Archinect - News

The New York Times gets inside the debate on ‘tiny homes’ and LA’s fight against homelessness

2024-06-24T15:13:00-04:00

“The city of Los Angeles has worked very hard to brand these as tiny homes as if they are a housing solution, which they absolutely are not,” said Shayla Myers, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “In reality, these are tiny sheds.”

Firsthand accounts of what it’s like to live inside one of the eleven tiny home villages scattered across parts of the San Fernando Valley and northeast LA often underscore their value as bulwarks against unsheltered homelessness in the city. Feedback from on-site mental health professionals also is underreported and left out of the debate surrounding their existence. Still, the need for shelter weighted against the reluctance to add density and public pressure on the issue makes their existence a necessity as a dearth of more permanent solutions abounds.

'Tiny house, big impact': Marina Tabassum shares her flat-packed vision with CNN

2023-04-04T14:17:00-04:00

Past Aga Khan Award winner and 2021 Soane Medalist Marina Tabassum was recently featured in a short CNN profile of her ongoing Khudi Bari project in the coastal region of her native Bangladesh.

The concept, which seeks to deliver mobile two-level residential structures to a largely landless population in the heavily flood-prone area, first came about in October of 2018 and was accelerated by a pandemic downturn that ground several of her eponymous studio’s other ongoing projects to a halt.

Tabassum says the bamboo structures (whose name translates to “tiny home” in Bengali) can be easily disassembled and transported elsewhere, relying on steel joints and metal corner braces for structural strength. The design is split into two levels, with the uppermost elevated about six feet above the ground plane to accommodate up to four people in the event of flooding.

Image courtesy Marina Tabassum Architects

According to MTA: “The architecture mimics traditional vernacular language of the Ben...

San Francisco could axe tiny homes proposal over cost concerns and NIMBYism

2023-02-21T13:21:00-05:00

The drama over the project provides a window into just how hard it is for the city to scale up its housing and shelter system, even as a recent report from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) estimated it would take more than 6,000 extra temporary and permanent beds to solve the crisis on the streets. It also puts into sharp relief how easily neighborhood opposition can derail a project, even when the funding and space is available — and the need is clear.

The Mission district parking lot is scheduled to become an affordable housing development with construction beginning in 2025 and the tiny homes program was expected to fill the gap. “It's always the same hand wringing,” housing advocate Sam Moss told the Chronicle. “It’s never about taking care of our homeless, it's always about how you're going to feel about what it's like to see homelessness.”

San Francisco’s desire to essentially segregate homelessness is part and parcel of previous policies such as the deeply criticized Homeward Bound bussing program enacted by Gavin Newsom during his tenure in City Hall. In total, the city has seen a decline of 15% in its homeless population since 2021. A total of 3,810 units are still projected to be needed in order to match the current demand.

The debate around tiny homes for the homeless has inserted itself into L.A.’s mayoral race in a big way

2022-03-28T20:19:00-04:00

At a time when permanent supportive housing takes years to build and the average cost per unit has climbed to nearly $600,000, the cost of these tiny homes came to about $68,000 each, or roughly $35,000 per bed, according to De León’s office. In his speeches, De León likes to ask, “in what parallel universe” is it better to leave people on the street than move them into various forms of temporary housing while awaiting more permanent housing?

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez visited the second-newest in a string of tiny home developments opened in November in a space that had previously been sparsely used as a parking lot for the Eagle Rock Recreation Center and co-owned and operated by the city, county, and utilities giant SoCal Edison. At 224 beds, it is reported to be the largest of its kind anywhere in the United States and was proceeded by four similar Lehrer-designed projects across northern Los Angeles, all of which are run by a local charity called Hope in the Valley.

A frequent criticism lobbed at the mayoral frontrunner Kevin de León echoes a debate within the architectural community as to whether or not such a confined (each cabin is only 64 square feet) and, in the case of the Arroyo Seco Tiny Homes, shared space truly aligns with a humane vision of housing justice championed by de León an...

Fran Silvestre Arquitectos presents an open, compact home that streamlines the construction and design process

2021-10-04T16:59:00-04:00

Valencia-based architecture firm Fran Silvestre Arquitectos has completed a compact, open, single-level home in Spain as part of a project that seeks to simplify and streamline the production of good design and construction.

Called NIU, the system integrates all of the necessary phases of constructing a home, from the architectural brief to the interior design, resulting in reduced timeframes, fixed prices, and minimum consumption. According to NIU, the homes are guaranteed to be delivered within three months of the date of purchase.

This featured project is the N70, a one-room, one-bath space, which is the smallest model of the NIU series. It is described by NIU as being “extensive, despite its compact size” and is envisioned as a space ideal for an individual or couple, or for use as a guest house.

Its connection with the landscape allows the home to blur the lines between interior and exterior. The home is divided into day and night-time spaces, which are situated around an op...

Tiny homes: a reflection of economic precarity?

2019-12-02T10:00:00-05:00

The red-hot housing market has made it difficult for adults, especially Millennials and single families, to afford decent accommodations. With the increasingly popular tiny home movement, it's become clear that this appealing lifestyle trend is turning into a viable solution to the looming housing crisis for some, according to Matt Davis of Big Think.

Davis explains, "In 70 percent of the U.S., the average worker can't afford a home, one-third of adults are a $400 bill away from financial difficulty, and a quarter has no retirement savings whatsoever. Under these conditions, downsizing may be the only viable method to survive."

Boneyard Studios Tiny House Village in Washington D.C. Image © Inhabitat/via Flickr

It's not all good, however. Davis adds, however, "As the movement continues to build up steam, one has to wonder whether it's a housing crisis solution with a new coat of paint."

With adults lo...

Tiny homes get headway in Houston

2019-10-22T11:50:00-04:00

Refuge, one of Houston's leading developers, in conjunction with architecture firms Brett Zamore Design and Gibson Design, Inc., have created the mini-development of one- and two-bedroom homes, each between about 600 and 800 square feet, packed with amenities for modern living.

According to Culture Map, the homes feature open floor plans, plenty of patio space and are "far from being crammed or crowded." One of the homes is currently valued at $249,900, Culture Map reports.

Boise embraces Accessory Dwelling Units

2019-07-03T12:35:00-04:00

Backyard cottages typically provide affordable housing in already developed neighborhoods. They’re one way Boise city leaders hope to rein in runaway rents and house prices. On Tuesday, the Boise City Council voted unanimously to relax city regulations on these units to encourage more density and affordable housing.

Bigger and better Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) are headed to Boise, Idaho, where city officials have embraced a series of measures that could spur the development of new ADUs in the city. ADUs, for example, will now be able to include up to two bedrooms and up to 700 square feet of interior space. Parking restrictions have been lifted for one-bedroom and studio ADUs, as well.

Speaking in support of the new regulations, Holli Woodings, a Boise resident, told the City Council there, “It’s a way to build affordability, to build density and to allow folks to make a little bit of extra money off their properties.” She added, “I want to keep looking at how we can do things to encourage more than one dwelling per parcel.”

Yves Béhar teams with tech-infused charity for world's first 3D printed community

2019-05-09T15:01:00-04:00

Yves Béhar, the founder of the San Francisco-based design firm fuseproject, has teamed up with building startup ICON and housing charity New Story to bring about what they describe as "the world's first 3D-printed community."

Last year, ICON and New Story went to SXSW 2018 and announced the successful printing of their first permitted 3D-printed home. Now, the companies are employing that technology to build much-needed housing in Latin America. Béhar, who recently launched a line of prefabricated ADUs, has designed the series of small homes and is working with the two to begin printing this summer.

Photo by Terilyn Steverson.

Future residents of the 3D printed neighborhood have been involved in the planning process from the get-go, providing feedback on land selection, community layout, and home designs. Through this engagement, the design has come to reflect a desire for different programs, climate factors, and growth. As examples, the designer created an outdoor kitchen in respon...