, Los Angeles.

  • Seminar at California American Planning Association Conference, Santa Barbara, California

  • Seminar sponsored by Moule & Polyzoides and Crawford Multari & Clark Associates

  • Panel at “Plan Diego,” American Planning Association Conference, San Diego

News

Thoughts

  • The New Campus and Village at Cañada Larga for the Brooks Institute of Photography in Ventura, California incorporates a comprehensive sustainability strategy in both planning and architecture.

  • Foreword to Form-Based Codes: A Guide for Planners, Urban Designers, Municipalities, and Developers by Daniel G. Parolek, AIA, Karen Parolek and Paul C. Crawford, FAICP (Wiley 2008)

  • The form of the New Urbanism is realized by the deliberate assembly of streets, blocks and buildings.

  • Conventional zoning was meant to promote the health and prosperity of the public by regulating zones of exclusive use; in practice, however, appropriate use became much less important than the entitled amount of gross usable space and the physical envelopes of buildings.