Archinect - News

New York's bold 'City of Yes' vision gets approved by City Council

2024-12-11T18:44:00-05:00

Last week, the New York City Council voted to approve an amended version of the Adams Administration's 'City of Yes' housing vision for 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years.

This will require a $5 billion public investment and comes with several key inclusionary zoning (including ADUs, office conversions, the removal of parking requirements, etc.) changes to help deliver on the promise. New York City has been suffering an affordability crisis for several years. Speaking to the media, Adams framed its passing as being both historic and a victory for working class New Yorkers.

We featured the New York Times' recent explanation of underlying factors influencing the 'City of Yes' plan before its approval.

Your next role could be at an Airbnb co-founder's housing startup

2024-11-27T12:19:00-05:00

Following our previous look at an opening for a Compliance Director at AKAM, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an architectural designer at Samara.

The open role calls for an individual who will join Samara’s Project & Design Team “as an inspirational force for creating new ways of living.” Among the responsibilities for the role will be participating in the conceptualization and development of new product design work, the iterating of design concepts, and producing 2D and 3D representations of projects.

Samara's Backyard range. Image credit: Samara

Why the role interests us

In the same week that our Meet Your Next Employer series profiled the work of Cover, the open role that Samara offers us the opportunity to profile another California-based housing startup focused on delivering prefabricated housing. As we previously reported, Samara is led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and former Flex chief executive Mi...

Unpacking the factors behind New York City's complex housing crisis

2024-11-26T14:29:00-05:00

The New York Times recently outlined some of the facts underpinning NYC’s housing crisis ahead of an upcoming final City Council vote on Mayor Eric Adams’ amended ‘City of Yes’ zoning overhaul plan for 80,000 new residential units on December 5th.

Among the interesting takeaways: only 10% of zoned residential lots allow for the construction of high- or moderate-density buildings through "as of right" development. The plan also calls for ADUs and a framework to fund office conversions, which account for 20,000 units. Currently, the rate of new apartment construction in the city is still at historic lows. The Regional Plan Association estimates there will have to be 473,000 more units of housing by 2032 to match its current needs. (h/t Forbes.)

Rowan Moore: UK architects should look elsewhere for council housing inspiration

2024-11-25T17:59:00-05:00

In Britain, as our government has promised, we’re going to have a “council housing revolution”, the building of as yet unknown numbers of homes at genuinely affordable rents, a return to policies of 50 and more years ago in order to address the well-known housing crisis. Which is welcome. Luckily there are, close at hand, outstanding examples of how this might be done, in cities and countries on the continent of Europe.

Moore points to Vienna, the city known for its ambitious development model for social housing, and Barcelona as two examples of what he says is a healthy "willingness to experiment" to be applied back home in the UK. The new Labour Party government has promised to usher in a "revolution" in council housing to deliver the up to 100,000 new homes needed per year to match current needs that have been made worse for years by bad policies and a lack of funding.

The same set of issues are plaguing efforts back across the pond in New York City, where Moore's American counterpart Michael Kimmelman recently considered some "radical" alternatives being pursued as part of NYCHA's complicated new plans.

Four micro-homes by Cover: Your Next Employer?

2024-11-25T08:13:00-05:00

Following our previous visit to RIOS, we are keeping our Meet Your Next Employer series in Los Angeles this week to explore the work of Cover.

Founded in 2014 by Cooper Union graduates Alexis Rivas and Jemuel Joseph, the company describes itself as one that offers “a turnkey solution for building homes that leverages the power of computational design and precision manufacturing to deliver homes of unprecedented quality.” Archinect spoke with the firm for a 2021 interview, in which the team described its mission as “to make thoughtfully designed and well-built homes for everyone.”

Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm is currently hiring for a Junior Architectural Designer to join their Los Angeles team. For candidates interested in applying for a position or anybody interested in learning more about the firm’s output, we have rounded up four micro-homes by Cover that exemplify the firm’s ethos.

Guesthouse/Office. Image courtesy of Cover

Backyard Rental Home, Los Angeles, CA

The Backyard R...

Considering the next Trump administration’s impact on housing in California

2024-11-22T11:56:00-05:00

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to reenter the White House, California housing advocates are bracing for how a second term could impact the state’s notoriously high home prices, rents and rates of homelessness. This time around, that’s changed, and Trump has recognized housing affordability is a problem, said Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the policy organization the California Housing Partnership.

Democrats were also pushing a housing-heavy agenda during the campaign. Trump's return to the White House comes as the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies reports many cities across the Golden State are missing their marks where it comes to planning an adequate housing supply that matches the expanding crisis.

Trump has vocally supported the call for massive tent cities for unhoused citizens, vowing at the same time to issue tariffs, deport undocumented immigrants, open federal land to housing development, cut government assistance programs, and relax zoning restrictions, among several other countervailing ideas that could cancel out progress on what became one of the 2024 election's most significant issues.

LA’s cramped rezoning plan still short of housing goals says UCLA study

2024-11-19T11:09:00-05:00

Under state laws designed to remedy a housing shortage, the city has to set aside land for the construction of 250,000 more homes than allowed through existing zoning rules. Measures under consideration by a City Council committee are likely to satisfy the state requirements, the UCLA analysis found. But when analyzing the likelihood of what developers would actually build, researchers found the number of new homes would be far lower.

The L.A. City Council is expected to vote later this afternoon to approve the rezoning measure. The report's co-author Shane Phillips of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies says the city would be better served if its generous slate of incentives was expanded to cover the remaining 72% of neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family houses. Others have labeled this plan as exclusionary for that reason. Planners face a state mandate to find space for at least 250,000 new housing units by mid-February.

Construction tech start-up sends AI-powered "micro-factories" to the US to build affordable housing

2024-10-04T17:57:00-04:00

British construction tech start-up Automated Architecture (AUAR) is sending two of its pop-up, robotic micro-factories to the U.S. for the first time in a move to bring automated and affordable house building to North America.

Founded in 2019, AUAR functions by licensing its technology to builders and contractors to build low-energy homes at the price of normal homes, at scale.

Related on Archinect: Where Are All The Affordable Housing Startups?. Image credit: Katerra

The micro-factories will be deployed by real estate development and construction firm Rival Holdings, which aims to address the ongoing housing crisis by building thousands of sustainable, affordable, and high-quality homes across the Midwest. The partnership between Rival Holdings and AUAR was announced in March.

“We are really excited to partner with Rival Holdings to bring our cutting-edge Robotic Micro-factories to the United States,” said Co-Founder and CEO of AUAR, Mollie Claypool. “This partnership is our first ...

NYC forms task force to search for housing opportunities on gov't owned land

2024-08-26T14:53:00-04:00

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced the formation of a new multi-agency task force aimed at finding city-owned land and properties that can be redeveloped in the interest of putting an end to its greatest housing crisis in more than 50 years.

According to amNewYork, the new City Housing Activation Task Force is operating under a directive to “review all land under the ownership and control of the city or of other participating and cooperating agencies and entities … to identify potential sites for housing development and to determine if such sites could be used to further housing production … without disruption to critical operations."

Former NYCEDC President Maria Torres-Springer is leading the task force. It expands on the 'City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ proposal that was launched by the Adams administration in September of 2023.

Are New Towns really the best new hope for ending the UK housing crisis?

2024-08-19T17:45:00-04:00

Last month, the [UK] government announced a task force to develop a strategy for new towns — settlements of more than 10,000 homes — and make recommendations for their locations within a year. The government has not set a target for the number of towns and acknowledges that they will take a long time to deliver.

Britain, short on more than four million homes, is mulling a revival of its post-war New Towns after a decisive Labour Party victory vaulted progressive leadership into power with a mandate to combat its ongoing housing crisis. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently told the BBC that he is a self-identifying YIMBY who wants to "bulldoze" planning rules and overrule local-led resistance to get it done. The strategy, which preceded a new plan central to Kamala Harris’ Presidential campaign, could still regrettably wind up hemmed in by a notoriously parochial planning process which, nevertheless, gifted the world with Milton Keynes and other important architecture.

His deputy Angela Rayner says the list of sites to be developed won't be revealed until the end of this year. RIBA's President Muyiwa Oki has said at the outset that their plan "offers overarching solutions, but lacks critical detail on delivering social housing and futureproofing existing homes."

COOKFOX leads planned transformation of a former prison into affordable housing in Manhattan

2024-07-31T19:57:00-04:00

New York Governor Kathy Hochul's office has proposed transforming the 100,000-square-foot former Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood into affordable housing. Called Liberty Landing, the scheme is a joint venture between Camber Property Group and Osborne Association, which are pledging $108 million towards the transformation.

Image: COOKFOX

COOKFOX is leading this adaptive reuse design, which calls for creating 124 permanently affordable housing units and on-site supportive services. The project also features a 9,300-square-foot community facility dedicated to youth-oriented programming, along with a 15-unit, short-term transitional residence to support individuals with mental health needs.

Image: COOKFOX

Denver inches forward on downtown KSE-Ball Arena Redevelopment

2024-07-24T12:12:00-04:00

Things appear to be moving forward for Denver’s proposed KSE-Ball Arena Redevelopment following the approval of a rezoning application from Shears Adkins Rockmore Architects (SAR+). The plan connects 75 acres around the 25-year-old sports venue to the future River Mile Development and other constituent parts of downtown, replacing surface parking lots with a 12 million-square-foot mixed-use program and 10 acres of landscaped open space.

ZGF Architects is also involved in the project as a design partner. Wenk Associates is the landscape architect. The plan addresses Denver's need for housing near the downtown core with 6,000 new units, 18% of which are considered affordable.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by SAR+ Architects (@shears_adkins_rockmore)

The Ball Arena scheme is similar in scope to the proposed 55-acre The 1901 Project redevelopment of the neighborhood surrounding the United Center in Chicago from RIOS and Field Operations, which we detailed ...

Costco to deliver 800-unit mixed-use housing scheme to Los Angeles

2024-07-03T12:41:00-04:00

A plan from big-box giant Costco to deliver an 800-apartment mixed-use scheme designed by AO in Los Angeles is garnering some positive reviews online for its response to the city’s vexing housing crisis.

SFGate.com has more on the latest attempts to tackle the emergency, which remains at the top of a list of municipal priorities despite recent progress on the issue from several fronts.

Rendering courtesy Thrive Living

They say the five-acre development will include a "fitness area, multi-use community space, multiple courtyards and landscaped paths, a rooftop pool, and other amenities like gardens," in addition to parking spaces for both tenants and store customers. A total of 184 apartments will be set aside as affordable housing. A recent popular X post detailed the complex regulatory considerations the scheme maneuvered and contributed to its modular design. The client is Thrive Living, a privately owned developer of workforce housing.

The now 50-year-old AO is also notable for ...

Beyer Blinder Belle-designed new National Urban League headquarters rises in Harlem

2024-06-15T06:22:00-04:00

Beyer Blinder Belle’s design for the National Urban League’s new headquarters, which also houses New York City’s first civil rights museum, has risen in Harlem.

The National Urban League is a historical civil rights organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of and the elevation of living standards in historically underserved urban communities. This milestone marks the completion of the organization’s relocation from their former Lower Manhattan office.

Called the Urban Empowerment Center, the new 17-story, 414,000-square-foot building was delivered through a collaboration between private, public, and state organizations. In addition to the headquarters, it will include the Urban Civil Rights Museum Experience and the National Urban League Institute for Race, Equity, and Justice.

The building also features 90,000 square feet of office space, 84,000 square feet of retail space, and 171 affordable apartments. The changes in the structure’s glass curtain wall and massing resp...

NYT: Rising insurance costs impinging on affordable development efforts nationwide

2024-06-12T17:50:00-04:00

Less attention, though, has been paid to rental housing, particularly for low and moderate income people. Unlike market-rate apartment developers, those building multifamily projects financed by subsidies and tax credits do not have the ability to simply pass on those higher insurance costs to tenants, since they are limited by government guidelines as to how much rent they can collect.

The Times points out, many “low-income areas tend to be more prone to flooding and other catastrophic damage” – meaning that resilient design strategies often have to be added to the list of considerations for architects and their clients (as the ASLA’s most recent industry survey proves). The article quotes another conducted last year by the National Leased Housing Association as finding “nearly one-third” of all affordable housing developers nationally reporting insurance increases of 25% or more between 2022 and 2023.

Pratt SoA Dean Quilian Riano outlines plan to address space challenges with proposed new building

2024-05-30T14:43:00-04:00

In a new letter to faculty members at the Pratt School of Architecture, second-year Dean Quilian Riano has outlined the need for some $71 million worth of deferred maintenance and other upgrades to the 155-year-old Higgins Hall in keeping with the new Local Law 97 mandate for net zero operating capacity by 2050. This includes $57 million for maintenance and upgrades, plus an additional $14 million to increase the electrical capacity.

Local Law 97 requires new energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits, with a goal of a 40% reduction by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. Additionally, Higgins Hall has maxed out its Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and electrical capacity.

As a result, Riano said, the school must expand into a new building to accommodate its growing student body. A Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) will now be issued to developers. This process will explore leveraging Pratt Institute’s air rights to build housing, including affordable housing, and deliver ...

Architect Liu Thai Ker on the success of Singapore’s social housing experiments 40 years on

2024-05-28T20:26:00-04:00

Even though record prices on the secondary market have heightened anxiety about the rising costs of living in Singapore, one of the world’s most expensive cities, public housing remains broadly affordable — at least for those who qualify for government subsidies to buy units. Today, close to 80 percent of Singapore’s residents live in public housing, and about 90 percent of the units are owned on a 99-year lease.

The architect of Singapore’s successful “social engineering” campaign after 1965, Liu Thai Ker, is a Malaysian-born Yale graduate and former understudy of I.M. Pei, who told the New York Times recently that he was “sad” to see the city-state’s current market dynamics affecting some of his democratizing designs from the 1980s.

Singapore has for years ranked alongside Vienna among the world’s leading cities for the development of social housing. The 86-year-old Liu continues his work as the Founding Chairman of the Singapore/Shanghai-based MORROW Architects + Planners, an entity he began in 2017 following the culmination of his 25-year run at RSP Architects Planners & Engineers.

California environmental review process is hindering affordable housing development, according to new state agency report

2024-05-28T12:57:00-04:00

A new report on California’s entrenched housing crisis from the state's independent Little Hoover Commission has identified the 54-year-old California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA) as the greatest barrier currently in the way of architects and planners looking to meet the demand for 2.5 million new units statewide by 2030.

LAist.com has more on the report, which took over a year to compile. Among its findings is the concerning fact that 25% of all lawsuits initiated under CEQA have been challenges to infill housing developments in densely populated urban areas (e.g., Los Angeles). Authors say this could grow into all-out “urban warfare” that, in turn, overburdens exurbs and more inland areas. LA has been more proactive recently under the mayorship of Karen Bass but must still overcome hurdles to meet its mandate to build 500,000 new homes before 2029.

Cosmic set to produce prefabricated ADUs in California with water recycling and solar energy

2024-04-23T13:58:00-04:00

San Francisco-based Cosmic has raised $1.5 million in funding for their micro-home product designs aimed at bringing “self-sustainable homes in California and beyond.” The company’s leading product, Cosmic ONE, is described as a “limited-edition high-quality micro-home” that can serve as an ADU, a primary single-family home, or a component in a wider residential community.

Showroom model. Image courtesy: Cosmic

Cosmic ONE has been designed as an all-electric, prefabricated unit that can use recycled water for non-potable needs, as well as being equipped with a solar and battery system. The first 100 CosmicOne units will be available for sale in California.

Showroom model. Image courtesy: Cosmic

“Building a new home and expanding an existing one today can be very challenging due to the intricate permitting process, labor scarcity, and complexities of site infrastructure works,” the company says about their prop...

Your next career could be Staff Architect at Habitat for Humanity in Indianapolis

2024-03-08T11:25:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Japanese-speaking Retail Architect at O’Neil Langan Architects, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Staff Architect at Greater Indy Habitat for Humanity.

Based in Indianapolis, the role calls for an individual “responsible for overseeing the design and modifications of house plans and layouts to provide a cost-effective product that will serve the homebuyers' needs.” Among the requirements for the role are a college degree or commensurate residential construction-related experience with 5-10 years of specifically related experience and education.

Related on Archinect: Mississippi State University studio teaches the value of collaboration between its architecture and building construction science students. Photo: Megan Bean, courtesy of MSU College of Art, Architecture, and Design.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Greater Indy Habitat for Humanity offers u...

Airbnb co-founder's ADU company Samara begins production in Mexico factory

2024-03-07T12:35:00-05:00

California-based Samara has opened a factory in Mexicali, Mexico, to scale up manufacturing of their backyard ADU units. As we reported in late 2022, the startup is led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia alongside former Flex chief executive Mike McNamara.

Image credit: Samara

The 150,000-square-foot factory will host the construction of Samara’s modular units, including interior and exterior finishes. Following production in the factory, each unit will be loaded onto a truck for delivery to the customer’s property.

Image credit: Samara

The company’s first unit, Backyard, is being manufactured in studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom layouts, with a larger two-bedroom expected to launch soon. Samara notes that the unit can be installed in “as few as seven months,” including permitting, with 30 days of on-site labor. The unit is currently available for purchase in California.

Image credit: Samara

“Our homes are central to our lives,” said McNamara in a statement. “On average, most people in...

White House announces initiatives to boost manufactured housing

2024-03-01T11:03:00-05:00

The White House has announced a series of moves to increase the production of manufactured housing in the United States. The initiatives are intended to both preserve and rehabilitate existing manufactured home communities and ease barriers to the construction of new units.

The moves include a $225 million funding opportunity for existing communities, overseen by HUD. The Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) will support the preservation and revitalization of manufactured housing communities, including the replacement of dilapidated homes, assistance for repairs and upgrades, and improvement of infrastructure such as stormwater systems.

In response to the growing trend of corporate investors buying manufactured housing at the expense of longtime residents, the White House has also announced the ongoing creation of a Mortgagee Letter that, once finalized, will...

Michael Kimmelman checks in on a case study for affordable housing in NYC

2024-02-13T17:49:00-05:00

It wasn’t a visual spectacle, but it was handsome and dignified, standing out with its prefab metal facade not just in a neighborhood of empty lots, aging apartment blocks and derelict rail tracks but also against a backdrop of dreary, bare-bones affordable housing developments all across the city. Most important, its goal was larger than itself: to reimagine subsidized housing for a new century. I promised in that column to report back on whether it succeeded. Did it?

The Via Verde redux is an interesting return to Kimmelman's very first Times column. He wrote the housing scheme’s developer Phipps “knows what it’s doing.”

Whatever is working has got to be scaled up and replicated rather quickly. As he points out, both the city and New York State failed to adequately fund and approve new housing starts to enter the construction pipeline in 2023 despite a present need for approximately 50,000 new units annually.

Kimmelman, whose personal mission to raise housing standards for New Yorkers is well known, is occasionally charged with promotionalism for writing such pieces. (It's worth noting that this is now the critic's second review of a completed Dattner project in as many years.)

PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti unveils a housing plan for 1.3 million New Yorkers

2024-01-05T16:59:00-05:00

Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of PAU, has unveiled his firm's analysis, courtesy of The New York Times, which suggests that enough housing could be created for one million New Yorkers.

The PAU founder says there is space for up to 520,245 homes in the city on roughly 1,700 acres of unused land. Most of it would be enacted above existing single-story commercial spaces. The idea of adding density has been debated, though he points out correctly that it does present a viable alternative to the mass-scale conversion of office buildings that have been proven costly and largely unfeasible in structures built before 1980.

His team's analysis follows previous streetscape and rail infrastructure proposals and was conducted using available data on vacant lots, flood-prone areas, and the location of subway stations and other mass transit options. Current estimates have placed the need for over 500,000 new homes, a figure Mayor Eric Adams's official plan put forth in December 2022 used as a ben...

Kadre and Lehrer Architects team up for a new transitional housing community in Los Angeles

2024-01-04T12:50:00-05:00

A new supportive housing concept in Los Angeles has been introduced by LA-based practices Kadre Architects and Lehrer Architects. The design teams shared it can become a new model for design resourcefulness and occupants’ dignity at a time when the city, as do many others in America, faces a desperate need.

The new 95-unit Cypress Park New Beginnings Community was inaugurated in early December after first breaking ground in May of 2022. The new housing scheme aimed to serve “displaced populations and environmental and/or socio-economic crises.”

Image courtesy of Kadre Architects.

Their brief called for the construction of 350-square-foot micro-housing units on a disused plot between the Arroyo and Golden State Parkways. Site conditions for the 35,000-square-foot development were extremely challenging in an echo of Lehrer’s previous work on the Tiny Homes Villages in different parts of Los Angeles.

Image courtesy Kadre Architects.

Faced with this challenge, the design team responded ...

NYC will convert JFK Hilton hotel into supportive housing

2023-12-28T13:44:00-05:00

A plan to transform the former Hilton Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City into supportive housing has been announced as the inaugural effort of the important new Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act (HONDA) program by Mayor Eric Adams.

Aufgang Architects will be in charge of overhauling the 350-room hotel into the renamed Baisley Pond Park Residences, a 318-unit residential development aimed at low-income and formerly homeless individuals with rents ranging between $784 per month for studios to $1,493 for two-bedroom apartments. They say their work will be completed in just 21 months thanks to the hotel’s compatible layout, which allows for a minimally invasive slate of amendments to its internal wall structures.

The result will be a life-changing space for residents, complete with all-electric heating and cooling systems, multiple community/computer rooms, space for the RiseBoro Community Partnership’s on-site support staff, a kitchen serviced by the ...

French 2D completes Boston co-housing complex grounded in community connections

2023-12-19T12:02:00-05:00

Boston-based French 2D has completed a 45,000-square-foot collective housing complex in Malden, on the outskirts of Boston. Named Bay State Commons Cohousing, the thirty-unit scheme was conceived as a collaboration with residents “through a participatory design process emphasized mutual support and the central values of consolidating and sharing resources from land and energy to cars and material goods.”

Image credit: nkubota

The scheme’s form is defined by a series of stacked, interlocking units, ranging from micro-studios to three-bedroom homes. Half of the units and common spaces overlook an interior courtyard and lawn, with exterior spaces at every level encouraging spontaneous interactions among residents.

Image credit: nkubota

“Rather than being about surveillance, these connections create reciprocity across multiple places for gardening, chatting, playing, reading, or lounging,” the team explains. “Many of the community’s older resident...

Glazed brick accentuates Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects’ new Brooklyn apartment complex

2023-11-24T09:00:00-05:00

Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects (SGVA) has offered an insight into their completed multi-family housing scheme in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Named The Garnet, the project is defined by a gray and black masonry facade punctuated by jewel-toned glazed-brick accents.

Image credit: Alexander Severin

Built on a 15,000-square-foot lot adjacent to the Fulton Street subway line, the scheme holds 103 apartment units above a 12,000-square-foot ground-floor retail space. A second-floor roof terrace seeks to strengthen the residents’ connection to the outdoors, adding to an overall mission of creating “housing that feels expansive and liberating, rather than constrained by its affordability.”

Image credit: Alexander Severin

From the outside, the eleven-story structure is clad in textured masonry with bright accents to form a “pleasant and visually engaging street wall.” A red motif first established on the facad...

The new Sunset Park Library & Apartments bookend New York City's push for affordable housing

2023-11-21T14:20:00-05:00

A unique project addressing the need for affordable housing and library services has debuted in central Brooklyn with the completion of the recent Sunset Park Library & Apartments renovation from Magnusson Architecture and Planning and Mitchell Giurgola.

The project establishes a new 49-unit housing development in addition to an existing single-story structure from the 1970s. The program entails adding a six-story, 50,000-square-foot residential component above the now 20,000-square-foot library, which is expanded to twice its original size. The new building stands at eight stories in total, topped by a 45-kW rooftop PV array.

Image courtesy Brooklyn Public Library

“The Sunset Park Library and Apartments is a crowning achievement that tackles essential community needs and affordable living at a time when New York must urgently address its housing crisis. This historic collaboration between the Brooklyn Public Library and Fifth Avenue Committee exemplifies visionary leadership and pru...

This 3D printed social housing apartment building aims to become Europe's first of its kind

2023-11-21T12:01:00-05:00

German company PERI 3D Construction is collaborating with construction printer manufacturer COBOD on what the team describes as the “first 3D printed social housing apartment building in Germany and Europe.” The three-floor building will contain six apartment units ranging from 670 to 890 square feet.

Image credit: COBOD / PERI 3D

Located in the Ruhr city of Lünen, the project will see the first two floors of the apartment building 3D printed using concrete, while the top floor will be built using a timber hybrid construction method. The foundation, base, and horizontal slabs will be built from conventional methods, while the facade finish will comprise the 3D printed surface on the bottom two floors and facade panels to the top floor.

“We are pleased to be able to demonstrate once again how quickly, efficiently, and in a resource-saving manner the 3D printer can create living space and what potential is also opening up in the multi-family house segment,” PERI’s managing director Fab...

Archinect - News

New York's bold 'City of Yes' vision gets approved by City Council

Your next role could be at an Airbnb co-founder's housing startup

Unpacking the factors behind New York City's complex housing crisis

Rowan Moore: UK architects should look elsewhere for council housing inspiration

Four micro-homes by Cover: Your Next Employer?

Considering the next Trump administration’s impact on housing in California

LA’s cramped rezoning plan still short of housing goals says UCLA study

Construction tech start-up sends AI-powered "micro-factories" to the US to build affordable housing

NYC forms task force to search for housing opportunities on gov't owned land

Are New Towns really the best new hope for ending the UK housing crisis?

COOKFOX leads planned transformation of a former prison into affordable housing in Manhattan

Denver inches forward on downtown KSE-Ball Arena Redevelopment

Costco to deliver 800-unit mixed-use housing scheme to Los Angeles

Beyer Blinder Belle-designed new National Urban League headquarters rises in Harlem

NYT: Rising insurance costs impinging on affordable development efforts nationwide

Pratt SoA Dean Quilian Riano outlines plan to address space challenges with proposed new building

Architect Liu Thai Ker on the success of Singapore’s social housing experiments 40 years on

California environmental review process is hindering affordable housing development, according to new state agency report

Cosmic set to produce prefabricated ADUs in California with water recycling and solar energy

Your next career could be Staff Architect at Habitat for Humanity in Indianapolis

Airbnb co-founder's ADU company Samara begins production in Mexico factory

White House announces initiatives to boost manufactured housing

Michael Kimmelman checks in on a case study for affordable housing in NYC

PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti​ unveils a housing plan for 1.3 million New Yorkers

Kadre and Lehrer Architects team up for a new transitional housing community in Los Angeles

NYC will convert JFK Hilton hotel into supportive housing

French 2D completes Boston co-housing complex grounded in community connections

Glazed brick accentuates Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects’ new Brooklyn apartment complex

The new Sunset Park Library & Apartments bookend New York City's push for affordable housing

This 3D printed social housing apartment building aims to become Europe's first of its kind

PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti unveils a housing plan for 1.3 million New Yorkers