Archinect - News

Watch: an ode to Marcel Breuer's Snower Residence in Kansas City

2016-08-19T13:08:00-04:00

Completed in 1954 for Robert and Marianne Snower, Marcel Breuer designed the house site unseen. The Snowers had reached out to Breuer after seeing his work in a magazine, and lived there until it was bought in 2014.

The current owners, Rob Barnes and Karen Bisset, then renovated some key aspects of the home, although not much was needed. The home still contains many of Breuer's original custom furniture. The below video by Hufft Projects, "A Letter to Marcel", reimagines the initial contact made between the Snowers and Breuer, and takes a tour through the home.

A Letter To Marcel from Hufft Projects on Vimeo.

h/t The Kansas City Star

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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...

Even the wealthy are having trouble buying homes in Silicon Valley, so lenders are offering "zero-down loans"

2016-07-29T14:01:00-04:00

Lenders often give special treatment to the wealthy, of course, but the tech industry has created a particularly ripe crop of clients who are rich or on their way. [...] “Lenders get so caught up trying to stay competitive and finding a market edge, they basically allow greed to overcome common sense ... Easy money does fuel and accelerate the inevitable bubble.”

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Why it just isn't possible to build affordable housing in the current U.S. housing market

2016-07-26T13:03:00-04:00

Nudge down the design and development fees, pay the construction workers less, drop the interest rate as low as it will go, spend nothing on maintenance, even assume that someone gave the land for free — and the buildings still aren't feasible. A 50-unit apartment is still millions short. "Even if you try to tweak a lot," Poethig says, "for people of extremely low incomes, there’s just going to be this gap to the cost of development and production of housing."

A very enlightening (and depressing, but with tentative solutions!) interactive from the Urban Institute uses data from Denver, Colorado's housing market to show how building affordable housing just doesn't "pencil out"—meaning, as Emily Badger puts it for the Washington Post, "The costs of building them outstrip what the people who may live in them could afford to pay in rent."

As Badger explains it, this is mostly due to an imbalance between public and private involvement in the affordable housing system. It isn't profitable for developers to make affordable units, because the tenants just can't pay enough, but public subsidies often can't bridge the gap either. She sums it up:

To the extent that government should step in when the private market can't, affordable housing is a prime example. The larger problem, though, is that we hardly devote the kind of public resources to this market failure that it demands.

Denver was chosen because "It doesn't have a white-hot housing market like...

Proyecto Chacras: a house built in ten days with only recycled materials

2016-07-22T19:04:00-04:00

Built in a scant ten days, “Proyecto Chacras” is described as “pop-up productive housing.” The 30 square meter home was designed by Natura Futura Arquitecture and Colectivo Cronopios out of donated materials and tools, with volunteer labor. Located in Chacras, Ecuador, it houses a family who lost their previous home in an earthquake last April.

The structure has a concrete and brick base that supports modules made of pine palettes. Windows were made from strips of recycled waste and wood. The roof, which was put on last, is zinc sheeting. The house includes two bedrooms and one kitchen-cum-living room.

h/t Architecture in Development

To solve a housing crisis, invest more in modular construction

2016-07-19T13:15:00-04:00

Researchers from the University of British Columbia have suggested that modular construction techniques are key to assuaging cities' housing shortages.

Associate engineering professor Kasun Hewage at UBC, along with PhD candidate Mohammad Kamali, conducted "the first comprehensive review of conventional and modular construction research of its kind," and found that increased factory-produced housing should make it easier for prospective renters and buyers to find a place. It would help cities provide more options that can be built "cheaper, faster and results in fewer workplace injuries," according to Hewage. Their findings were recently published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.

Modular construction is obviously not a new method, but has a bit of a negative rep according to the researchers—the public tends to associate the method with lower-quality structures, and communities like trailer parks. But the study, which reviewed construction data between 2000 and ...

Reinhold Martin hosts contentious 'House Housing' panel, provoking discussion on inequality, real estate and architecture

2016-07-14T17:16:00-04:00

"House Housing; An Untimely History of Architecture and Real Estate", a globally touring exhibit, has finally arrived in its place of conception, New York City. After first appearing at the 2014 Venice Biennale, “House Housing” has popped up in Chicago, Berlin and Los Angeles. The exhibit opened this past Tuesday, July 12 at the AIA New York Center for Architecture.

Researched and organized by Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, the opening was accompanied by a panel discussion moderated by Reinhold Martin, Director of the Buell Center. Martin was joined by Patrice Derrington, Director of the Real Estate Development Program at Columbia, GSAPP and Lissa So, Founding Partner at Marvel Architects.

The exhibit is quite timely, given the frequency with which New York’s housing stock is embroiled in tension between real estate, architecture, private capital and the demand for more affordable housing. If anything, the exhibit and panel disc...

Make it Rain: sorting through the complex world of architecture fee structures, plus Architecture for Humanity's $3M lawsuit, on Archinect Sessions #72

2016-07-14T15:49:00-04:00

This week on the podcast, Julia Ingalls joins us to discuss the byzantine considerations behind how architects charge for work, and shares some helpful guidelines from her recent piece about how residential architecture fee rates are determined.

We also dip into the recent $3M lawsuit against Architecture for Humanity for allegedly misusing restricted funds. After suddenly going bankrupt last year, many of AFH's volunteer cells have continued operating, and an offshoot organization, Open Architecture Collaborative, officially launched this past March. The lawsuit against AFH's founders could shed light into why the lauded nonprofit seemed to shutter so suddenly.

This episode of Archinect Sessions is sponsored by AIA Advantage Partner, BQE Software, and the makers of ArchiOffice. ArchiOffice is the only Office and Project Management Software built with the needs of architects in mind. It will help you manage people and projects, while you focus on designing great architecture. Our podc...

14 to 1: Post-Katrina Architecture by the Numbers

2016-07-13T15:44:00-04:00

The thousands of new old houses in New Orleans reveal the ethos of a people in a place nearly destroyed. New Orleanians have embraced their city’s architectural heritage as they’ve rebuilt for an uncertain future.

What does post-Katrina architecture look like in New Orleans? And what does it reveal about its society? In their survey in Places, Richard Campanella and Cassidy Rosen discover that historical styles are 14 times more popular than contemporary styles in the rebuilt city, despite the focus of media coverage on experimental projects like Make It Right. The retro revival pays homage to 19th-century New Orleans and a past that has become both a refuge from the present and a cicerone to the future.

HLM and Tectonics Architects win UK Passivhaus awards

2016-07-12T13:30:00-04:00

Congratulations to triumphant Tigh na Croit by HLM Architects & Lansdowne Drive by Tectonics Architects who were crowned the 2016 UK Passivhaus Awards winners. The Winners were announced at a ceremony held in London on the 7th July, attended by approximately 80 delegates.The winners were decided by PHT members and Award Ceremony delegates.

HLM have won the Rural category of this year's UK Passivhaus Awards. The house, which aimed to create a low-energy, modern solution for the 'outdoorsy' clients, has been designed to reflect its Scottish Highland context.

Tectonics Architects gained the award for the Urban category, with their fantastic project in Hackney.

The era of aspirational pricing is over

2016-07-11T01:39:00-04:00

Brokers say the very top of the market — consisting of eight- and nine-figure homes — is faring the worst as slowing economies overseas and volatile stock markets have spooked buyers. The supply of homes for the rich exploded as builders aimed at the high end after the financial crisis.

Robert Frank highlights a worrisome pileup in the overinflated; luxury housing, megamansions and penthouse market.

Steve Saling, retired landscape architect with ALS, designs residence he can control by blinking

2016-07-08T13:38:00-04:00

Unwilling to accept a life utterly dependent on caretakers, [Steve] Saling designed a series of systems that let patients with ALS control their environment in the assisted living center with ...blinks and facial twitches. “The notable impact that ALS had on my ability to design is speed,” he said. “I am a lot slower. [But] Because much of my profession had been computerized and I excelled in computer-assisted drafting, I was still able to convey my ideas with a lot of precision.”

Read more about amazing architects who never let their disabilities get in their way:

Working out of the Box: Francis Tsai

Francis Tsai, previously featured on Archinect's Working Out of the Box, passes away

Building Voice: Visually impaired architect, Christopher Downey, lectures in Downtown Miami

The nuanced design of deaf spaces

Couple sues architect for allegedly copying their dream house

2016-07-08T13:00:00-04:00

The couple claims the firm Pereiras Architects Ubiquitous and property owners Daniella and Ari Schwartz accessed their exclusive plans in property records last August through the Lawrence buildings department — without their permission. “There is no doubt that you have accessed and intentionally copied the plans of the Fortgang residence intending to create a replica of our clients’ home and distinctive exterior,” the Fortgang’s lawyer Steven Stern wrote in a cease-and-desist letter

Rivka and Seth Fortgang from Long Island had their custom 4,400 square foot house built in 2004, in the neighborhood of Five Towns. After learning Pereiras Architects Ubiquitous were building a very similar looking house a mile away, the Forgangs sued. Rivka Fortgang, an interior and exterior home designer, claims that the copycat house has damaged her reputation personally and professionally.

More contentious lawsuits in architecture:

Open Call for Submissions: "Domesticity"

2016-06-28T10:22:00-04:00

Your dream home is not your grandmother’s, and it certainly won’t be your granddaughter’s. As the modern family evolves in an increasingly unaffordable housing market, with populations pushing out of the suburbs towards downtown, current models of the single family home don’t seem so tenable, or desirable, anymore. ‘Smart’ devices and shared ownership options add invisible degrees of customization, while perhaps at the expense of domestic ownership as the key to financial stability.

With this shift in mind, architecture should undergo a Case Study 2.0 program. How can we define and design what “domesticity” can be for today’s modern family?

The Call for Submissions under our July editorial theme, "Domesticity", is open immediately. We're accepting both editorial and project submissions. Details below:

》Project Submissions: Case Study 2.0

The Case Study homes of the post-war era became icons of architectural idealism and pragmatism, while also setting the tone for what familial domestici...

Brexit will put even more strain on towns already pressed for housing

2016-06-27T17:32:00-04:00

The areas most likely to benefit from EU structural funding voted predominantly to leave [...] With 12% of those working in construction migrants from the EU and with the construction industry already struggling to keep up with demand, any drop in skilled migrants will hit Britain’s ability to build. [...] Analysts are already predicting a drop in supply of new homes, due to market volatility, predicted slowdown on skilled migration flows and share price drops for developers.

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