Nico Larco

University of Oregon

https://www.urbanismnext.org

Biographical Abstracts

Nico Larco, a member of the American Institute of Architects, is an urban designer, architect, and professor. He leads ELEMENT/Urban Design, a design and consulting firm. He is a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Urbanism Next Center and co-directs of the Sustainable Cities Institute. He is also a strategic advisor and researcher at TNO, a Dutch national think tank.

Larco researches and teaches sustainable urban design. He developed the Sustainable Urban Design Framework, is the lead author of the Sustainable Urban Design Handbook (2024), and assists cities on how best to apply these principles and approaches. His work around Urbanism Next is focused on how technological advances such as shared mobility, self-driving cars, e-commerce and the sharing economy are changing city form and development. Larco assists cities in future-proofing projects to thrive amid these advances, has run workshops and charrettes nationally and internationally on sustainable urban design, and has coordinated work in this area with various municipal and state agencies across North America and in Europe.

Larco has published in various academic and professional journals and his work has been covered by Wired, the New York Times, Fast Company, Bloomberg News, Forbes, the Financial Times, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2012-13 in Spain at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya and at the University of Navarra, a visiting professor at TU Delft in 2018-19, and a Fulbright Scholar in 2019 at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile. He has testified on his research to the U.S. Congress, has worked on research for the European Commission, and was a speaker at TEDx College Park.

Areas of Expertise

• Urban design
• Sustainability
• Architecture
• Transportation
• Emerging technology