This is a two-part series on housing policy in Vienna and how it could be a model for progressive housing policy in Seattle, where I live, or other American cities struggling with affordable housing. The first part is an overview of financing and subsidies. Part two, coming tomorrow, looks in detail at how zoning and development supports housing affordability. — cityobservatory.org
Mike Eliason, passivhaus designer with Seattle-based Patano Studio, penned an insightful two-part commentary for City Observatory, looking at issues of financing, zoning, affordability, sustainability, and quality of life in a side-by-side comparison of Vienna and Seattle. View full entry
Pseudo-public spaces – large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and their private backers – are on the rise in London and many other British cities, as local authorities argue they cannot afford to create or maintain such spaces themselves. — The Guardian
The abundance of pseudo-public spaces, namely outdoor, open and publicly accessible locations owned and maintained by private companies in London is alarming. To this day it's largely unclear what regulations people passing through privately-owned 'public' land are subject to, and where members... View full entry
Entering 2017, construction forecasters were quite optimistic about the near-term outlook for the industry. [...]
However, as of the mid-year 2017 update, the grounds of this euphoria are evaporating. [...] key elements of the Trump administration’s legislative agenda have made almost no progress. [...]
As a result, the AIA Consensus Construction Forecast panel is predicting slower growth for the construction industry for the remainder of 2017 and through 2018.
— aia.org
"The slower estimated growth for 2017 is expected to continue through 2018. Overall spending growth is currently projected by the Consensus Forecast panel at 3.6 percent for next year, down modestly from the 4.9 percent forecast entering this year. Commercial construction is expected to perform... View full entry
Talk about redeveloping the long-vacant Michigan Central Station in Detroit's Corktown area heated up again Thursday during an announcement about this year's Detroit Homecoming, which will hold the first significant private event in the 104-year-old train station since the mid-1980s. [...]
"(Redevelopment of) the depot is going to take a marathon, but we're not at the beginning of the race, we're a few miles into it," said Matthew Moroun, whose father, Matty, bought the building in 1995.
— crainsdetroit.com
"I said, 'there's one thing: Every time I read a damn national story about Detroit, there's a picture of the train station with the holes in the windows as the international image of the city's decline,'" Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is quoted saying, recalling his conversation with billionaire... View full entry
Most of Italy’s splendid old libraries got their starts as the private collections of a humanist noble or cardinal...Where the Angelica is small, plush and perfectly faceted, the Casanatense is spartan and muscular. The Angelica reflects the wealth of its Augustinian founders, whose church, the Basilica di Sant’Agostino, adjoins the library, while the Casanatense shows its Dominican roots in its deep collection of books and codices on Church doctrine and natural history. — NYT
David Laskin reflects on a trip he took, earlier his year, to Venice, Rome, Florence and Milan, where he visited a sampling of Italy's many historic libraries. View full entry
The drilling and soil testing are taking place in El Paso; Santa Teresa, N.M.; Calexico, Calif.; and the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Mr. Lapan said the testing has been completed in El Paso and Calexico. The agency has identified the San Diego area and the Rio Grande Valley as priority regions for new border walls. The Corps will begin work in the San Diego area in August. — The NY Times
On Tuesday the House Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill that included $1.6 billion for a wall, funding 74 miles of fencing along the southwest border. The Department of Homeland Security has moved $20 million from other programs to pay for the construction of several border wall... View full entry
Due to the large influx of refugees, sheet walls of many temporary houses have begun to wear out. And there are other major constraints. There’s low water supply, deforestation, and extremely hot temperatures, and a rainy season which often results in heavy flooding. Plus Kalobeyei remote location creates many obstacles. There are no commercial flights to the area, and it can take up to 3 days to get there by road for the capital, Nairobi, where some materials may have to be sourced from. — UN-Habitat
Shigeru Ban has signed an agreement with UN-Habitat to design up to 12,000 new homes in the Kalobeiyei refugee settlement site in Northern Kenya. Commissioned in response to the settlement’s rapid growth, which is expected to outnumber its original capacity of 45,000 within a year, the new... View full entry
A fix appears to be in the works for San Francisco’s sinking and tilting Millennium Tower — just as a new report estimates the 58-story luxury high-rise has sunk yet another inch in the past seven months. [...]
That lean is now up to nearly 14 inches at the building’s roof — an additional 2-plus inches more than the tilt measured in January.
— San Francisco Chronicle
A pair of engineering firms hired by developer Millennium Partners think there's still hope to save the troubled structure and straighten it up again: "The LERA firm and DeSimone Consulting Engineers say the problem can be remedied by drilling 50 to 100 new piles down to bedrock from the... View full entry
With a surplus of unused money, Michigan became the first state in 2013 to demolish homes using money intended to save them. The idea was that demolitions would revitalize neighborhoods by increasing the property values of surrounding houses, attracting new homeowners, and reducing crime rates. — Detroit Metro Times
Detroit's neediest homeowners were supposed to receive federal assistance to save their homes as part of the Treasury Department's seven-year-old Hardest Hit Fund. However, Michigan squandered its originally allotted $498 million by creating unnecessarily stringent requirements, according to a... View full entry
The average price of building a garage parking space (as much as $34,000 in 2012) is passed on to people whether they own a car or not, and distort the true demand for urban parking. — Quartz
According to the 2011 National American Housing Survey data of the US census, about 16% of a housing unit’s monthly rental cost is attributable to the expense of building an urban parking spot. For the average renter that amounts to to $1,700 per year, or $142 per month. Parking mandates... View full entry
Permissive building codes, industry inertia, and market demands — like clients clamoring for floor-to-ceiling views — have widened the discrepancy between the kind of buildings cities say they want and what they actually allow. So while the industry inches towards better environmental performance, buildings in Boston and other cities still fall short of the sustainability goals that everyone claims to embrace. — The Boston Globe
Courtney Humphries of Boston Globe argues that the current trend for extensive use of glass in buildings contradicts today's strive for sustainability and "green building." When New York started tracking energy use by skyscrapers, the gleaming 7 World Trade Center — one of that city’s more... View full entry
Previously covered by Archinect, MADWORKSHOP Homeless Studio is a USC course exploring the architect’s role in helping to solve Los Angeles' rapidly accelerating homelessness crisis. "Getting someone off the street and into permanent housing doesn't happen right away. We are looking at lead... View full entry
A pair of USB ports on a console on the front of the bench provides juice from the solar panel mounted at lap level between the seats. Who wouldn’t want to hang out at a bench like this? It certainly catches the eye of passersby. What these kids might not realize, however, is that this bench is watching them back. — Landscape Architecture Magazine
"Smart" benches are spreading—recently a series of them, manufactured by Soofa, was installed in a tiny neighborhood park next to I-77 on the north end of Charlotte, North Carolina with the intent of the neighborhood's analysis and redevelopment. Soofa, founded in 2014 by three graduates of... View full entry
Capable of holding more than 20,000 residents, Prora was meant to comfort the weary German worker who toiled away in a factory without respite. According to historian and tour guide Roger Moorhouse, it was also meant to serve as the carrot to the stick of the Gestapo — a pacifying gesture to get the German people on Hitler's side. But then World War II began, and Prora's construction stalled — until now. — Business Insider
Named Prora and located on a beachfront of Rügen island, the structure was commissioned by Adolf Hitler as the world's largest tourist resort three years before Germany invaded Poland in 1939. In those three years over 9,000 workers were involved in the construction of the 2.7-mile-long... View full entry
Today, the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform—a multi-disciplinary group of experts convened by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito—released Justice In Design, a report that envisions an alternative to a single, centralized jail. It details how community-based jails, dubbed “Justice Hubs,” might function in an urban context to replace Rikers. — co.design
The Rikers Island Correctional Facility, a complex of 10 jails and about 10,000 detainees located northeast of LaGuardia Airport, has been one of NYC's most debated problems for decades—widely criticized for corruption, brutal mistreatment of detainees, and inhumane conditions. Independent... View full entry
