Archinect - News

In Japan, abandoned and vacant homes are on the rise

2024-05-02T11:42:00-04:00

New government figures show that 5.9% of all Japanese homes are abandoned, while 13.88% of homes are vacant (a total of 9 million homes). The issue is predominantly impacting the country's rural areas, while the number of vacant and abandoned apartments and condo units is also increasing.

Several measures have been undertaken by local and national governments to address the increased cases, which can have consequences for building upkeep and maintenance. In 2022, the city of Nagoya began requiring condo building management to update authorities on the state of their complexes, while, in 2018, Yokohama city asked architects to assess undermanaged condo buildings and set up management associations.

Related on Archinect: Minimalist concrete apartments fill a narrow site in Tokyo, designed by Ryuichi Sasaki Architecture. Image credit: Sherpa

More broadly, Japan passed a law in 2015 allowing local authorities to issue warnings about vacant homes at risk of collapse, including powers to de...

San Francisco might tax empty homes to fund affordable housing

2022-02-11T12:34:00-05:00

People living in San Francisco may be given the opportunity to vote on a proposal to tax vacant homes in the city. The proposal, filed with city officials this month, seeks to address a chronic shortage of housing in San Francisco by encouraging landlords to either rent or sell vacant units.

Proponents of the so-called Empty Homes Tax believe it could raise more than $38 million annually; half of which would be used to fund rental subsidies for elderly and low-income households, with the other half used by the city to purchase empty buildings and convert them into affordable housing. In addition, proponents say the measure could see 4,500 extra homes made available for occupation over the next two years.

Archinect Feature: For Affordable Housing, The Revolution Will Be Modularized

The most recent official study of San Francisco’s housing stock, carried out in 2019, estimated that the city contained over 40,000 vacant homes. According to San Francisco Board of Supervisors member De...

Have empty New York hotels and offices turned into 'perfect targets' for commercial real estate developers?

2021-04-23T13:30:00-04:00

Commercial real estate may have been hit hard this past year due to spikes in remote working and the emergence of "post-COVID ghost towns." However, has the opportunity for converting empty offices and hotels turned into a feeding ground for developers? Must the solution always result in some form of housing option? In a recent New York Times article C.J. Hughes reports on the possible future for offices and hotels that have been empty for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While he opens with the notion of plans for transforming these "eerily empty commercial structures and converting them to housing of some kind and perhaps other uses," who actually benefits from these conversions?

Beyond renovation costs and safety requirements, Hughes provides more details on the growing opportunities within New York commercial real estate. He connected with the managing principal of Metroloft Management, Nathan Berman, who shared, "Covid has expedited the ultimate repurposings," and these em...

Vacant jewels: a closer look at Boston's empty buildings

2019-06-17T14:40:00-04:00

All over town, buildings sit empty, somehow unused despite a fierce shortage of housing and a long-running development boom that has transformed long-quiet patches of the city into hot property. [...] Some are better kept than others. Some have more prestigious addresses. But each is a puzzle unto its own.

Boston Globe reporter Tim Logan investigates the factors behind Boston's many vacant buildings — despite a booming real estate market. "Even crumbling and empty buildings serve a purpose in a new Boston where so much is shiny and fresh," writes Logan.

An empty Beirut skyscraper now transformed by an artist's colorful installation

2018-06-07T14:51:00-04:00

Lebanese artist Jad El Khoury has long been creating interventions in Beirut’s urban landscape to draw attention to these symbolic sites of warfare [...] Khoury has now taken on the imposing Murr Tower for a two-month installation: ‘The Burj El Murr soars from Beirut’s skyline, filled with scars, constantly provoking the city’s residents, whose past is shadowed by war, and present is spent dealing with those harsh memories.’

Artist Jad El Khoury's temporary installation Burj El Hawa (Tower of Air) inhabits a 34-story skyscraper in Beirut, known as Murr Tower or the Beirut Trader Center. Using brightly colored curtains found in a typical Beirut home, Khoury transforms this empty building which was used as a snipers hideout in the Lebanese Civil War in 1975.

View of the blinds © Jad El Khoury

A towering presence in the city, the skyscraper now projects the artist's message of hope and vitality to the community rather than one of war and unresolved conflict.

View of Burj El Murr overlooking Beirut © Jad El Khoury

Khoury's installation Burj El Hawa will remain in the skyscraper until July 2018.

Chinese Fun: Photographer Stefano Cerio captures the eerie side of empty amusement parks

2015-08-25T18:31:00-04:00

In Stefano Cerio's series “Chinese Fun,” he explores the facades of amusement without an audience’s reaction. The photographer enters areas built for fun and leisure in the off months or closing hours, exploring the absurdity that creeps into the architecture of entertainment when there is no one to enjoy it but a single camera.

Shijingshang Park-Beijing

Shanghai Happy Valley-Shanghai

Water Cube-Beijing. Photo by by Stefano Cerio.

Cover of Stefano Cerio's recently released book, Chinese Fun. Click here to see more of the series.

All photos by Stefano Cerio.

In other recent amusement/bemusement-park news: Banksy about to open "Dismaland" pop-up exhibition in British seaside resort

How Detroit can learn to revive its derelict industrial sites from other cities

2015-07-13T15:43:00-04:00

Heading east along I-94 from Detroit’s resurgent Midtown area, two massive structures loom on the horizon. For passing drivers, they’re awe-inducing symbols of both the city’s former industrial might and the dismaying scale of its post-industrial challenges. [...] At the Center for Community Progress’ May Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference, planners and developers discussed examples from around the world of cities that are finding opportunity in derelict industrial properties.

Previously: Repurposing Old Rail Stations in the Rust Belt: What Buffalo, Detroit, and Cincinnati can tell us about adaptive reuse

Related on Archinect's sister site Bustler: Reanimate the Ruins winners reimagine Detroit’s Packard Motor Plant

China's 'ghost mall'

2013-05-14T20:15:00-04:00

The New South China Mall was once promoted as the world's biggest mall, but it's now pretty much deserted.

Come See The Emptiest Mall In The World

2012-04-03T19:43:00-04:00

The giant mall you see in the photos here didn’t die. It has never lived, having been nothing but empty since it opened seven years ago. According to its Wikipedia entry, it has an astounding 2,350 available retail spaces, only 47 of which are occupied. Meet the world’s largest shopping mall, the New South China Mall in Dongguan, China. It is twice as big as the huge Mall of America outside Minneapolis.