Archinect - Features

For Affordable Housing, The Revolution Will Be Modularized

2021-07-28T14:51:00-04:00

Across the globe, the design and construction of affordable housing is failing to meet demand, leaving both low and middle income dwellers with little choice but to accept high costs, substandard conditions, or a move away from urban centers. This reality not only presents dangerous environmental and social conditions, but also underpins a fundamental failure of our current processes to design and construct quality affordable housing. In the face of this crisis, architects are finding opportunities for change. In this article, we speak with architect David Wallance FAIA, whose new book The Future of Modular Architecture sets out a paradigm-shift vision for the future of affordable housing. Here, we discuss the details of Wallance’s industrial-scale system, derived from the standard dimensions of intermodal shipping units, as well as the major changes such a system would bring to cities, housing markets, the environment, architectural education, and the business structure of the arch...

A Studio of 4,500: Inside Gensler's Culture

2015-07-10T12:22:00-04:00

The sun never sets on Gensler. One can visit their website and watch in real time as the bell curve of night fails to shadow all 46 of their office locations. Founded in 1965 by M. Arthur J. Gensler Jr., the firm has grown to employ over 4,500 people in 16 different countries. It’s the kind of sprawling, vast enterprise that draws more analogies to historic tea companies than design firms. How can an architecture firm of this size maintain a unified studio culture? Or should it?

The Deans List: David Gissen of California College of the Arts

2013-11-21T13:27:00-05:00

The Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programming, as defined by the head honcho – giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty and academic environment.

For our first installment, we spoke with David Gissen, the Director of Architecture at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.