Archinect - News

Ye’s gutted Tadao Ando home is purchased by a crowd-sourced real estate investment startup

2024-08-27T12:25:00-04:00

An upstart California property investment venture named Belwood Investments has announced the signing of a purchasing agreement for the Malibu home Tadao Ando designed for Richard Sachs (and later purchased by Kanye West) in 2013. News of the announcement was made public on Monday after the home was placed on the market for a discounted price of $39 million this spring. In a press release, the firm states the deal was made for under $22 million.

The rapper-cum-fashion mogul’s devastating handiwork might otherwise be an obvious drawback. However, the firm, which promotes a crowdsourcing model of ownership, says it plans on spending $5 million to restore its interiors to their original state (the home was worth $75 million when it was constructed). The renovation is expected to take between 12 and 16 months, according to their announcement.

This startup is hiring an architect to ‘lower the entry barrier to overseas real estate investment’

2023-11-29T12:57:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for an Emerging Scholar in Design at the University of Texas at Austin, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Architect/Designer at Build Block.

The role, based in Los Angeles, calls for an individual who can “prepare architectural drawings for new construction and remodeling,” and “assist in tasks related to land, use, and other building permits.” The role also demands expertise in modern architectural software such as AutoCAD or Revit, and a strong background in sustainable design principles is preferred. The ideal candidate would be fully proficient in Korean, due to the company's increasing collaborations with Korean investors and businesses, with up to five years of experience in the profession.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Build Block offers us the opport...

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...

For sale: One of New York's first skyscrapers

2023-03-15T17:12:00-04:00

A protracted battle over control of one of New York City’s most iconic buildings will finally be settled at auction later this month. A group of developers will hash out their ownership of the Flatiron Building after a State Supreme Court judge ruled a sale could move forward on March 22 at Mannion Auctions. The auctioneer, Matthew D. Mannion of Mannion Auctions, LLC, confirmed that the sale is public — meaning anyone can bid, and the Flatiron Building is therefore anyone’s to win.

The city’s landmark first skyscraper, designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick Dinkelberg has sat empty since publishing house Macmillan left the building for greener pastures of FiDi in early 2019. However, the four majority owners of the property aren’t looking to sell, according to quotes they provided to Hyperallergic. “Our plan is hopefully to maintain ownership. We’re going to bid for the 25 percent,” explained GFP Real Estate Chairman Jeffrey Gural.

The minority partner they’re trying to force out, Nathan Silverstein, says it’s a matter of “different viewpoints with people who evidently get upset too quickly.” Gural added that the plan would then be to lease each of the 22 floors individually, adding that his only strategy heading into next week’s auction is to “play it by ear.”

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...