Archinect - News

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.

Barack Obama calls for a housing revolution at the 2024 Democratic National Convention

2024-08-21T15:54:00-04:00

Calling on lawmakers to do away with the "outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people," former U.S. President Barack Obama thrilled audience members with an impassioned plea for mass-scale housing production at the 2024 Democratic National Convention last night in Chicago. One comment ("Right now, we are building housing this big. But we need to start building housing this big") has earned him a new viral reputation as a "YIMBY."

The rallying cry echoes remarks made two years ago at the 2022 AIA Conference on Architecture, namely about the intersection between housing justice, social inequality, and government policy that architects inhabit being intractable. Both the embattled single-family and expanding multi-family markets shrank by 6% and 14.4%, respectively, last year, according to Census Bureau data.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris' plan to build three million new homes in four years faces a considerable amount of obstacles related...

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."

New apartment construction in NYC at historic low again

2024-07-14T08:00:00-04:00

The crisis of housing in New York City isn't going anywhere soon: The latest data from a key city agency has revealed a pronounced stalemate in the number of new apartment buildings currently planned for construction in all five boroughs. A lack of tax incentives, including the expiration of rule 421a, and high construction costs (as we covered in our two-part feature on the current economy for the architecture industry) are both likely motivating factors.

Bloomberg reports: "Last month, developers filed 36 permits for multifamily buildings, which, excluding the period of Covid lockdowns in 2020, was the lowest monthly count for May in a decade, data from the New York City Department of Buildings showed. And last year, permits for about 15,500 apartment units were filed, the lowest since 2016, according to the Department of City Planning."

This revelation, one year after the borough of Manhattan approved exactly zero new apartment starts, mirrors a national trend. The Regional Plan ...

On the elevator's role in our skyrocketing housing calculus

2024-07-10T11:22:00-04:00

Through my research on elevators, I got a glimpse into why so little new housing is built in America and why what is built is often of such low quality and at high cost. The problem with elevators is a microcosm of the challenges of the broader construction industry — from labor to building codes to a sheer lack of political will. [...] It’s become hard to shake the feeling that America has simply lost the capacity to build things in the real world, outside of an app.

Stephen Smith, through the New York nonprofit Center for Building in North America, has been exposing variables that undermine the housing market's intricate calculus in the form of building codes, cost of labor, zoning regulations, and the construction industry.

He says: "Elevators in North America have become over-engineered, bespoke, handcrafted and expensive pieces of equipment that are unaffordable in all the places where they are most needed. Special interests here have run wild with an outdated, inefficient, overregulated system. Accessibility rules miss the forest for the trees," adding, "The United States and Canada have also marooned themselves on a regulatory island for elevator parts and designs."

Last year, New York City became the most expensive construction market in the world, with an average cost of $506 per square foot, according to an analysis from Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business.

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.

Brookings research gives Los Angeles communities guidance for future ADU implementation

2024-05-02T18:02:00-04:00

New research published recently by the Brookings Institution has provided details of how local government in Los Angeles can galvanize a newfound abundance of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) through policy changes in order to combat an ongoing housing crisis currently affecting more than one million Angelenos.

Authors Jenny Schuetz and Eve Devens state: “The Los Angeles region offers a useful setting to explore the prospects of affordable ADUs. Four jurisdictions within the region have developed affordable ADU pilot programs. One program, the city of Los Angeles’ LA ADU Accelerator Program, offers operating subsidies for existing ADUs, while the other three offer development subsidies as well as vouchers to cover operating costs.”

This research can be used to bolster architects’ so-called “toolkit” of affordable housing solutions in conjunction with the recent Harvard Center for Housing joint study that compared the strengths and failures of California’s policies with those in othe...

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...

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...

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 ...

New York City unveils major zoning overhaul to boost housing stock

2023-09-25T15:41:00-04:00

Mayor Eric Adams proposed on Thursday a major overhaul of New York City’s approach to development that his administration says could make way for as many as 100,000 additional homes in the coming years and ease the city’s severe housing crisis. [...] The proposals could bring new housing development to nearly every corner of New York City and reflect a growing political consensus that the city must do everything it can to build.

In last week's announcement of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan, several measures designed to achieve the declared goal of adding 100,000 new residential units were listed, including the end of parking mandates for new housing, the legalization of ADUs, encouraging shared living and office conversion, a Universal Affordability Preference policy, updated town center "main streets" zoning along commercial corridors, and a push to utilize available space on campuses across the city.

The proposed town center “main streets” zoning updates could spur new residential development along commercial corridors. Credit: New York City Department of City Planning

“Our goal is to create ‘a little more housing in every neighborhood’ to finally tackle New York’s housing shortage head-on,” said New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Dan Garodnick. “By addressing the root cause of New York’s high housing costs, displacement, homelessness, and the imbalance of power between...

New Terner Center study assesses the impact of SB 4's implementation in California

2023-09-16T10:37:00-04:00

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation has uncovered over 171,749 acres of developable land owned by nonprofit colleges or faith-based organizations in the state, bolstering the aims of the “Yes in God’s Backyard” movement as it pushes Governor Gavin Newsom to sign SB 4 by the end of next month.

The bill passed the state senate along with the related SB 423 on Monday. If signed into law, it would streamline the process by which churches and other nonprofit organizations can enact housing at sites that previously had been limited by local land use restrictions and the California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA).

Supporters of the measure have said it will help increase housing in much-needed communities where displacement and homelessness have become the norm as rising expenses and pushback on the part of local municipalities in the wake of SB 9 threaten to derail efforts statewide.

Previously on Archinect: Plan to let churc...

New Terner Center for Housing Innovation paper unpacks five years of SB 35's impact on the California housing crisis

2023-08-21T18:05:00-04:00

The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has released a statewide assessment of the development of housing five years after the implementation of California's Senate Bill (SB) 35 began in 2018.

The bill eased the barriers to housing production for builders, in some cases removing the required review process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other policies that had been targeted as key impediments to the effort to meet a crisis that has become the defining issue of the time for embattled local governments, residents, and planning officials.

Statistics revealed that 18,000 new units were able to be developed thanks to the streamlining of nearly a thousand multifamily infill housing projects as a direct result of SB 35. The rate of successful developments peaked in 2020, with a noticeable dip recorded in the past year. The study also found encouragingly that most projects covered by SB 35 were considered 100 percent affordable.

Related on Archine...

Gensler Principal Steven Paynter further details office conversion algorithm in podcast sit-down

2023-08-17T14:37:00-04:00

Gensler Principal and Studio Director Steven Paynter sat down recently with financial news service Marketplace.org to detail his firm’s year-old proprietary office conversion metric, a unique tool that has become indispensable as the industry looks to position itself for the mass-scale nationwide surge in the conversion market expected for the coming decade.

Paynter had previously revealed the metric’s surprising findings that only about 30% of commercial buildings have the ideal structural prerequisites (e.g., window depth, floor plates, and ceiling heights), essentially doubling down on his original claims with added details as to the so-called “Goldilocks” zones architects look for when looking at structures for a residential conversion.

“[If] you took a typical floor plate, for example, in those the average unit size for your location or your city, it would divide that unit size by the quarter window depth, so very quickly say, OK, your unit ends up being 25 feet wide and 30 fe...

NYC approved zero new housing starts for Manhattan last month despite glaring crisis

2023-08-14T18:18:00-04:00

The borough of Manhattan, home to 1.7 million people, approved no new units of housing last month and just 10 buildings with 279 units in total were approved last month in the other four boroughs combined. City leaders are raising the alarm about the anemic pace of development.

The lack of new housing starts mirrors a nationwide dip that was recorded at 24% for the month of June, according to the latest Dodge Construction Network report. Manhattan has seen ruinous housing cost increases since the pandemic abated, irking those in power who feel the need to end a citywide crisis is being blocked by a lack of tax incentive support and prohibitive zoning measures. By way of comparison,1,208 new units were approved in the Borough in July of 2013.

In May, the city's chief Housing Officer, Jessica Katz, resigned in frustration over the ineptitude. Some 560,000 units are needed to meet demands by the end of the decade, a scant 14% of which is currently under development according to statistics released by the city in December along with its "moonshot" plan for 500,000 new affordable units within the same timeframe. One now has to question what happened to the "quantum leap in the creation of new homes" called for at the time by Department of City Planning Director...

Urban housing by women-led firms featured at the 2023 Venice Biennale

2023-06-08T11:01:00-04:00

As part of the 2023 Venice Biennale, an exhibition on the future of housing has opened feating the work of several women-led practices. Titled 'Reconceptualizing Urban Housing,' and organized by the European Cultural Centre, the exhibition centers on “unique perspectives on collective housing, primarily in or near urban areas.”

Reconceptualing Urban Housing Architects

Featured practices in the exhibition are Adengo Architecture (Uganda), Alison Brooks Architects (UK), Dubbeldam Architecture + Design (Canada), Eleena Jamil Architect (Malaysia), Fernanda Canales Arquitectura (Mexico), Manuelle Gautrand Architecture (France), Mecanoo (The Netherlands), Meyer-Grohbruegge (Germany), and Studio Gang (USA).

Mecanoo - Villa Industria Silos. Photo credit: Mecanoo architecten

“The global housing crisis has created an urgent need for housing worldwide, especially in urban centers where 80% of the world’s population is housed,” the organizers explained. “In the race to build more homes faster, ma...

NYC’s housing chief resigns amid concurrent homelessness and affordability crises

2023-05-24T17:50:00-04:00

New York City’s Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz is set to leave her post in the Adams administration by early July, she told Gothamist, leaving open a critical role tasked with overseeing the city’s response to its growing housing and homelessness crises.

Katz told Gothamist the job was both “frustrating” and a “real sprint.” She is credited with overseeing the beginnings of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ first housing plan as well as streamlining several key projects involving supportive and transitional housing during her 16-month tenure.

The city’s shelter system swelled considerably in 2022 while an influx of newly arrived migrants complicated efforts to provide beds for those most in need. This came at a time when rents across the city have soared past pre-pandemic record highs in nearly every borough. New Yorkers are currently experiencing homelessness at a rate of 1 per every 120 persons, according to The Bowery Mission.

The Mayor's office has yet to name a replacement for the position.

A 50-story housing proposal is shaking up planning officials in San Francisco

2023-04-19T18:07:00-04:00

A proposed new high-rise development in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district is standing out over its disputed manipulation of statewide density laws.

The LA Times is reporting on CH Planning‘s unlikely new proposal, which could add a Solomon Cordwell Buenz-designed 50-story tower to the neighborhood via provisions in California’s Density Bonus Law — a regulation they say allows for permitted deviations from local building restrictions to provide options for affordable housing.

“It simply defies logic that a building in a 100-foot height district seeking a 50% bonus could somehow rise to 560 feet,” Daniel Sider, chief of staff for San Francisco’s Planning Department said in a rebuke published by the newspaper. “While we agree that this site is ripe for housing, and we hope to work with the developer to achieve that, there is no provision in state or local law to permit the downtown-style building that’s been proposed.”

“The proposed project is flat out inconsistent with local zoni...

This architect has identified the qualities office buildings need for converting to residential

2023-03-21T11:51:00-04:00

That simple recipe for pandemic lemonade—offices people no longer use, combining with central urban locations where people want to live—is blissfully ignorant of a wide range of architectural and economic factors that make the vast majority of office buildings simply unsuitable as housing.

Labeled by Fast Company as “Goldilocks” zones, the sweet spot for office buildings with the potential to become residential are ones that are mid-rise, built pre-WWII, with at least two sides facing open areas or streets near, but not within, a city’s financial core. According to San Francisco-based architect and structural engineer Charles F. Bloszies, the challenge with converting some office buildings lies in their large floor plates and lack of street exposure. Bloszies and his firm have been using publicly accessible data from the San Francisco Planning Department to identify offices that meet the ideal conversion characteristics.

Previously on Archinect: Gensler Principal Steven Paynter details new proprietary office conversion metric

This approach could be done in almost any city says Bloszies, and with higher office vacancies, greater housing demand, and lower real estate costs, this is an opportune moment to convert offices. There’s even the potential to make use of larger, ...

'Multi-family industry’s first franchising opportunity' seeks visionary architect to develop their housing solution

2023-02-22T11:21:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a VDC Coordinator at Assembly OSM, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open position on Archinect Jobs for an Architectural Designer at Vessel Technologies.

The successful candidate will join Vessel’s team in New York City, where they will work on the design, manufacturing, and development of apartment buildings produced by Vessel’s patented system. Specifying the need for a "visionary architect," the company sees its ideal candidate as someone who is "tired of being a consultant" and will instead "embrace cutting-edge technologies and new methodologies."

Vessel Technologies system. Image credit: Vessel Technologies

Why the role interests us

The open role at Vessel is the latest in a long list from our Job Highlights series where architecture and real estate firms are seeking novel answers to the U.S. housing crisis, with other examples including a SHoP-born high-rise disruptor, an emerging ADU desig...

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 NYT asks: In a housing crisis, is building ‘bland’ better than the alternative?

2023-01-23T18:34:00-05:00

The new developments look startlingly alike, often in the form of boxy, mid-rise buildings with a ground-floor retail space, sans-serif fonts and vivid slabs of bright paneling. The bulky design is conspicuous, jutting out of downtown streets and overpowering its surroundings. Over time, it attracts a certain ecosystem — the craft breweries, the boutique coffee shops, the out-of-town young professionals. It’s anytown architecture, and it’s hard to know where you are from one city to the next.

The disappearance of America’s vernacular architecture and subsequent rise of what some call developer modernism is the product of necessity, reluctance towards artistry, and the monopolization of residential development across the country, according to the Times’ real estate reporter Anna Kodé.

The question of the kinds of structures (especially outside of large cities) they are replacing, if at all, is a potential counterargument in favor of their ubiquity. The larger question of whether drabness is a permanent condition of contemporary architecture, however, remains unanswered.

In a postscript with the Times’ Insider section, Kodé added: “I think one of the surprising things that came out of this story for me was finding out the number of people who defend these building types. I thought I would have to scrounge for those kinds of people. But a lot of people dee...

Sacramento offers preapproved architectural designs to property owners to mitigate housing crisis

2023-01-23T14:13:00-05:00

There is new housing help in Sacramento with the city now offering free architectural designs, permit-approved, to build on your property. You can download the plans straight from the city website. The aim is to increase housing across the city.

The available architectural plans are for accessory dwelling units (ADUs). In this instance, they will come in three forms: studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units. This move by Sacramento is meant to address the city’s housing crisis by providing property owners an incentive to build and offer space for those in need of a home. As noted by Garret Norman, a senior planner with Sacramento, this plan aims to save costs and time due to not needing to hire designers or going through the normal review process.

Constructing more ADUs is a major element in Sacramento’s goal to create 45,000 new housing units over the next seven years. The city is currently falling behind state guidelines that require more than 5,600 new homes to be built each year.

New York City announces new 40,000-unit adaptive reuse office conversion plan

2023-01-13T11:50:00-05:00

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has unveiled an ambitious plan to help convert the city’s unused office spaces into apartment dwellings in an effort to bring online 40,000 new units of housing in the next decade.

The plan, which includes a new study and 11 “concrete recommendations” made by the new Adaptive Reuse Task Force announced by Adams over the summer, will target a total of 136 million square feet of office space for conversions using updates to state laws and local zoning codes under the leadership of Department of City Planning Director Dan Garodnick.

Adams said the effort offers a “roadmap to deliver on a vision for a more vibrant, resilient, prosperous, and affordable city.” Its effectiveness in combating the city's dual housing crisis and expected economic downturn is vital to Adams' success in office and can potentially be seen as a bellwether for other cities as they attempt to find their own answers to the changes made to the urban environment following COVID.

Image...

FEMA is getting tough on property managers with the hopes of preventing another Bronx fire tragedy

2023-01-12T17:05:00-05:00

On the first anniversary of the Twin Parks fire in the Bronx that killed 17 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will announce a new national plan to combat “America’s fire problem” using investigatory muscle granted by federal legislation that President Biden signed last month. The legislation will give the United States Fire Administration the power to identify the causes of fires like the one at the Twin Parks North West housing complex.

A year removed from the tragic blaze that took the lives of 17 people in the Bronx apartment complex once lauded by Paul Goldberger for its trend-bucking design, lawmakers in Washington have finally heeded the desperate pleas of public housing advocates who appealed for stricter safety measures in response to the Twin Parks fire and another incident in Philadelphia just days prior.

Biden appointee Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell, the head of the U.S. Fire Administration, said the lack of adequate fire data will also be addressed for the first time. The results will hopefully benefit the estimated 1.3 million Americans who live in public housing. Last year alone, there were more than 1.2 million reported structure fires (of all types), resulting in the deaths of some 2,500 people nationwide.

Related Feature on Archinect: America’s Public Housing is Burning, Fueled by Cold Indifference

“It’s always in our neighborhood,” one former Twin Parks resident told the Times, referring to the deadly di...

Gensler Principal Steven Paynter details new proprietary office conversion metric

2023-01-09T11:56:00-05:00

Now the algorithm he spearheaded collapses the survey process — which must be conducted to determine whether a commercial building can be turned into apartments — from months to hours. His work will help these conversions to be enacted on a mass scale. which is important given the urgency created by America's rising office-vacancy rates due to the pandemic's reshuffling of where and how we work. It could help bring people back to downtowns across North America as renters or homeowners

Gensler estimates that only 3 out of 10 office buildings are eligible for conversion. The pitfalls of mass-scale conversions remain impediments even as architecture firms are earning more from renovations than new buildings for the first time. In the last two years alone, office conversions have jumped by 25%, with an estimated 77,000 apartments currently under construction, according to November data from RentCafe.

"If we can find the perfect buildings for conversion, you start to be able to correct the market, you start to be able to bring people back to neighborhoods," Paynter said to Business Insider. "And then, actually, the demand for the remaining office buildings goes up, because you're creating scarcity by taking some out of the market."

Miami was America’s most competitive rental market in 2022, according to new alarming

2022-12-28T17:50:00-05:00

[In] the last two years, looser regulations and the widespread adoption of remote working attracted even more people to settle in the Sunshine State. As a result, newcomers found themselves competing with those who were already hunting for apartments in the area, making Miami-Dade the hottest area for renting in the U.S.

Nationwide, an average of 14 people were said to be competing for each vacant apartment unit, which remained on the market for an average of 32 days. Miami-Dade County was joined by four other Florida rental markets in the top 20 despite adding a total of 34,000 new dwellings within the calendar year in what can be seen as a direct reflection of the state’s migration patterns since the start of the pandemic.

Rents in South Florida were reported to have increased by more than 24% between 2021 and 2022 to an average of $2,841, leading HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge in June to declare the area to be the “epicenter of the housing crisis in this country.”

“Florida’s not going down,” one local developer told WaPo in September. “I would be the first to tell you if we saw it. We get to see it on the front lines, just by the amount of people that walk into the sales center. … I just don’t see it changing.”

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