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MVRDV completes stunning new green-roofed wholesale market in Taiwan

2023-02-23T12:41:00-05:00

MVRDV has shared photos of its just-completed “ambitious architectural experiment” wholesale produce market project in Tainan, Taiwan.

The firm’s second foray into the country, open-air Tainan Market features a publicly-accessible green roof, punctuated at one end by an office structure, that can be further adapted for agricultural use while providing users a stepped vista onto the market floor and surrounding landscape beyond.

Image © Shephotoerd

The design team says: “Tainan Market represents an ambitious architectural experiment. Here, MVRDV reinvents the typology of the wholesale market — a building type that is usually housed in simple metal sheds — and turns it into a mixture of a market and a public green space. In doing so, the design takes an often-prosaic part of the food industry and elevates it into a place for the public to experience food and appreciate views of the landscape.”

Image © Shephotoerd

The market is ...

In less than 10 years, India's construction market will become the third largest in the world

2016-08-22T13:07:00-04:00

Up to 12 million people are “urbanising” every year in India, a rate surpassed only by China. It means the country will need a sustained building spree that would see more than 75 million people employed in construction by 2022. As it races to build 110 million extra homes needed, plus necessary transport infrastructure, by 2025 the size of India’s construction market would reach $1 trillion, the third largest in the world, according to KPMG.

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In weaker market, architecture firms in China are cutting back

2015-08-11T13:31:00-04:00

After a boom in construction and investment in real estate projects in recent years, work is drying up amid a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy. Property developers are cutting back on new projects, and with construction starts down 16% in the first half this year from a year ago, many firms are cutting salaries or letting staff go. [...] “We are adjusting to a slower pace of urbanization in China with a recovery of the American and Middle East markets”

More from the architecture market in China:

Read the Urban Land Institute's full report on the micro unit housing trend

2015-01-30T15:49:00-05:00

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) recently published a report titled "The Macro View of Micro Units", which shares the latest findings in the revived trend of micro dwellings in the United States. The report arose from a ULI Foundation research grant that the Multifamily Housing Councils received in 2013 to evaluate the market performance and acceptance of small living spaces.

↑ The 23-unit SMARTSPACE SoMa micro apartments at 38 Harriet St. in San Francisco.

Bill Whitlow, a partner of Terra Search Partners, led the ULI Research Committee that wrote the 46-page report. The Committee worked with ULI Multifamily Council members as well as other developers, operators, and design professionals familiar with micro unit developments in conducting interviews. The findings were presented at the ULI's annual fall meeting in New York.

The report focuses especially on high-density and pricey metropolitan cities like New York, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. The prefab SMARTSPACE ...

M.ART 2013 winners update the traditional arts+crafts marketplace

2014-01-29T19:57:00-05:00

The Opengap M.ART 2013 Ideas Competition had participants mix traditional elements of the commercial arts-and-crafts market with a contemporary twist. Proposals also had to emphasize the value of handcrafted work and the craftsman-client relationship. The competition jury met in Guadalajara, Mexico on Jan. 23, 2014 to evaluate all the entries until eventually selecting the top three winners and two special mentions.

First place winners: Zuhal Kol (Turkey); Carlos Zarco Sanz (Spain)

Second place winners: Victor Bouman Casas, Pol Mercadé Armengol (Spain)

Third place winners: Inés Antón Losada, Marta Antón de Zafra (Spain)

Get more details on Bustler.

Storage Space in New York Now Costs More Than a Typical American Home

2013-08-27T15:03:00-04:00

It’s a cellar’s market. New Yorkers are spending more than the price of the average American home — on storage units. Tribeca’s 56 Leonard just sold a 200-square-foot unit for $300,000. That’s $1,500 a square foot for a metal cage in the basement of the future luxury skyscraper.

Over at The Atlantic Cities, editor Emily Badger tried to put things in perspective and created this helpful little chart of median home prices in a few U.S. metropolitan areas (find a screenshot of the interactive chart below).

More on 56 Leonard Street in the Archinect News: