Marina Khoury

A partner at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company and Director of its Washington D.C. office since 2007, Marina Khoury is a licensed architect with 20 years of professional practice. Her 17 years at DPZ have brought her extensive national and international experience in sustainable development, community planning and form-based coding throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East. She was the project director for Miami 21, and was instrumental in helping to successfully transform the City of Miami's use-based zoning code into the largest-known adoption of a form-based code. She speaks widely on issues related to smart growth and creating affordable, sustainable, and walkable communities. Having lived in Florida until 2007, Khoury served in a number of community leadership positions. She became the first female architect appointed to the City of Miami's Urban Development Review Board in 2001. She taught as an Adjunct Professor at the Design and Architecture High School (DASH) from 1993-1999 and was a member of their Advisory Board from 2000-2007. Marina is an active member of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), and a Board member of the CNU-DC chapter from 2007-2012. She currently serves on the following Boards: Sustainia Council, the Resource Council for the Form-Based Code Institute (FBCI), the Center for Applied Transect Study (CATS), and the Transect Codes Council (TCC). She is a member of the New Urban Guild and a LEED Accredited professional. Marina earned two masters degrees, in architecture and urban planning from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after attending the “Ecole Speciale D'Architecture” in Paris, France.

Leaning Toward Live-Work Units

Strong economic, demographic and household trends reveal a tremendous pent-up demand to use homes for employment, pressuring the marketplace to accommodate all types of live-work units. Yet for the past half-century, live-work units have essentially been made illegal or discouraged in most places. Changes to zoning and building codes, as well as management and permitting procedures, are required to allow the full spectrum of live-work options to be restored.