JEFF B. SPECK

Jeff Speck is Director of Town Planning at the firm of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., Architects and Town Planners (DPZ).  DPZ is a leader in the national movement called the New Urbanism, which seeks to end suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment. The firm first received international recognition as the designers of Seaside, Florida, and has since completed designs for over two hundred and fifty new towns, regional plans, and community revitalization projects. These designs are having a significant influence in the practice and direction of planning and development in the United States.    The firm’s method of integrating planning with accompanying design codes and regulations is currently being applied in towns and cities in areas ranging from ten to ten thousand acres throughout the United States and in Canada, Germany, Belgium, England, Jamaica, Australia, Turkey, and the Philippines.  DPZ has received numerous awards, including two State of Florida Governor’s Urban Design Awards for Excellence.  The new town of Seaside, Florida was described by Time magazine as “the most astounding design achievement of its era.”   Speck joined Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk as a Project Manager in 1993. He received a Masters in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he studied under Raphael Moneo, Fred Koetter, and Jorge Silvetti; he also served as Head Teaching Fellow in Architectural History at Harvard College.  He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Williams College, and also holds a Masters in Art History, earned as a Syracuse University Fellow in Florence, Italy.  Prior to his graduate study, Speck worked as a Financial Analyst in the Housing Group at the investment bank of First Boston.  DPZ projects that he is currently managing include new neighborhoods in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Toronto, Germany, and Belgium.  With Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Speck is the co-author of the book Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, published March, 2000 by North Point / Farrar Straus Giroux. With the same co-authors, he is currently completing The Smart Growth Manual, to be published next fall by McGraw Hill.