Cardo aims to redefine American neighborhoods as “Walkable Cities” through urban design.

Cardo, an urban design and city planning organization, is on a mission to transform American metropolises into walkable cities that positively improve daily life and the beauty of a town.


Minneapolis, St. Paul, Oct. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cardo, an urban design and town planning company, is set to revamp US neighborhoods as walkable cities. This urban design company is the brainchild of Patrick Brunner, an urban designer and futurist who is keen on building a sustainable and eco-friendly environment in the United States. Based in Minnesota, the founder aspires to create a framework for urban design and planning that fosters holistic development throughout the US.

Cardo serves as a link between the architects, landscape architects, traffic engineers, and builders on one side, and the communities on the other. The company acts as a "puzzle solver," fitting the pieces together and preserving or adding character to the local neighborhood and community.

Cardo offers a comprehensive service to build an environmentally friendly city. The services that they provide include form-based code writing, an essential mechanism for downtown revitalization or rejuvenating a neighborhood. Towns and cities typically regulate zoning by how a building is used, not by its shape or form. A form-based code flips this conventional approach to city planning. Through this service, the company helps ensure holistic development that fosters community and protects its long term vision. Once a code or design guideline is in place, Cardo acts as a gatekeeper and gets involved in reviewing builders' and architects' drawings for conformance with a code or architectural guideline.

Brunner is an expert on traditional architecture and urban planning who began his career in New York City. He worked on a number of projects, including master plans, suburban retrofits, and urban design initiatives. He moved to Pittsburgh in 2018 and worked as a project manager, focusing on building community consensus and trust around a neighborhood vision. In 2022, he established Cardo with a similar ideology of focusing on a community’s needs and wishes and translating them into tangible designs and projects. Cardo is both a Latin word and a Roman main street that served as a connector between the marketplace, housing, and civic life.

Despite the fact that the United States is a developed country, people are often forced to commute to and from school, grocery stores, and workplaces. The founder believes that with Cardo's urban planning, he will be able to design beautiful neighborhoods that are walkable and bikeable.

Brunner spent a year in Rome experiencing what it is like to stroll through and live in a truly human-centered city. He wishes to create a similar environment in the United States but with the aesthetics of the local town or place. It's primarily about a pedestrian’s experience strolling through a neighborhood, and focusing on how the buildings complement each other. He is optimistic, predicting that the communities of the United States can be dynamic, diverse, beautiful, resilient, and safe. “We're going to change the world. One neighborhood, one piece of land at a time,” he adds. He further states, “Developments like this don't happen overnight, and they don't happen in a vacuum on the internet without community input and interaction. But they are possible, and the benefits of developing these places are monumental.”

Media Contact:

Name: Patrick Brunner

Email: patrick@cardo.design