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That simple recipe for pandemic lemonade—offices people no longer use, combining with central urban locations where people want to live—is blissfully ignorant of a wide range of architectural and economic factors that make the vast majority of office buildings simply unsuitable as housing. — Fast Company
Labeled by Fast Company as “Goldilocks” zones, the sweet spot for office buildings with the potential to become residential are ones that are mid-rise, built pre-WWII, with at least two sides facing open areas or streets near, but not within, a city’s financial core. According to San... View full entry
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... View full entry
The drama over the project provides a window into just how hard it is for the city to scale up its housing and shelter system, even as a recent report from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) estimated it would take more than 6,000 extra temporary and permanent beds to solve the crisis on the streets. It also puts into sharp relief how easily neighborhood opposition can derail a project, even when the funding and space is available — and the need is clear. — San Francisco Chronicle
The Mission district parking lot is scheduled to become an affordable housing development with construction beginning in 2025 and the tiny homes program was expected to fill the gap. “It's always the same hand wringing,” housing advocate Sam Moss told the Chronicle. “It’s... View full entry
The new developments look startlingly alike, often in the form of boxy, mid-rise buildings with a ground-floor retail space, sans-serif fonts and vivid slabs of bright paneling. The bulky design is conspicuous, jutting out of downtown streets and overpowering its surroundings. Over time, it attracts a certain ecosystem — the craft breweries, the boutique coffee shops, the out-of-town young professionals.
It’s anytown architecture, and it’s hard to know where you are from one city to the next.
— The New York Times
The disappearance of America’s vernacular architecture and subsequent rise of what some call developer modernism is the product of necessity, reluctance towards artistry, and the monopolization of residential development across the country, according to the Times’ real estate reporter Anna... View full entry
There is new housing help in Sacramento with the city now offering free architectural designs, permit-approved, to build on your property. You can download the plans straight from the city website. The aim is to increase housing across the city. — CBS Sacramento
The available architectural plans are for accessory dwelling units (ADUs). In this instance, they will come in three forms: studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units. This move by Sacramento is meant to address the city’s housing crisis by providing property owners an incentive to build and... View full entry
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has unveiled an ambitious plan to help convert the city’s unused office spaces into apartment dwellings in an effort to bring online 40,000 new units of housing in the next decade. The plan, which includes a new study and 11 “concrete recommendations” made by... View full entry
On the first anniversary of the Twin Parks fire in the Bronx that killed 17 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will announce a new national plan to combat “America’s fire problem” using investigatory muscle granted by federal legislation that President Biden signed last month.
The legislation will give the United States Fire Administration the power to identify the causes of fires like the one at the Twin Parks North West housing complex.
— The New York Times
A year removed from the tragic blaze that took the lives of 17 people in the Bronx apartment complex once lauded by Paul Goldberger for its trend-bucking design, lawmakers in Washington have finally heeded the desperate pleas of public housing advocates who appealed for stricter safety... View full entry
Now the algorithm he spearheaded collapses the survey process — which must be conducted to determine whether a commercial building can be turned into apartments — from months to hours. His work will help these conversions to be enacted on a mass scale. which is important given the urgency created by America's rising office-vacancy rates due to the pandemic's reshuffling of where and how we work. It could help bring people back to downtowns across North America as renters or homeowners — Business Insider
Gensler estimates that only 3 out of 10 office buildings are eligible for conversion. The pitfalls of mass-scale conversions remain impediments even as architecture firms are earning more from renovations than new buildings for the first time. In the last two years alone, office conversions have... View full entry
[In] the last two years, looser regulations and the widespread adoption of remote working attracted even more people to settle in the Sunshine State. As a result, newcomers found themselves competing with those who were already hunting for apartments in the area, making Miami-Dade the hottest area for renting in the U.S. — RentCafe
Nationwide, an average of 14 people were said to be competing for each vacant apartment unit, which remained on the market for an average of 32 days. Miami-Dade County was joined by four other Florida rental markets in the top 20 despite adding a total of 34,000 new dwellings within the calendar... View full entry
The University of Maine has unveiled what it claims to be the world’s first 3D printed home made entirely with bio-based materials. The home, developed by the university’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center (ASCC), measures 600 square feet and features walls, floors, and a roof made of... View full entry
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... View full entry
A new desktop city-building game has been launched which takes aim at the slow pace of housing construction in U.S. cities. Sim Nimby was developed by Brooklyn-based copywriters Steve Nass and Owen Weeks as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on what they view as 'NIMBYs' (Not In My Backyard neighbors)... View full entry
Construction has commenced on the largest community of 3D printed residences in the United States. The hundred-home 'Wolf Ranch' development was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and 3D printing technology group ICON and is being constructed in the city of Georgetown, Texas, just north of... View full entry
Construction spending in New York City will reach an all-time high of $86 billion this year, up $38 billion from 2021, according to a new report from the New York Building Congress.
The report finds that despite numerous obstacles from the pandemic and economic uncertainty, construction spending and infrastructure investment in New York City remain positive.
— Construction Dive
The influx of capital, unfortunately, has not impacted the city’s most critical area of need as it was recently reported to have fallen short of its planned goals to construct 25,000 units of affordable housing by 36%. The New York Building Congress says the shortfall will only get worse as a... View full entry
A leading economist in the AEC industry has warned that the United States' housing sector has entered a recession, with ramifications for homebuilding in the coming years. Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), made the comments at the National... View full entry
