Archinect - News

In Japan, abandoned and vacant homes are on the rise

2024-05-02T11:42:00-04:00

New government figures show that 5.9% of all Japanese homes are abandoned, while 13.88% of homes are vacant (a total of 9 million homes). The issue is predominantly impacting the country's rural areas, while the number of vacant and abandoned apartments and condo units is also increasing.

Several measures have been undertaken by local and national governments to address the increased cases, which can have consequences for building upkeep and maintenance. In 2022, the city of Nagoya began requiring condo building management to update authorities on the state of their complexes, while, in 2018, Yokohama city asked architects to assess undermanaged condo buildings and set up management associations.

Related on Archinect: Minimalist concrete apartments fill a narrow site in Tokyo, designed by Ryuichi Sasaki Architecture. Image credit: Sherpa

More broadly, Japan passed a law in 2015 allowing local authorities to issue warnings about vacant homes at risk of collapse, including powers to de...

Detroit pitches solar energy plan targeting vacant land across the city

2023-07-06T12:06:00-04:00

A new plan Mayor Mike Duggan is pitching would fill vacant land in the city, provide clean energy for the city, and give money back to community groups. After some consultation with solar companies, the plans should start to take shape this fall. Starting July 1, neighborhood groups will be able to submit a community interest form. If they need assistance with the proposal, they can request help from a solar energy expert.

The plan puts the Motor City squarely in line with Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and New York, whose attempt to power 250,000 homes by 2030 is still lagging. France also just commenced its own plan targeted at parking lots in the country at the beginning of the month, despite previous road bumps there.

Vacant parcels across Detroit have long been the subject of various renewal proposals. As of last September, there were a total of 62,781 registered in the city's Land Bank database. A total of 16.75% of the city's 88,800 overall acreage is considered vacant, according to statistics published in 2019 from Data Driven Detroit.

Chicago Architecture Biennial announces 2021 contributors

2021-04-28T13:51:00-04:00

The Chicago Architecture Biennial is returning this September under the 2021 edition banner, The Available City. This morning, Artistic Director David Brown unveiled an initial list of 29 contributors from Chicago and around the world to collaborate with local community groups to examine forms of shared, collective space and imagine new and innovative uses of vacant spaces in the city.

"The Available City results from a long interest in the landscape of vacant spaces that are so prevalent in many cities across the US, and beyond," Brown elaborated on the selection. "The 2021 edition asks us to imagine the transformative possibilities of collective spaces within those vacant spaces through a process of exchange and collaboration between designers and local residents."

The Available City results from a long interest in the landscape of vacant spaces that are so prevalent in many cities across the US, and beyond. — David Brown

The list of 2021 CAB contributors includes:

Ana Miljački (C...

The hidden potential of vacant homes

2019-08-28T12:28:00-04:00

Now comes encouraging news of a Detroit program to take abandoned homes which can be saved into a land bank and then auction them off. The program is coupled with forgivable loans for repairs.

Detrroit is auctioning off vacant homes to "people who commit to fix them up and live in them." The implementation has supported Detroit's growing identity as a financially feasible place to "make a start with a home and a business."

Landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels turn vacant Detroit parking lots into thriving parks

2019-08-23T09:00:00-04:00

Detroit natives can recall the neighborhood of Fitzgerald and its transition from a lively community to a vacant and foreclosed part of town. Today, the neighborhood is poised for change again, as landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels (SSM) work to help revitalize the community alongside the Fitzgerald Neighborhood Revitalization Plan with a series of design strategies that populate the neighborhood's vacant lots. In a recent Metropolis article, writes, "it’s a unique model for Detroit—or anywhere else—because it rebuilds equity not only by restoring what was taken but also by deepening residents’ relationships through the new landscapes."

With the aim of piecing together 26 lots connecting to and surrounding the Ella Fitzgerald Park, the plan is to create a linear greenway filled with native meadows and larger orchards within the neighborhood. Mortice writes, "the Fitzgerald Neighborhood Revitalization Plan weaves together refurbished single-family homes within a network o...

VACANT NEW YORK maps Manhattan's shuttered storefronts

2016-09-02T13:23:00-04:00

This is high-rent blight. The vacancy problem is immediately visible but lacking in hard data. The intent of this project is to provide some background around commercial vacancies and use a map to give some insight into the extent of the issue, ideally doubling as a tool for community groups and policymakers to identify areas for intervention. It's an obvious problem without a clear set of causes or solutions, but there are several contributing factors [...]

Click here for the interactive VACANT NEW YORK map.

Artist bedecks decrepit Bates Motel in ghost-white before eventual demolition

2015-04-24T14:34:00-04:00

This project [titled 'Projection'], announced last October, is probably the first time in a long time that the old inn (aka the Sunset Pacific) has gotten so much attention. The Bates—whose nickname is as much a callback to 'Psycho' as it is to the motel's location near the intersection of Bates and Sunset—has been vacant for decades, except for the squatters and the occasional, totally fun-looking, likely illegal party

Artist Vincent Lamouroux went all out in covering Silver Lake's Bates Motel in stark white limewash for his piece titled, Projection, which officially opens on April 26. As of now, the derelict landmark will eventually be razed to make room for three mixed-users.

In Detroit, a Groundbreaking School Comes Back as Condos

2014-06-18T13:39:00-04:00

Due to plummeting enrollment and a troubled district, vacant school buildings—heck, just vacant buildings—are none too rare in Detroit. After 19 years of abandonment, the Nellie Leland School, however, is no longer vacant—it, as abandoned urban buildings are want to do, is back in session as condos. [...] Today, the school is known as Leland Lofts, a set of expansive condos in the Lafayette Park neighborhood near downtown Detroit, where a 1,465-square-foot, one-bedroom loft goes for $175K.