Trilobite Design

Sometime around the 1970s, America forgot how to build cities. We froze our neighborhoods in amber. We stopped experimenting with new housing types and vibrant infrastructure, and instead trapped ourselves in an endless loop of building the exact same things: freeways, downtown office towers, and sprawling single-family subdivisions.

If you want to understand the entire development mentality behind Trilobite Design, you will want to read Benjamin Schneider’s incredible new book, The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the City-Building Revolution. It is practically a thesis for our entire practice.

Schneider argues that "city-building is a lost art." He points out that the urban landscape isn't just a backdrop; it determines the kind of life you are able to live. Our current housing crisis, our dependence on cars, and our fraying communities are the direct result of clinging to these outdated 20th-century development patterns.

This is exactly why we are so relentless about pushing for systemic improvements. The need for Single-Stair mid-rises and urban infill isn't just a design trend, it is the literal toolkit we need to revive the lost art of city-building. I look out the window of the Trilobite office in Northside every day and see exactly what Schneider is talking about. This neighborhood is vibrant because it was built before we made this kind of density illegal. It's time to legalize Northside-style development citywide.

Cities are never truly "finished." They must breathe and evolve lot by lot. Schneider's book is a brilliant reminder of what happens when we stop dreaming, and a roadmap for how we can start again. Highly recommend picking this one up!

If you're tired of seeing the same block-swallowing, uninspired 5-over-1 apartment buildings popping up in every neighborhood, I have good news: The math is finally changing. 🏗️

At Trilobite Design, we know that bad architecture is rarely a lack of imagination, it's a byproduct of outdated building codes. Specifically, the "double-loaded corridor" mandate.

The new ROAD to Housing Act is finally giving us the green light to build Point Access Blocks (Single-Stair mid-rises). This is how we kill the 5-over-1 monolith and return to fine-grain, bespoke urban infill that actually fits on our historic infill Cincinnati lots.

No more dark hallways. Better floor plans. True cross-ventilation.

We break down the architectural math in our latest blog post. Let’s build better cities. 👇
https://trilobitedesign.com/the-end-of-the-5-over-1-monolith-why-the-single-stair-revolution-is-the-key-to-better-housing/

In Radical Cartography, William Rankin shows us a powerful truth: maps don’t just display data. How they organize colors, graphics, and structure actively manipulates our emotions and our interpretation. I love maps and also learned a lot about presentation and visuals.

Architecture has some of the same problems.

The "standard map" of residential building codes only shows one version of information. Most builders ignore the science that we know how to construct better buildings that can improve indoor air quality, use less energy, and last longer.