Daniel G. Parolek

Daniel Parolek is an architect, urban designer, and the founding principal of Opticos Design, a sought-after company of thought leaders in urban placemaking, innovative housing design and policy, and zoning reform for walkable urbanism. Daniel has been featured in many high-profile publications including The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Next City, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and Curbed. Daniel has championed the Missing Middle Housing movement by creating the concept, launching missingmiddlehousing.com, and writing the book “Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis,” which is available now for purchase from Island Press.

As a thought leader in zoning reform efforts, Daniel co-authored the book Form-Based Codes: A Guide for Planners, Urban Designers, Municipalities, and Developers, with Karen Parolek and Paul C. Crawford (named one of Planetizen’s best books in 2009), and co-founded the non-profit think tank, the Form-Based Code Institute which is now part of Smart Growth America. He and his firm have lead some of the most progressing form-based code applications in the country in Cincinnati, OH, and Beaufort County, SC, and also internationally, writing Gabon, Africa's first development code as an implementation tool for a sustainable growth strategy they also participated in.

He lead the master plan and architecture/building type design for what will be the country's largest car-free community, Culdesac Tempe, and the country's first Missing Middle Neighborhood, Prairie Queen, which now has 132 units completed with great market success. Past projects include a master plan for the evolution of Seaside Florida's beachfront and town square.

He has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Urban Design from the University of California at Berkeley. Daniel loves to travel internationally, especially in Italy. The seeds of his passion for walkable urban places started while he was growing up in the small town of Columbus, Nebraska.