Your Town Alabama: Designing Our Future

AIA's 10 Principles of Livable Communities

This is the American Institute of Architects 150th year anniversary. The Birmingham Chapter has partnered with the Alabama Council to promote the 10 Principles of Livable Communities and were awarded a grant from National AIA to promote the 10 Principles. Make sure to keep checking the YTA website for more information about upcoming workshops that will highlight these 10 principles. Here are the principles: whenever working with an architect in your community, make sure that they keep these in mind!

1. Design on a human scale. Compact, pedestrian-friendly communities allow residents to walk to shops, services, cultural resources, and jobs and can reduce traffic congestion and benefit people's health.
2. Provide choices. People want variety in housing, shopping, recreation, transportation, and employment. Variety creates lively places and accommodates residents in different stages of their lives.
3. Encourage mixed-use development. Integrating different land uses and varied building types create vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, and diverse communities.
4. Preserve urban centers. Restoring, revitalizing, and infilling urban centers take advantage of existing streets, services, and buildings and avoid the need for new infrastructure. This helps to curb sprawl and promote stability for city neighborhoods.
5. Vary transportation options. Giving people the option of walking, biking, and using public transit, in addition to driving, reduces traffic, protects the environment, and encourages physical activity.
6. Build vibrant public spaces. Citizens need welcoming, well-defined public places to
   stimulate face-to-face interaction, encourage civic participation, admire public art, and gather for public events.
7. Create a neighborhood identity. A "sense of place" gives neighborhoods a unique character, enhances the walking environment, and creates pride in the community.
8. Protect environmental resources. A well-designed balance of nature and development
   preserves natural systems, protects waterways from pollution, reduces air pollution, and
   protects property values.
9. Conserve landscapes. Open space, farms, and wildlife habitat are essential for
   environmental, recreational, and cultural reasons.
10. Design matters. Design excellence is the foundation of successful and healthy communities.