Previously an ongoing publication, WebUrbanist is now a passive archive made up of over 5,000 articles written across 30 categories. Between 2007 and 2020, WU covered urban art, architecture, design, and technology, exploring built environments around the world and reaching a total audience of over 100,000,000 visitors.

Creator and Contributors:

Kurt Kohlstedt founded WebUrbanist as the first (and flagship) in a series of design-centric publications including Dornob, Gajitz, and WebEcois These days, he is focused on work at 99% Invisible, an popular radio show, podcast, and website about design. He also co-authored The 99% Invisible City with show host Roman Mars.

Contributing WU authors included SA Rogers, Delana Barnes, Steve Levenstein and others over the years. The gifted designer/developer duo of Duck Brigade crafted the current version of this website and its clever negative space logo. Mike Waggoner has tenaciously kept the site up and running through good times and downtimes.

Press and Publicity:

Over the years, WebUrbanist has been featured on a number of other media outlets and popular blogs including The Guardian, The BBC, CNN, NPR, TIME, as well as ArchDaily, Architizer, Atlas Obscura, BoingBoing, BuzzFeed, Citylab, Curbed, FOX, Gawker, Gizmodo, Martha Stewart Living, Mental Floss, MSNBC, Neatorama, Streetsblog, WebWare and Wired Magazine.

Research and Reference:

Kurt’s research on WU into urban design and adaptive reuse has been integrated into city planning research at MIT, featured as a case study by architecture faculty, and cited as a primary source for the study of transient semiotics in the peer-reviewed journal Societies. His analysis of sustainable systems has been referenced in studies published in Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy; and architectural critiques, such as the “Renderings vs. Reality” series, are cited within the ResearchGate database by scholars.

Through WebUrbanist, Kurt became known for his coverage of modular housing, vertical farming, cycling infrastructure, big-box reuse, street markings, abandoned places, transforming furniture, container architecture, planning history, urban camouflage, uncanny graffiti, and everyday design. This in turn set the stage for him to write a New York Times Best Seller in 2020.

Needless to say: I’ve come a long way, thanks in no small part to WU fans who have since followed my work forward to 99pi.

Stay curious, fellow urbanists!

-= Kurt Kohlstedt