Archinect - News

Faced with looming condo safety reforms, Florida frets a new real estate 'crisis'

2024-08-19T18:28:00-04:00

Post-Champlain Towers South tragedy condo building crackdowns are coming and now Florida could be facing its biggest real estate “crisis” in decades, NBC reports. Prices have dipped nearly 40% in some areas after a rash of new laws offloaded proactive maintenance costs onto the HOAs, triggering a simultaneous gold rush for redevelopments and subsequent preservation fight statewide.

One concerned Floridian told the network it added to her personal cost of living concerns (“Every penny I make goes towards that concrete restoration.”) In some cases, the cost of repairs has been reported at northwards of $100,000 per unit. Three-quarters of all condo dwellers in the state now inhabit structures that are more than 30 years old. As NBC says, these are the “last bastions of relatively affordable housing along Florida’s coastline.“

Post-Surfside safety precautions could spur a new gold rush to replace aging Florida condo buildings

2024-07-30T16:49:00-04:00

Regulations passed in Florida after the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers condominium have helped fuel the drive by developers to buy out and replace older residential buildings. The new rules have increased costs for residents in many older buildings, sometimes requiring sizeable special assessments that may be unaffordable.

The rush to improve building safety in the wake of the 2021 Surfside condo collapse has since produced some unintended and expensive consequences for residents of Florida condominiums, three-quarters of whom live in structures that are now more than 30 years old.

While the laws’ intent is to protect their lives and property, the costs offloaded onto them through their condo associations have fueled a separate gold rush on the part of developers (who were already looking to take advantage of the new Resiliency and Safe Structures Act to make way for more lucrative new constructions). The court ruling in the Biscayne 21 case, if upheld, might now be the only thing preventing the mass-scale redevelopment of the many peers of Champlain Towers South, regardless of their current structural integrity.

Japanese homebuilder to demolish condo after backlash for blocking views of Mount Fuji

2024-06-26T08:00:00-04:00

A major Japanese homebuilder by the name of Sekisui House has decided to demolish a nearly completed condominium building in western Tokyo following complaints from locals that the building would have blocked views of Mount Fuji.

As reported by The Asahi Shimbun, the company decided to cancel construction on what would have been a 10-story, 18-unit development on June 3rd. It was originally approved by authorities in January 2023 and was scheduled for completion this July. In a statement, the Sekisui House “decided to prioritize preserving the landscape.” The company asserted that it did not violate any construction regulations, however, it did acknowledge lacking awareness of the building’s potential impact on the view.

Sekisui House has yet to decide what it will do with the land after the demolition is complete.

OMA breaks ground on The Perigon Miami Beach

2024-04-22T12:28:00-04:00

OMA has broken ground on its new Miami Beach development called The Perigon. The project from partner Jason Long at 5333 Collins Avenue will reach a height of 17 floors when it first opens to residents in late 2026.

A total of 73 one- and two-bedroom residences are included, oriented around creating ocean vistas and including about 20,000 square feet of amenities spaces highlighted by a speakeasy and the latest restaurant concept from celebrity chef Shaun Hergatt.

Image credit: The Boundary

A double-height entry lobby welcomes residents to the building’s other features, including a conservatory space, film screening room, beach club, and 82-foot swimming pool. The building is conceived as a series of small rotated “towers.” The vistas are referencing European Riviera-style resort designs, reflected again in interiors designed by Tara Bernerd & Partners.

Image credit: The Boundary

Viewed from the outside, its singular form is define...

Frida Escobedo reveals first American residential design in Brooklyn

2024-04-04T15:16:00-04:00

Frida Escobedo’s first American residential commission has been revealed as a block-scale condominium project in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The designer of the new Modern and Contemporary Art Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in which she has set up a working studio) will deliver the new Bergen development at 209,000 square feet for client Avdoo & Partners by 2025.

It will stand as the second building project in the New York market for Escobedo following her collaboration with Handel on the new National Black Theatre mixed-use development in Harlem.

Image credit: DARCSTUDIO

Escobedo had gained notoriety in Mexico for residential projects, including Mar Tirreno 86, which will now inform her latest design, calling for 105 units configurable in 53 different types and ranging from studios to five bedrooms. The facade of the building is angled such that it maximizes natural light from an east-west direction, with porous openings made along the street level to produc...

Zaha Hadid Architects will refurbish Le Schuylkill Tower in Monaco

2024-03-12T12:15:00-04:00

The next new project from Zaha Hadid Architects will renovate major elements of the historic Le Schuylkill Tower in Monaco.

Built as the principality’s first high-rise in 1963, the aging 25-story residential tower overlooks the Mediterranean and Monte Carlo’s Port Hercule and boasts 188 apartment units in its present layout.

Image courtesy MIR

Joined by Square Architecte, ZHA will embark on a renovation that will result in a brand new 441,320-square-foot space in May of 2027. The operation will add six total penthouses made from low-carbon (XCarb) steel to the three uppermost floors while reconfiguring the interior and balconies without any alteration to the building footprint, as well as reducing whole-life carbon emissions through a BD2M accreditated design.

Image render courtesy Talcik Demovicova

Other environmental considerations include grey and rainwater recycling, improving the building’s envelope performance, and an on-site waste management system.

The new building will also...

Site preparations begin for Norman Foster’s One Beverly Hills

2024-01-03T14:49:00-05:00

Site preparations are underway in Los Angeles in advance of the 50-month construction phase that will bring the Foster + Partners-designed One Beverly Hills residential towers to a plot adjacent to the Beverly Hilton and other area hospitality icons.

Gensler is serving as the project’s executive architect while RIOS has been contracted to deliver the landscaped portion of the design, which occupies the total 17.5-acre site that includes another 8.5-acre botanical garden in compliment of each tower’s biophilic terraces.

The project will be realized at 28- and 31-stories, respectively, making them the tallest design in Beverly Hills since the Bank of America building at 9454 Wilshire Boulevard opened in 1968. According to Urbanize LA, the scheme calls for 255 condominiums, 79 hotel suites, and approximately 30,000-square-feet of commercial space, along with subterranean parking spaces for up to 1,900 vehicles.

Image rendering courtesy DBOX for Alagem Capital.

The project will cost ap...

Rafael Viñoly Architects resumes construction on renamed 125 Greenwich Street condo tower in Manhattan

2023-11-08T17:36:00-05:00

Construction is in full swing again on a Rafael Viñoly Architects-designed 88-story 125 Greenwich Street Manhattan residential project after resuming earlier this year following a four-year pause.

The news comes as the blog New York YIMBY reports scenes of added glass curtain panels and other facade elements amidst renewed construction at or near the crown of the 912-foot tower. The firm followed with an announcement this week stating the project will now be completed in 2024 and under the new monicker The Greenwich by Rafael Viñoly, honoring the legacy of their late founder, who passed away in March at the age of 78.

The restart was expected after February's announcement that developers had finally secured the $313 million needed to complete the project after it topped out in March of 2019.

Photo: Evan Joseph (provided)

Once complete, the parallelogram-shaped design will showcase his storied facility with structural engineering and what his son Román Viñoly describes in a press rel...

Zaha Hadid Architects may lead the design of new Surfside condos replacement

2023-06-16T12:55:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has been revealed to lead the design of a new condominium project proposal at a site once occupied by the collapsed Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Florida.

The project is being commissioned by DAMAC International, which purchased the lot for $120 million in July of last year. Plans call for a 12-story design whose split massing contains 57 total residential units lined by curved balconies and connected at the roof level by a glass-bottomed swimming pool.

Two separate design variations were submitted to local planning authorities for consideration, each based on “alternative interpretations” of planning ordinances, which have come under increased scrutiny in the wake of the 2021 tragedy.

Scheme B. Image courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects.

In a statement, ZHA Director Chris Lepine said: “We are honored to have been chosen for this very special project. While no work of architecture can ever remove the pain of the past, nor should it, a truly ambitious w...

Frank Gehry’s Forma development begins construction in Toronto

2023-06-12T14:49:00-04:00

Frank Gehry’s biggest-ever contribution to the city in which he was born is now underway after construction began on the two-tower Forma condominium scheme in downtown Toronto.

A total of 2,087 residential units will be constructed as part of the process, filling out the pair of 73- and 84-story towers that, once built, will stand as the tallest buildings the 94-year-old Gehry has completed during the course of his illustrious six-decade career in architecture.

Image courtesy Forma/Great Gulf.

Gehry himself was on hand for last week’s groundbreaking ceremony, where he commented on the project’s significance as a new landmark rising from the busy commercial core of the city that has recently become a battleground for developers looking to surmount the fray of tall building proposals proffered there since the beginning of 2021.

Image courtesy Forma/Great Gulf.

"You think about the buildings in other cities like Rockefeller Center, where there’s an ensemble of buildings that create publ...

Take a look inside HWKN’s new 351 Marin tower in New Jersey

2022-08-10T18:36:00-04:00

HWKN has shared photos of its latest addition to the skyline of Jersey City, New Jersey, called 351 Marin. The building, designed in partnership with executive architect HLW, topped out last fall and has recently achieved full tenancy, something developers KRE Group shares is a bellwether for increased demands for an “elevated lifestyle experience” in the city’s luxury real estate market post-Covid.

Image: Here and Now Agency

Located in the burgeoning Powerhouse Arts District and featuring an angled base with a reinforced concrete superstructure, the 38-story residential tower begins as an anchor to a disused plot of land by extending its lobby into the 4,500-square-foot plaza area now redefined as a “sociable space” by its designers.

Image: Here and Now Agency

This creates a geometrically-dynamic public area that features a cafe, stepped concrete seating, and vertical sightlines framed by the darkness of the protruding rhombus-shap...