Archinect - News

Additional renderings unveiled for Squamish First Nation's 6000-unit development in Vancouver

2019-12-06T18:52:00-05:00

The single largest private investment undertaken by a First Nation in the world could take a step forward in Vancouver next week as members of the Squamish community meet to discuss the approval of a proposed 6,000-unit residential development designed by Revery Architecture.

If approved, the 11.7-acre development would take shape in the city's Kitsilano neighborhood on triangular site located below and around the Burrard Bridge. An updated set of renderings published by The Daily Hive showcases the visionary nature of the 11-tower development, which will be built almost entirely without parking.

Most of the buildings are design with no parking. Image courtesy of Revery Architecture / Westbank / Squamish Nation.

The multi-phase development would take shape around the city's Burrard Bridge. Image courtesy of Revery Architecture / Westbank / Squamish Nation.

The Daily Hive reports that the five phase project would take shape on a starbust-shaped site that would link both to a nearby ...

'Breaking' the Mega Block by 'dressing' it? UNStudio completes exterior work on South Korea mass-housing project

2017-08-30T17:02:00-04:00

Over the past decade of South Korea's rapid urbanization high-density apartment development has become the most popular type of housing in the country, producing a myriad of identical, close-set, utilitarian blocks.

When in 2012 the Hyundai Development Company invited UNStudio to design an 'intervention' for two new residential developments in Daegu Wolbae, South Korea's fourth largest city, the firm proposed to simply re-skin the existing structures with multi-color panels. Their plan to break the homogeneity with color was inspired by the city's history of manufacturing clothing and textiles—the facade designs bare similarity to the texture of a fabric or a media screen.

Image courtesy of Hyundai

On the urban scale, color was also utilized for zoning—as the architects put it, not only reinforcing identity, but also establishing community, revealing principal access points and communicating the relationship between the inside and outside of the two mega-blocks.

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How social equality is linked to health, as manifested in the built environment

2017-08-29T14:13:00-04:00

Residents of the outer suburbs tend to travel much longer distances between home, work and the services they need daily. Getting around necessarily defaults to the car, which has serious long-term implications for health. Driving is particularly associated with extended sitting in a confined space and, as a result, not getting enough exercise each day. When poorer communities are located in areas of lesser amenity due to lower housing costs, this exacerbates their health problems.

The close correlation between socioeconomic status and health has long been out of question. The built environment and the environmental context serve as direct social determinants of health.

Due to lower housing costs, poorer communities are often restricted to residing in areas of lesser amenity that exacerbate the obstacles to mental and physical well-being—lack of quality services and infrastructure, scarcity of green space and long work commutes challenge health. Additionally, poor building design and construction, and the excessive noise that it causes, can significantly contribute to stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and sometimes even neighbor conflict and violence. What might appear as light threats, such as sleep deprivation which is linked to obesity, serve as risk factors for many chronic diseases.

While high-density living is increasingly trumpeted as “healthy,” health and well-being of poor communities in high-rise housing heavily depends on the specifics—geographic...

Is Los Angeles becoming a "real" city?

2016-06-23T13:35:00-04:00

Could Los Angeles grow to become a “real city” like New York or London? Last year, LA gained at least 50,000 people, according to a recent report from the California Department of Finance, pushing the population to more than 4 million people for the first time in the city’s history.

Part of the appeal of Los Angeles has been its refusal to be like other cities. For years, its objective "center" was a forbidding cluster of office towers with near zero street life, while in outlying, low-density neighborhoods, people partied in back yards that ran up against wildlife preserves, hiking trails, and quaint man-made lakes.

However, as other big, traditionally urban U.S. cities gradually became stupidly unaffordable (looking at you, New York and San Francisco) and Moby wrote that one Op-Ed, a sizable number of creative-class types decided to try their luck in a place with what then had half the rental costs and much more temperate weather.

Now, with a rapidly growing subway system and a still undaunted, ebullient vibe, L.A. may be starting to take itself seriously as a city, which ironically could be its undoing, or the impetus for spectacular urban development. If history is any guide, it will be both, creating the newest weird, beautiful, idiosyncratic iteration we co...

Silicon Valley is set to get over 10K more housing units – is this the beginning of the end of its housing crisis?

2016-03-08T21:03:00-05:00

Last week the city council in Mountain View, California, took a significant step toward addressing Silicon Valley's housing affordability crisis. The city approved a new planning document for its North Bayshore district that envisions the creation of up to 10,250 units of high-density housing. Mountain View only has about 32,000 households total, so that would be a substantial 32 percent increase [...]

"The big question is whether this represents an isolated victory for housing advocates or whether it's the start of a trend toward denser development in Silicon Valley more broadly."

For more on the housing woes of the world's tech capital, check out these links: