Archinect - Features

Where Are All The Affordable Housing Startups?

2024-06-19T13:04:00-04:00

Despite the general consensus that the United States is in need of more affordable housing, funding to startups focused on affordable housing and more efficient construction technologies is lower in 2024 than in recent years. In the meantime, a series of high-profile bankruptcies, closures, and struggles have been reported among startups tackling the issue. How has this happened?

TALLER’s Luis Gil on Balancing Design Idealism and Development Pragmatism

2022-11-15T10:49:00-05:00

For some, architecture is a calling; for others, they're called to the profession in unexpected ways. This is the case for Luis Gil, architect and founder of the LA-based practice TALLER (tah-yehr).

For the latest installment of Archinect's Studio Snapshot series, we connected with Gil to learn more about the firm he established and his journey to architecture. We discuss the challenges and benefits of running your own practice, what he looks for in new team members, and what he strives to change when it comes to the industry's problematic work culture.

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...

This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land—COVID-19’s Impact on Indian Country

2020-07-03T14:45:00-04:00

As we prepare for the 4th of July holiday, we take this time to honor our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. We reflect on what our relations fought for—these Indigenous lands which were stolen and used to create massive amounts of wealth for a privileged few, creating what we now call the United States of America. We acknowledge that not only do Native Americans serve in our armed forces at higher rates than any other demographic to date—we are also one of the most hard-hit communities during the coronavirus pandemic. For Indian Country, the problem is more than a lack of supplies and an overwhelmed health care system. A housing crisis is fanning the flames of a highly contagious virus, illuminating the role that housing has on our health.

Did we fight to end one form of oppression only to leave our families languishing under another?

Screen/Print #62: A Year After Ghost Ship Fire, Writer and Activist Jaime Omar Yassin Reflects on City's Response

2017-09-22T09:00:00-04:00

In December of 2016, a fire broke out during a show at Oakland's Ghost Ship, a DIY-venue located in a two-story warehouse. The incident tragically took the lives of 36 young concert-goers and prompted national discussions (including one on our podcast) of the safety and vitality of DIY venues and the long-term effects of such building code violations for gentrification and zoning.

Holidays and Bonfires

2017-08-07T05:39:00-04:00

July is not a usual month in Belfast. It’s holiday time — north coast beaches, infinite Donegal sands, the beautiful flat half-light of dusk of the western coast. For others it’s a time to play their part in, what is for some a controversial historical narrative that has, one way or another been weaving its way down through Ulster’s history — bonfires and marches. July is a month of distractions — holidays and bonfires. What a strange time then for the pre-planning consultations for two controversial schemes in the city to take place.

Can good design cure LA’s homeless problem? We asked Mike Alvidrez, CEO of Skid Row Housing Trust

2017-06-23T14:30:00-04:00

For Skid Row Housing Trust, a nonprofit developer in Los Angeles that builds housing for LA’s homeless population, good design is a basic civil right. Understanding that the environment plays a vital role in their residents’ recovery, the organization consistently teams up with renowned architectural firms such as Michael Maltzan Architecture and Brooks+Scarpa to design buildings for the homeless that stand out.

At USC's 'Homeless Studio', Students Work Towards Real Solutions to the City's Homeless Crisis

2016-11-30T12:21:00-05:00

Just a few miles from the University of Southern California campus, Skid Row contains a significant portion of the homeless population of Los Angeles, a city in the midst of a declared state of emergency with nearly 47,000 people in total living in shelters and on the street. For R. Scott Mitchell and Sofia Borges, two instructors at the USC School of Architecture, this city-wide crisis demands an architectural response. “The homeless are always thinking about architecture. It's time we started thinking about them,” they wrote in the syllabus for their course, Homeless Studio.

The Short Life and Bitter End to Munich's 'Yellow Submarine'

2016-11-26T12:26:00-05:00

Made of 16 bathtubs with specially installed portholes, 'Yellow Submarine' was a hotel room/political housing statement, and one of the 24-winning designs in the 2015 Shabbyshabby Apartments competition. Created by the Glasgow-based and Lithuanian-staffed collective Urban Restart along with Kurt Cleary, the design is purposefully referred to in the past tense: only two days after it was erected in Munich, it was destroyed. This prompted speculation that vandals, or right-wing extremists opposed to refugees, were responsible.

'Ethical Dwellings for Generation Y' explores new forms of living and owning in a changing London

2016-08-13T06:08:00-04:00

While an average of 100,000 people move to London each year, only about 25,000 new homes are built annually: a formula that has produced a critical lack in affordable housing. The median rent in the capital city is £1,400 and the average house price has passed £600,000. In other words, only the very rich can afford to live in London.

The internship test or: why even become an architect at all?

2016-04-06T09:11:00-04:00

The question of internships frames something of a litmus test in architecture – although they tend to indicate more about the hiring firm than the hire. Exploited labor or necessary rite-of-passage? It’s a debate that’s been raging for decades almost exclusively through this binary, even as the context in which it’s been waged has transformed considerably. While certain practices have moved to institute fair compensation into their intern programs, life for many architecture interns today remains a struggle.

London's Bleak Housing

2015-12-18T05:00:00-05:00

The housing crisis in London has rumbled on for decades, its supply never quite catching up with the demands of its own population growth. Council stock has been sold off without being replaced, creating an un-developable green belt around it – a victim, in part, to its success as a hip, modern, international financial centre, and purveyor of “Olde Worlde” charm.