Archinect - News

$800-a-month sleeping pods? One company thinks they are the solution to California’s housing crisis

2022-05-20T18:41:00-04:00

A new Silicon Valley startup is taking the charge put forth by the recent expansion of ADUs and other non-traditional forms of accommodation in the uphill battle to provide affordable housing to the millions of Californians struggling to find a way forward.

Business Insider recently took a closeup look at the San Francisco-based Brownstone Shared Housing, an eight-month-old company co-founded by former state auditors James Stallworth and Christina Lennox, that has designed a new stackable sleeping pod currently being modeled within single-family homes in Bakersfield and Palo Alto.

Similar to the sleeping capsules common to urban Japanese hotels and resorts, the four-foot-tall spaces can be scaled to hold up to 14 people and are being marketed by the company as an alternative to the high-rent, low-availability housing situation typical in the areas adjacent to Stanford University.

Shared housing startups prepare for big business

2018-05-23T15:54:00-04:00

A Crunchbase News analysis of residential-focused real estate startups uncovered a raft of companies with a shared and temporary housing focus that have raised funding in the past year or so. This isn’t a U.S.-specific phenomenon. Funded shared and short-term housing startups are cropping up across the globe, from China to Europe to Southeast Asia.

Crunchbase reporter Joanna Glasner takes a look at the new crop of shared and short-term housing startups that have recently raised millions of dollars in funding, such as Common, Starcity, Roomi, Ollie, HubHaus, and others.

What it means to add 20,000 Waymo self-driving robot taxis to America's roads

2018-04-03T18:19:00-04:00

On Tuesday, Waymo announced they’d purchase 20,000 sporty, electric self-driving vehicles from Jaguar for the company’s forthcoming ride-hailing service. [...] They estimate that the Jaguar fleet alone will be capable of doing a million trips each day in 2020. [...] if Waymo is even within 50 percent of that number in two years, the United States will have entered an entirely new phase in robotics and technology.

In his piece for The Atlantic, Alexis C. Madrigal looks beyond the technological and economic implications of Waymo's latest announcement to add 20,000 electric self-driving Jaguar I-Pace SUVs to its rapidly growing ride-hailing fleet by 2020 and instead think about the social (how comfortable/uncomfortable will we be around so many robots?), legal (what if a city wants to declare itself a "robocar-free zone"?), and urban planning effects (how will infrastructure redevelopment change our existing cities in the 21st century?).

Bracket announces a Call for Submissions for issue #5 [On Sharing]

2017-10-06T13:00:00-04:00

The 5th issue of BRACKET just launched its Call for Submissions, and this time the theme is [On Sharing].

Electronic Submission System Launch: January 10th, 2018
Submissions Due: February 4th, 2018, Midnight EST

The following is the full submission brief:

Bracket [On Sharing]

Sharing is one of the humanity’s most basic traits; we intrinsically recognize the benefits of pooling resources within a community in order take advantage of varied abilities and access in order to fulfill needs. Sharing is the key driver behind civilization’s move towards collective living – first in small settlements and eventually in megalopoleis. The impact of sharing goes beyond simply satisfying the necessities for survival and extends itself into the social and cultural dimensions of our communities. In constructing an urban commons, composed of collectively managed and shared resources, we shape our physical, social, and cultural environments to achieve some degree of shareabilty – whether of g...

A website offering vacation rentals for architecture lovers

2017-07-26T13:36:00-04:00

PlansMatter is a new travel website that offers vacation rentals for design-minded individuals. The accommodations are hand-picked by two architects, Scott Muellner and Connie Lindor, the founders of the website. The site is not just another Airbnb—listings for each property point to various rental sites, with which the business collaborates.

The selection is exciting in its variety. The site features listings for Rudolph Schindler 's LA Penthouse, Olson Kundig's camping cabins in Washington, James Turrell 's House of Light in Niigata, Japan, F. L. Wright's Kinney House, and many more 'architecturally significant' properties all over the world in which one can stay at a variety of price points.

plansmatter.com

Muellner notes, “It’s great to go to a museum or a public building designed by an architect you admire, but it’s a whole different experience to stay a week in that architect’s space. It’s not just taking a tour; instead of viewing art, it’s living with it.”

...

Pittsburgh disappointed with Uber's self-driving car experiment

2017-05-23T11:58:00-04:00

When Uber picked this former Rust Belt town as the inaugural city for its driverless car experiment, Pittsburgh played the consummate host. [...] Nine months later, Pittsburgh residents and officials say Uber has not lived up to its end of the bargain. [...] The deteriorating relationship between Pittsburgh and Uber offers a cautionary tale, especially as other cities consider rolling out driverless car trials from Uber, Alphabet’s Waymo and others.

"Starting later this month," wrote Bloomberg less than one year ago, "Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved." Since then, Pittsburgh appears to have fallen out of love with the ride-sharing giant's promises for the city.

Uber manipulates its drivers through behavioral science experiments

2017-04-03T12:49:00-04:00

...even as Uber talks up its determination to treat drivers more humanely, it is engaged in an extraordinary behind-the-scenes experiment in behavioral science to manipulate them in the service of its corporate growth — an effort whose dimensions became evident in interviews with several dozen current and former Uber officials, drivers and social scientists, as well as a review of behavioral research.

"Because its drivers are independent contractors, they lack most of the protections associated with employment. By mastering their workers’ mental circuitry, Uber and the like may be taking the economy back toward a pre-New Deal era when businesses had enormous power over workers and few checks on their ability to exploit it."

For some Uber drivers, their cars double as beds

2017-01-23T14:05:00-05:00

The vast majority of Uber’s full-time drivers return home to their beds at the end of a day’s work. But all over the country, there are many who don’t. These drivers live near, but not in, expensive cities where they can tap higher fares, ferrying wealthier, white-collar workers to their jobs and out to dinner—but where they can’t make enough money to get by, even with longer hours.

To maximize their time, drivers find supermarket parking lots, airports and hostels where they catch several hours of sleep after taking riders home from bars and before starting the morning commute.

Sam Fox students design a First Class Meal

2017-01-11T17:27:00-05:00

“First Class Meal does what the best sharing opportunities do — it identifies excess capacity from one person or organization and makes it available to another one in need, creating a symbiotic relationship that improves the success and efficiency of both partners,” said Linda C. Samuels, associate professor of urban design, who served as faculty advisor. “That symbiosis results in more profitable organizations and, ideally, a more equitable distribution of resources.”

The first phase of renovations would prioritize storage and pickup areas as well as space for classes.

Urban SOS is sponsored by multinational engineering company AECOM and the Van Alen Institute in partnership with 100 Resilient Cities. Other finalists — working to solve challenges in Athens as well as Durban, South Africa and Quito, Ecuador — include: Monash University, Harvard, California at Berkeley, Oxford, Columbia, The New School and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

For more information, visit aecom.com or follo...

Uber takes to the skies with a new advertising strategy in Mexico DF

2016-10-17T18:45:00-04:00

Mexico City is notorious for its gridlock (and the smog it produces). The ride-sharing platform Uber has taken advantage of this captive audience with an unusual advertising medium: drones.

As reported by Bloomberg, Uber has sent off a fleet of sign-bearing drones to hover over windshields. “Driving by yourself?” asks one in Spanish. “That’s why you can never see the volcanoes.”

Mexico City represents Uber’s biggest market, so the unique (and aggressive) advertising strategy makes some sense. No word yet on any drone-provoked fender benders.

For more on Uber and its influence on cities, follow these links:

Could property ownership be automated?

2016-10-17T13:25:00-04:00

What’s extraordinary about a smart contract is that it gives blockchain the power to not only record property rights but enforce them. Once deployed, a dozen lines of computer code can fulfill the same role as the county records office, the courts and the police. You can have “the function of a trusted bureaucracy without the expense of putting together a trusted bureaucracy”, Waldman explains.

The homeowner posts a price for the rental. The renter sends the money through her smartphone. Inside the front door is a very small computer connected to the internet. The computer knows when the renter is allowed to enter and unlocks the door for her when she pushes a button on her phone.

Smart contracts run on blockchain ledgers, the same technology that enables Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For more on the possible spatial ramifications of this technology, check out some past Archinect coverage:

Airbnb offers landlords a cut of the profits

2016-09-13T17:27:00-04:00

Landlords have had a gripe with Airbnb for a while. The sharing platform facilitates subletting apartments without their consent or knowledge, not to mention a cut of the profits. Now, Airbnb is hoping to make amends by rolling out a new initiative dubbed the 'Airbnb Friendly Building Program'. Here's how it works, according to Fortune:

Building owners—provided they operate in a jurisdiction where short-term rental laws are clear, meaning that there’s no ambiguity nor potential for a regulatory mess—apply for the program. Once accepted, the owner then decides the terms (which units, for how long, revenue division, etc.) under which tenants can rent out their homes and submits them to Airbnb as well as amends its tenants’ leases. Eligible tenants in that can then sign up for their building’s program through Airbnb, and become part of the regular reports the company sends to the landlord.

What’s more, Airbnb also handles paying out both the hosts and their landlords, as well as collecti...

OMA and Bengler rebel against the sharing economy (sort of)

2016-09-08T12:18:00-04:00

OMA teamed up with the digital consultancy and product development studio Bengler—who also converted the firm’s massive data set into a website—to put together an installation-cum-digital platform for the 2016 Oslo Triennale. Dubbed PANDA, the “counter-organizational platform” both critiques the sharing economy and, in classic OMA-fashion, wryly critiques that critique.

A red plastic strip curtain demarcates a space that could have been teleported from the basement apartment of a hacker. A grid of sticky notes inscribed with the names of various sharing platforms adorns one wall, while on another a poster maps their global impact. On a desk a six-monitor computer displays various images of countercultural resistance, tagged and sorted by theme. Next to it sits a bottle of Provigil—a wakefulness medication commonly (ab)used for all-nighters by college students—and a stack of news clippings exposing the ills of the sharing economy.

A special PANDA WiFi network is accessible throughout t...

Uber lets you hail its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh later this month

2016-08-19T14:54:00-04:00

Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved. Google, widely regarded as the leader in the field, has been testing its fleet for several years, and Tesla Motors offers Autopilot [...] But none of these companies has yet brought a self-driving car-sharing service to market.

Related stories recently in the Archinect news:

Airbnb is turning into the hotel chains it disrupted

2016-08-08T17:56:00-04:00

Minimalist furniture. Craft beer and avocado toast. Reclaimed wood. Industrial lighting. Cortados [...] The interchangeability, ceaseless movement, and symbolic blankness that was once the hallmark of hotels and airports, qualities that led the French anthropologist Marc Augé to define them in 1992 as "non-places," has leaked into the rest of life. [...] This confluence of style is being accelerated by companies that foster a sense of placelessness … Airbnb is a prominent example.

Nicholas Korody previously explored this phenomenon, of supposedly idiosyncratic Airbnb styling converging on the generic.

Related on Archinect:

Airbnb turns to urban planning as it looks towards the future of home-sharing

2016-08-02T12:53:00-04:00

Today, Airbnb is revealing a new division tasked with inventing new futures for the company, called Samara. Airbnb is also unveiling Samara’s first project: a communal housing project designed to revitalize a small town in Japan. That model isn’t meant to be a one-off. After this project, Airbnb will look to scale it to other declining small towns across the world. The idea is that Airbnb could become a force not only in sharing homes, but in urban planning.

Airbnb's experiment in urban planning was sparked by the success of an elderly woman in a rural Japanese town, Tsuyama Okayama, who listed her home on the site. While near Japan's most famous cedar forests, the town didn't receive many tourists.

But build it and they will come: soon, tourists flocked to the rural idyll. Enough tourists, in fact, that the woman's neighbors secured gigs as hiking guides, translators and tour guides.

Later, Airbnb worked with architect Go Hasegawa to design a community center where tourists could stay. Designed for an exhibit, House Vision, which paired architects with companies, the center will be trucked to Yoshino in Nara Prefecture in October.

The building, which was built with local materials and labor, will be located near a wide stream where tourists can observe local fishermen at work.

"If this works, there are a lot of villages in Japan that could benefit," says Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia.

For more on Airbnb and its urban influence, check out these...

Elizabeth Warren co-signs letter urging feds to investigate sharing economy

2016-07-14T13:18:00-04:00

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D), the senior Senator from Massachusetts, has co-signed a letter requesting that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate the degree to which short-term lodging services are composed of "persons or firms acting in a commercial manner by renting out entire residences or multiple residences simultaneously".

The letter, co-authored by Senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Diane Feinstein of California, marks a major move by lawmakers towards intervening in the so-called "sharing economy".

“[W]e are concerned that short-term rentals may be exacerbating housing shortages and driving up the cost of housing in our communities,” the Senators state in the letter.

The letter brings up concerns about racial discrimination with Airbnb, and questions the economic impact of the company. Studies have found that Airbnb contributes to rising rents and housing shortages.

h/t the Guardian

For more on the sharing economy, check out past coverage:

Falling through the sharing ec...

Los Angeles sues property owner who allegedly evicted tenants for Airbnb flip

2016-06-21T17:31:00-04:00

City attorney Mike Feuer has filed criminal charges against Carol Jean Alsman, a local property owner, for allegedly forcing out tenants in rent-controlled units and then listing the units for rent on Airbnb. [...] [Feuer’s] office has lodged civil complaints against three other Los Angeles property owners for allegedly using their buildings as illegal hotels [...] “In a city with a profound shortage of affordable housing, unlawfully converting rental units to operate hotels has got to stop”

Related on Archinect:

Airbnb invests in a blockchain future

2016-04-13T15:02:00-04:00

Home-rental company Airbnb has “acqui-hired” the majority of the team behind ChangeCoin, a startup that runs a bitcoin-based micropayments service, according to four people with knowledge of the deal. The alternative lodging site has been looking at a few bitcoin and blockchain startups, according to two sources, to study what the technology could do for its services.

Have you heard of bitcoin but still can't get your head around the technology behind them?

Last fall, I sat down with FOAM, a "decentralized architecture office" that believes the blockchain may revolutionize architecture (and so much more). The interview frames a handy introduction to the technology, with particular attention to its spatial implications. Check it out here.

For more on Airbnb, take a look at some of these links:

You may have Airbnb to thank for that low hotel rate

2016-03-21T13:05:00-04:00

Nationwide, Airbnb lists about 173,000 units, equal to about 3.5% of the more than 5 million rooms rented out by traditional hotels — not enough to pose a serious threat to the hospitality industry, according to a study by CBRE's hotel research arm. [...] The study goes on to say that Airbnb properties have started to pressure hotels to keep rates low in a handful of cities where home-sharing units are plentiful, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and [New York].

Lyft gets cozy with LA transit agencies to share data on Metro connections

2016-02-24T13:20:00-05:00

Metro is negotiating an agreement with Lyft aimed at learning more about ride-share trips that begin and end at key Metro stations [...] The relationship would last at least a year and would give Metro a rare peek at data typically kept private. The deal, one of the first of its kind in the United States, would shed light on the role that ride-sharing plays in ... the so-called "first mile, last mile" gap [...] In exchange for Lyft's data, Metro would advertise the service to its riders

Lyft's recent advertising has also been flaunting its connection with public transit – ads all over the US depict the local city's rail map with branching pink veins, suggesting how Lyft can extend existing public transit infrastructure (even though you're still definitely in a stranger's privately-owned vehicle).

Below is an ad in San Francisco, riffing on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART):

Check out more pieces on ridesharing and public transit:

Airbnb intentionally misconstrued data to "garner good press", according to new report

2016-02-18T13:03:00-05:00

In December, Airbnb released a trove of data that showed about 95 percent of its hosts in New York City were playing by the rules. But an independent report released Wednesday cast a shadow on that rosy picture, claiming that the company “misled the media and the public” by removing more than 1,000 listings from its site in November before making available the data [...] The report portrays the December release as a cynical attempt to garner good press...

“Airbnb continues to show a blatant disregard for New York laws designed to protect the rights of tenants and prevent the proliferation of illegal hotels," said Matt Mittenthal, a spokesman for New York’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman.

For more on the "disruptive" influence of Airbnb in cities around the world, check out some past coverage:

Airbnb draws ire with passive-aggressive ads

2015-10-26T17:39:00-04:00

When Airbnb put up ads suggesting various ways San Francisco could use the company’s tax payments, it was undoubtedly aiming to drum up good will. “Dear Parking Enforcement,” one of the ads read, “Please use the $12 million in hotel taxes to feed all expired parking meters. Love, Airbnb.” [...] But instead of good will, the flippant tone of the ads, which went up on billboards and bus stops around the city on Wednesday, unleashed a torrent of sarcasm and anger on social media.

Last week, a deluge of anger and annoyance rained down on Airbnb after their new ad campaign popped up around San Francisco. Billboards plastered with phrases suggesting ways various government agencies could better use the roughly $1 million in taxes per month generated by the company were received as "snarky," "passive-aggressive," and plain-old "not cool."

Bright, pastel-colored billboards were plastered with statements like "Dear Public Library System, We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later. Love, Airbnb."

"Dear SF Tax Collector, You know the $12 million in hotel taxes?" reads another. "Don't spend it all in one place." An adjacent advertisement states, "But... if you do spend all $12 million in one place, we suggest burritos."

Incidentally, this is a particularly bad time for a PR-mess like this to happen, considering Proposition F, a measure intended to restrict Airbnb-type rentals, will be on ballots this November. Airbnb has spent...

Uber brings Mad Max to Seattle

2015-09-01T12:44:00-04:00

To promote the new Mad Max video game coming out at the start of September, Uber teamed up with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment this weekend to give fans in Seattle real rides in real Fury Road vehicles. Through Monday (we know — not enough time, life isn't fair, etc.), those going to and from the city's PAX Prime gaming convention will have the chance to nab a varied set of postapocalyptic chariots that seat either one, three, or four other riders.

The rules are simple:

Trips must begin and stay within downtown Seattle. The Wasteland is vast and gas is precious — the Warboys must remain near their Stronghold.
Your dollars are worthless in the Wasteland. Payment shall not be required.

Here's a look at some of the cars helping to bring new meaning to "disruptive innovation":

Airbnb to collect taxes in Paris

2015-08-25T20:30:00-04:00

After imposing taxes on units in Amsterdam, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and elsewhere, “home-sharing” facilitator Airbnb will now begin collecting taxes in Paris, the company’s biggest market. Collection officially begins October 1st and some see the move as Airbnb’s attempt at playing nice with city regulators. Venture Beat connects the change to Uber’s troubles in Paris, where the ride service company fought new regulation policies.

Data Crunching the Uberization of New York City

2015-08-12T12:59:00-04:00

The recent debate between Uber and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over whether the ride-for-hire company was exacerbating Manhattan congestion was fueled by incomplete, misleading data. There was no way of knowing exactly where Uber cars and taxis pick up passengers, and so the city agreed to a study of Uber’s effects last month as part of its detente with the company. Now, thanks in part to a Freedom of Information Law request, we have data. A lot of data...

The folks over at FiveThirtyEight processed a nearly-overwhelming amount of data on Uber usage in New York City and got some pretty interesting (if not entirely surprising) results. At the top of the list, their research verifies the ride-share company's claims that their doing a better job in serving the city's Outer Boroughs than traditional cabs. "Of the 4.4 million Uber rides for which the data shows a pickup location, 22 percent started outside of Manhattan, compared with just 14 percent of the 88.4 million yellow and green taxi rides," they note.

Some other findings include:

63% of all Uber rides start in Manhattan south of 59th St. (the most traffic-congested area in the city, as well as the part best-served by the subway).
Uber is particularly well-used in the affluent NW Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale, as well as the NE Queens neighborhoods of Little Neck and College Point, while traditional taxis remain dominant in the regions of Queens closest to Manhattan.
In general, man...

Two Uber executives detained in France

2015-06-29T13:06:00-04:00

Uber France CEO Thibaud Simphal and Uber Europe GM Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty were both taken into custody today in Paris [...] The two executives were charged with two different allegations. First, according to them, Uber is running illegal taxi operations. Uber has been struggling with this charge in many countries, starting with the U.S. Second, the police said that Uber France is concealing digital documents...

After protests last week turned violent, French authorities have detained two executives of the ride-sharing company Uber, although officials stated that they were brought into custody on charges unrelated to the protests. Uber is facing ferocious criticism in France, with taxi-drivers complaining that drivers for UberPOP don't have professional licenses and don't pay the same taxes as traditional car services. The conflict highlights tensions in France, a country with a long tradition of hard-fought labor rights, as it grapples with new technologies and economic models.

Last week's rioting, which resulted in 70 damaged cars, gained international attention in part due to tweets from Courtney Love, who found herself at the center of the melée, and sparked a lively discussion on Archinect.

The conversation oriented around issues of technological disruption, bureaucratic regulation and workers' rights, with some, like jla-x, drawing comparisons to architecture.

Donna Sink asked: "the co...

Paris erupts in riot as taxi drivers protest Uber

2015-06-25T19:24:00-04:00

French taxi drivers pulled out the throttle in an all-out confrontation with the ultra-cheap Uber car service Thursday, smashing livery cars, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic during a nationwide strike that caught tourists and celebrities alike in the mayhem.

Parisian taxi drivers have taken to the streets, smashing cars and burning tires to protest UberPop, a budget iteration of the car-sharing service akin to UberX in the States. Traffic came to a stop in the French capital, with reports of stranded travelers walking along the highway with luggage in tow, attempting to catch flights out of Charles de Gaulle airport. So far, 70 vehicles have been reported damaged around France and ten people arrested, according to the AP report.

One passenger caught in Thursday's melee was the singer Courtney Love, who tweeted throughout the experience. Love was able to escape via two men passing by on a motorcycle.

Over the past few weeks, taxi drivers have turned increasingly violent in their opposition to the car-sharing service, which they contend unfairly undercuts their business. Unlike Uber drivers, taxi drivers have to pay tens of thousands of euros for certification each year. Drivers are also frustrated by passenger complaints over a lack of t...

Airbnb celebrates London's Deregulation Act with floating house on River Thames

2015-05-18T20:39:00-04:00

Airbnb is sailing a full-size floating house along the Thames this week to celebrate new rules to support home sharing in London. The publicity stunt follows the passing of the Deregulation Act last month, which means Londoners are now free to rent their homes for up to 90 days a year without risk of fines or having to secure planning permission before doing so.

For more information and your chance to stay in the floating house click here.

Will LA Finally Become A City of Cabs?

2014-12-16T15:14:00-05:00

According to the terms of the proposed draft order, every taxi in Los Angeles would have to become accessible via a mobile application similar to the ones used by Uber and Lyft. These applications will require certification by the Taxi Commission, which can then specify things like pricing maximums and limits on hours worked in a single shift, and can perhaps even set up a rating and complaint system for passengers.