The overall size of new homes peaked in 2016 for this cycle and for the last three years has continued to moderate, according to new survey results from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
The Home Design Trends Survey for the second quarter of 2019—focusing on home and property design—also found that homeowners continue to place a priority on accessibility features.
— AIA
"With home sizes plateauing and lot sizes continuing to decline, it isn’t shocking to see where that additional focus is going," commented AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. "Homeowners want more flexibility in their space, both inside and outside the house, and they want to use... View full entry
It is now almost 80 years since the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act enabled the construction of the post-war prefab, but controversies and concerns about building a home in a factory have run deep ever since. While practically every other item we buy rolls off a production line, housebuilding’s transition to the factory remains, for many reasons, problematic. — RIBA Journal
With the rise of automation and advances in building manufacturing, architects have considered if machines can replace the profession. However, makes the job so rewarding is thinking of new and creative ways to execute ideas. This level of creativity and design distinction is something architects... View full entry
Fans of Netflix's science fiction horror series Stranger Things were recently treated to season 3, which almost entirely takes place within a suburban mall. Filled with neon, fake marble and geometric water features, the postmodern mall design became the ideal setting for the show set... View full entry
“A Pattern Language” is not about architecture, but about how specific design choices can help us build better relationships. By fitting a series of those choices—the patterns—together, you get a room, a house, a neighborhood and eventually a city. — Curbed
Curbed architecture critic Alexandra Lange takes us on a journey through some of the key lessons from Christopher Alexander's seminal work, A Pattern Language. The book, originally published in 1977 has long been out of fashion in architecture schools, but, Lange argues, with the rise... View full entry
MIT’s Self Assembly Lab and Maldives-based Invena have unveiled Growing Islands, a provocative underwater structural system that redirects wave energy and sand accumulation flows to build new islands and help rebuild existing beaches ravaged by rising sea levels. Diagram showcasing the... View full entry
Miami’s high-end real-estate market has drastically slowed in the past several years, as the Latin American buyers who led a frenzy of postrecession purchases have all but disappeared. South American economies that were roaring in the early years of the decade, including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, are now facing severe economic distress, which has devalued their currencies and left purchasers from those countries with far less buying power in the U.S. — wsj.com
Oversupply, the unknown threat of climate change, and shifting immigration patterns are pushing high-end condominium prices downward in Miami, where, The Wall Street Journal reports, sales have fallen off 24 percent from last year. “There’s just an abundance of inventory,” Alexandra... View full entry
First-year professional degree students of Yale School of Architecture are hard at work designing and building a new three-unit affordable housing complex in New Haven's Hill neighborhood. Formally known as the Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, the year-long studio has been an... View full entry
You’ve never heard of him, but then it’s his job to be invisible. Kelley calls himself a supermarket ghostwriter: His contributions are felt more than seen, and the brands that hire him get all the credit. Countless Americans have interacted with his work in intimate ways, but will never know his name. Such is the thankless lot of the supermarket architect. — The New Food Economy & Longreads
Joe Fassler profiles Kevin Kelley, cofounding partner and principal at Shook Kelley, and the firms' history of work applying "the theater of retail" to groceries. Besides newer competitors such as Amazon/Whole Foods, local supermarkets also face “channel blurring” and new patterns of... View full entry
While the work of modern masters will always lurk in the shadows of contemporary design, few have been imitated or referenced as frequently as the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. His material palette and deceptively simple methods of spatial organization indirectly inspired... View full entry
“We’re in the midst of new cities fever,” says Prof Sarah Moser. The head of the new cities lab at McGill University has documented more than 100 cities that have sprung up across Asia and Africa since the early 2000s for her forthcoming Atlas of New Cities. — The Guardian
The Guardian kicks off its new Cities from scratch series with an overview of noteworthy planned metropolises that are replacing big swaths of desert, jungle, or sea across Asia and Africa. While some new cities started out ambitiously but had to eventually give up on key features, others took... View full entry
Katherine Guimapang chatted with Austrian architect Julia Koerner, who has lately worked with both "one of the biggest fashion houses in Paris" and on costumes for the Black Panther movie. archinet thought her work was a perfect example of a "Great way to translate arch. computation skills or even... View full entry
As the nationwide effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing kicks off, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. has unveiled plans to project a representation of a Saturn V rocket onto the Washington Monument. The projection is designed by... View full entry
La Croix International reports that Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has proposed a temporary chapel to be used for gatherings and religious services in the forecourt of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris while the iconic structure is restored. The cathedral burned in April 2019, and its future has... View full entry
Trade often gets shorthanded to its most tangible form, the flow of goods from one country to another. But the exchange of services is also part of the equation, with building design offering a high-demand example in China amid an extended economic boom there. — Dallas News
Dallas News correspondent Tom Benning highlights the business setbacks two major U.S.-based architecture firms — HKS and CallisonRTKL — experienced while operating in China: from breach of contract, to intellectually property theft, all the way to corporate imposture, these... View full entry
Fotografiska, the celebrated photography museum in Stockholm, Sweden, is now exhibiting a site-specific installation by Turkish media artist and director Refik Anadol. Scene from Latent History, by Refik Anadol. Titled Latent History, the exhibition mainly consists of an... View full entry
