Archinect - News

Cosmic set to produce prefabricated ADUs in California with water recycling and solar energy

2024-04-23T13:58:00-04:00

San Francisco-based Cosmic has raised $1.5 million in funding for their micro-home product designs aimed at bringing “self-sustainable homes in California and beyond.” The company’s leading product, Cosmic ONE, is described as a “limited-edition high-quality micro-home” that can serve as an ADU, a primary single-family home, or a component in a wider residential community.

Showroom model. Image courtesy: Cosmic

Cosmic ONE has been designed as an all-electric, prefabricated unit that can use recycled water for non-potable needs, as well as being equipped with a solar and battery system. The first 100 CosmicOne units will be available for sale in California.

Showroom model. Image courtesy: Cosmic

“Building a new home and expanding an existing one today can be very challenging due to the intricate permitting process, labor scarcity, and complexities of site infrastructure works,” the company says about their prop...

Your next job could help transform residential design and production with Zuru Tech

2023-12-13T12:38:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Landscape Designer at the Better Block Foundation, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Senior Architect at Zuru Group.

The role, based in El Segundo, CA, calls for an individual to sit at the forefront of Zuru Tech’s “ambitious project to craft 20-30 exceptional homes within the next 18-24 months.” Among the responsibilities will be leading residential design concepts, collaborating with a wider design team, and mentoring junior architects. Among the skills and qualifications desired for the role are a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture alongside 8-10 years of residential design experience.

Zuru Tech's workspace. Image credit: Zuru Tech

Why the role interests us

The open role at Zuru Tech offers us the opportunity to explore a company seeking to disrupt the traditional process of residential design and construction. The company’s approach centers on a client-facing...

'Multi-family industry’s first franchising opportunity' seeks visionary architect to develop their housing solution

2023-02-22T11:21:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a VDC Coordinator at Assembly OSM, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open position on Archinect Jobs for an Architectural Designer at Vessel Technologies.

The successful candidate will join Vessel’s team in New York City, where they will work on the design, manufacturing, and development of apartment buildings produced by Vessel’s patented system. Specifying the need for a "visionary architect," the company sees its ideal candidate as someone who is "tired of being a consultant" and will instead "embrace cutting-edge technologies and new methodologies."

Vessel Technologies system. Image credit: Vessel Technologies

Why the role interests us

The open role at Vessel is the latest in a long list from our Job Highlights series where architecture and real estate firms are seeking novel answers to the U.S. housing crisis, with other examples including a SHoP-born high-rise disruptor, an emerging ADU desig...

Born out of SHoP, a startup aiming to disrupt high-rise construction is hiring

2023-02-08T11:18:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Architectural Design at the University of Hong Kong, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open position on Archinect Jobs for a VDC Coordinator at Assembly OSM.

The successful candidate will join a team of approximately 30 people in the venture-backed company, who grew out of SHoP Architects with the goal of creating high-rise urban buildings with greater speed, quality, affordability, and environmental credentials that the wider market. The role, based in New York, calls for an individual skilled in 3D modeling to “construct and maintain fabrication-level Revit models for use throughout each product’s lifecycle, from design to fabrication and assembly and eventual operation.”

Why the role interests us

The role at Assembly OSM offers us the opportunity to explore how one startup in the AEC space is seeking to carve a new path toward the design and delivery of hi...

Airbnb co-founder's startup Samara unveils 'Backyard,' its first ADU model for California

2022-11-16T11:29:00-05:00

California-based housing startup Samara has unveiled further details of their factory-produced studio and one-bedroom units. The company, led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and former Flex chief executive Mike McNamara, will now roll out a selection of customizable ADU units, collectively known as the Backyard range, across Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Image credit: Samara

Backyard studio units start at $289,000 and one-bedroom units start at $329,000, including installation costs. While the pricing of the units remains the same throughout California, the cost of installation differs based on regional factors. Customers can also choose between five colors, two roof designs, and customizable windows, doors, and decks.

Image credit: Samara

“Built out of durable, cutting-edge materials, precision engineered and assembled in a factory, Backyard is designed to last a lifetime,” Samara said. “It harvests enough solar energy to power itself, and we’ve made it incredib...

A remote job opportunity for an emerging cabin and ADU design platform

2022-11-09T12:52:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Designer / Project Coordinator at Cliff Garten Studio, we are using our Job Highlights series this week to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Design Lead at Den Outdoors.

The successful applicant will join Den’s small, fully-remote team in designing and delivering Den’s catalog of homes, cabins, and ADUs. Among the responsibilities will be the launching and maintenance of plan sets, the specification development for home designs on Den’s homebuilding platform and helping steer Den's architectural aesthetic. The role calls for residential architecture experience as a must, and preferred experience working with Revit and in startups.

The Outpost by Den Outdoors. Image via Instagram

Why the role interests us

The role at Den offers the latest insight into a new generation of architecture firms seeking to craft a more customer-friendly construction process. Similar to the workflow we previously explored at HOKO Design, the team at...

This studio creates rural getaways, from land sourcing to construction — and they are hiring

2022-07-20T13:57:00-04:00

In late 2021, we covered the emergence of HOKO Design, a UK-based startup that seeks to become “the first household name for residential architecture.”

Part of HOKO’s thesis to become “the homeowner’s architect” is to streamline the client experience of residential design and construction as much as possible. For the company, this means becoming a ‘one stop shop’ for clients, generating VR flythroughs, cost analyses, construction drawings, contract administration, project management, snagging, completion documentation, and catalogs of interior products.

Honesdale Bar House by HUTS

HOKO is not alone in its attempt to build a business model based on client convenience. For this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series, we are shining a spotlight on Brooklyn-based HUTS, who share HOKO’s approach to simplifying the customer experience for residential architecture.

Aimed at prospective clients seeking to build a rural country getaway in the New York state area, HUTS offers a comprehe...

Prefab construction startup Vantem plans 15 U.S. factories

2022-07-18T15:50:00-04:00

The company, which just raised a Series A round of investment from the Bill Gates-founded firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures, builds homes using panels with a proprietary design that sandwiches an insulating layer between two structural boards.

Vantem announced it would use the recent funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Quadrant Management, and TEM Capital to build 15 factories for prefabricated modular housing units across the U.S. by 2029. According to the company, its proprietary panel system has already been deployed in over three million square feet of residential space globally, including Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and the Caribbean.

"Affordable housing is a global need that must be addressed," said Vantem CEO Chris Anderson, adding, "but if we build with traditional methods, we will solve one problem only to worsen another."

One year after ambitious construction startup Katerra went belly up, the market for modular, prefabricated construction is getting increasingly crowded with several players seeking to establish early dominance and disrupt the conventional model, including Vancouver-based ...

Startup raises $155 million to become ‘rising star’ in prefabricated construction

2022-06-28T09:00:00-04:00

One year after the failure of the ambitious construction startup Katerra, another construction technology company is seeking to pick up the mantle as a leader in sustainable, modular, prefabricated construction.

Based in Vancouver, Nexii Building Solutions has been described by The New York Times as “a rising star in the expanding green building industry,” combining a patented modular system with a reliance on 3D modeling software and third-party verification of its sustainability metrics.

Nexii's panels are fabricated in the company's two Canadian manufacturing plants. Image: Nexii/Twitter

Founded by entrepreneur Stephen Sidwell in late 2018, Nexii became the fastest company in Canadian history to reach a valuation of more than $1 billion, doing so in 31 months. Having recently completed its seventh round of funding, the startup has raised more than 200 million Canadian dollars, or 155 million U.S. dollars.

As described in a recent feature in the Times, Nexii’s patented building s...

Disruptor design-build architecture firm raises almost $600K in crowdfunding

2021-12-13T12:39:00-05:00

HOKO Design, a UK-based startup seeking to use technology to transform the role of the architect, has raised $590,000 in a crowdfunding campaign. The company, which describes itself as “the homeowner’s architect,” focuses on integrating virtual reality, real-time client feedback, and a streamlined administrative process for clients, all with the aim of becoming “the first household name for residential architecture.”

Since its founding in 2019 in Glasgow, the company has grown to over 30 employees across the UK, which has worked with 246 clients to date. The company now holds a pre-money valuation of almost $20 million.

HOKO Design differentiates itself from the traditional architect role through a series of client features throughout design and construction stages. At concept stage, these include unlimited design revisions for the client, VR and video flythroughs, a cost analysis before planning stage, and a client dashboard with live updates on the project, including an abili...

Startup Katerra wants to revolutionize the construction industry

2018-06-27T15:18:00-04:00

A Menlo Park company called Katerra announced that it had acquired Michael Green Architecture, a 25-person architecture firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. On June 12, the company revealed that it had bought another, larger architecture firm, Atlanta-based Lord Aeck Sargent. This comes five months after Katerra raised $865 million in venture capital from funders led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has also invested heavily in the co-working startup WeWork.

Startup Katerra looks to revolutionize the construction industry through streamlining the entire process with their design-build model. The company has acquired Michael Green Architecture, known for designing tall wood buildings, and Lord Aeck Sargent.

With these two firms obtained, Katerra will now consolidate by designing and building its products in house. Michael Green Architecture's influence can be seen as Katerra is developing a catalog of mass timber products for residential and commercial building projects. Uniquely Katerra has also created a system to guarantee price early on, a rarity in the industry.

New York's iconic yellow cabs are slowly disappearing from city streets — and Uber is cashing in

2017-10-13T15:12:00-04:00

What seemed inevitable for quite some time now, has finally come to pass; Uber has overtaken yellow cabs in average daily ridership figures, the New York Times reports. This past July, Uber witnessed an average of 289,000 rides per day, whereas yellow cabs only managed 277,000.

More than half of Uber's rides start outside of Manhattan. Yellow and green cabs are not as accessible in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island and users prefer Uber and other ride-share apps. The company capitalized on this market by offering borough-specific promotions and moved its support and recruitment center outside of Manhattan.

Disruption: Y Combinator's urban techno-suprematism and the new Trump presidential era, ft. special guest Fred Scharmen on Archinect Sessions #88

2016-11-10T15:47:00-05:00

Recorded in the wake of Tuesday's election results, this episode got a bit emotional. Fred Scharmen—designer, researcher, and assistant professor at Morgan State University's School of Architecture and Planning in Baltimore—joins us to discuss the potentials and pitfalls of a technocratic urbanism, and whether the former king of cat memes can really offer anything to cities. Our conversation is largely in response to Fred's recent piece for Archinect, "Architects: If You Don't Start Disrupting Urbanism, Silicon Valley Will Do It for You.", with reflections on how technology and media are responsible for our current political climate.

Listen to episode 88 of Archinect Sessions, "Disruption":

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After disrupting the cubicle, are we really any better off?

2016-03-24T12:57:00-04:00

the ‘‘disruptive’’ thinking that insists a workplace ought to care not just for your average needs (supplies, potable coffee, a microwave) but for your deepest psychological ones as well has its insidious side. If the new workplace technology makes it impossible to leave work at work, the ‘‘ethonomic’’ thinking behind new workplace design is intended to make it increasingly difficult to separate our work lives from everything else.

More on the humanities of office design: