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The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is moving to allow federally-funded homeless shelters to deny people admission based on their gender identity. A proposed HUD rule will allow federally-funded shelters to establish policies “consistent with state and local... View full entry
Seattle’s upzoning plan is set to take place throughout the city, but only 6 percent of single-family neighborhoods will be affected. These neighborhoods will be rezoned to allow for smaller, denser housing, while encouraging developers to keep existing structures and turn them into multifamily housing — like duplexes — in order to preserve a neighborhood’s aesthetic. — NBC News
Since 2010 Seattle's population has seen a hike of 16%, so have the rents and the property prices. And while real estate in the city is booming, little of the development is targeted towards the growing demand for affordable housing. Today 75% of Seattle's residential land is zoned for... View full entry
Hawaii and Honolulu laws require most new developments to set aside a certain percentage of units as affordable rental housing, but it’s not enough. In five years, Honolulu will still need thousands of additional new units. That has elected officials looking for other solutions to the problem, and some think they’ve found one in Singapore. — Marketplace
The housing proposal put forward by Hawaii State Senator Stanley Chang is called Affordable Locally Owned Homes for All, or ALOHA, and looks to replicate the public housing program of Singapore which has a comparable median household income. Marketplace's Ryan Finnerty reports that the "vast... View full entry
A YWCA building in San Pedro has been sold to a non-profit housing developer and is expected to provide 35 homes and on-site daycare for single women with children, all of which will be affordable. The organization, which is one of the oldest and most active chapters helping women and... View full entry
As the tech companies Uber, Airbnb, Lyft and Pinterest prepare to go public, thousands more instant millionaires are expected to flood the market in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. All the while, the middle class and working poor are scrambling for shelter. — The Guardian
This week the non-profit rise International (Relationships Inspiring Social Enterprise) announced its winner of the international architecture competition which focuses on affordable housing projects. During the 2018-2019 competition, designers were challenged to design high-quality, sustainable... View full entry
According to the United States’ General Accounting Office, receiverships in housing authorities generally result from “longstanding, severe, and persistent management problems that led to deterioration of housing stock.” NYCHA, who took the public advocate’s top spot for the city’s worst landlord in 2018, faces mounting repair costs in excess of $25 billion and has exhibited failures eliminating mold and lead paint, among a laundry list of other nightmarish woes for its tenants. — Curbed NY
Mayor Bill De Blasio and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have until the 31st of January to agree on how to run the agency. If that does not happen and Ben Carson declares New York City Housing Authority in substantial default, NYCHA which oversees housing for over 400,000 New... View full entry
For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live. — The New York Times
Even though Amazon's search for its new headquarters' locations has ended all the talks and negotiations about the company's potential impact on the cities it will settle in — New York and Crystal City, Virginia—have only begun. In ways, the choice comes as no surprise as tech platforms... View full entry
Elon Musk has filed permits with the city of Los Angeles to launch his Boring Company offshoot, The Brick Store LLC, which would produce interlocking bricks made from dirt collected by his tunnel-digging company's operations. As the Boring Company's LA test tunnel nears completion—an opening... View full entry
[...] Peter Barber, one of the most original architects working today. Over the past decade he has built a reputation for his ingenious reinventions of traditional house types and his ability to craft characterful chunks of city out of unpromising sites.
[...] He is a master of humane high-density, designing that rare thing: new housing that feels in tune with the grain of London, in the form of neither alienating slabs nor tacky towers, without resorting to pastiche.
— The Guardian
The Guardian's architecture critic, Oliver Wainwright, has nothing but praise for the award-winning firm Peter Barber Architects, a small practice that seeks to integrate social activism ideals when designing better, and more humane, housing for London. Holmes Road Studio, a whimsical housing... View full entry
Non-profit affordable housing association Lejerbo commissioned BIG to design the much-needed Dortheavej affordable housing complex back in 2013. Some five years later, BIG has revealed photos of the finished product. Photo: Rasmus Hjortshoj.Photo: Rasmus Hjortshoj.Located in historically... View full entry
Actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation has sued the architect of scores of homes the nonprofit sold to Lower 9th Ward residents who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina.
Make it Right itself was recently sued over the homes’ shoddy construction.
The new lawsuit against local architect John C. Williams was filed Tuesday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court.
— theadvocate.com
Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation, recently facing a lawsuit of their own on delivering poorly constructed homes, is now suing John C. Williams, the architect responsible for many of the homes sold to New Orleans residents. Repairs to the water damaged homes caused by flawed... View full entry
As with every single other thing about Seattle, there’ve been some developments in residential design since 2008 [...] Here are five opportunities, in the form of developments in residential architecture over the past 10 years as identified — and expressed — by some plugged-in visionaries. — The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times tracked 5 developments in residential design addressing housing issues in the city. For each trend they spoke with an architecture professional working in the field. Below are Seattle's identified trends and some of the visionaries addressing them: 1. Multifamily Housing Moves... View full entry
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward in 2005, Brad Pitt set up the Make It Right Foundation to aid in the rebuilding efforts. The non-profit charity, promoting energy efficient technology and high quality architecture, promised LEED Platinum-certified... View full entry
Irma instilled new urgency to address the islands’ housing problem. “What was an emergency prior to the storm is now a crisis—an utter and complete crisis with regards to the housing for average worker here in Monroe County,” said Mike Laurent, executive director of the Florida Keys Community Land Trust. — citylab.com
The Florida Keys Community Land Trust was developed after Hurricane Irma hit last year to help built new affordable housing, which suffered the most damage on the islands. So far the trust has four new affordable cottages under construction with plans of building 20 more. The new homes have been... View full entry
