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[...] 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
The damage from the housing crisis — a toxic combination of frenzied buying, rampant construction, predatory lending and investment excess — was extensive. Of the 23,000 single-family homes in the 89031 ZIP code, more than 7,500 have had at least one foreclosure since 2006, according to Attom Data Solutions. — NYT
A team including; Matthew Goldstein, Robert Gebeloff, Ross Mantle and Matt Ruby released a deep dive into the community of North Las Vegas. The global financial crisis of 2008 impacted it greatly and though the local housing market has strengthened and it is today one of the fastest-growing cities... 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
Berlin has decided on a novel location to host some of the new apartments the city badly needs—on top of the old ones.
Yesterday, Berlin’s Senate announced a project to add more units on top of already existing buildings in the city’s east, with a possible capacity of up to 50,000 new homes. The plan to add floors isn’t novel in itself, of course, even in Berlin. What’s striking is the specific type of building chosen for the experiment: East Berlin’s Plattenbau.
— citylab.com
Ten years after the housing collapse during the Great Recession, a new and different housing crisis has emerged.
Back then, people were losing their homes as home values crashed and homeowners went underwater. Today, home values have rebounded, but people who want to buy a new home are often priced out of the market. There are too few homes and too many potential buyers.
— NPR
NPR takes a closer look at the impact of the housing affordability crisis in midsized, fast-growing cities, like Des Moines, IA, Durham, NC, and Boise, ID—far away from the usual, well documented housing hot spots of the big coastal cities. View full entry
Neighborhoods with high vacancy rates rarely recover, according to the study. Vacancy is “first and foremost a symptom of other problems — concentrated poverty, economic decline, and market failure,” the study notes. That means the solutions must go beyond just tearing abandoned buildings down. The study urges local governments to use tools like “spot blight” eminent domain, vacant property receivership, and land-banking to speed up the transition from owner to owner. — CityLab
CityLab editor-at-large Richard Florida summarizes a new report by Alan Mallach of the Center for Community Progress about the increase of vacant properties and hypervacancy in cities across the U.S. in recent decades — another worrying aspect of the American housing crisis. The report assesses... View full entry
The only profitable games in modern Olympic history, LA 1984 was a case study in public–private partnerships, corporate sponsorship, and municipal storytelling [...] It’s proof, say LA 2028 organizers, that the city can do it again: re-use the city’s wealth of existing and under-construction stadiums and athletic facilities, house athletes and the media at local universities, and host an Olympics that won’t require new publicly-funded infrastructure... — curbed.com
The Olympics have been promoted to cities as a vehicle for ushering in investment, attention, and urban growth. The reality, however, is often contradicting with failed developments and infrastructure left in the aftermath. As Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 games, large questions remain on... View full entry
Inspired by the work of inventor Philip Ross and his company MycoWorks, Maurer argues that one of the keys to addressing Cleveland’s housing crisis lies in an unlikely source: mushrooms. Specifically, in using mycelium – the vegetative part of a fungus – and Cleveland’s other “natural” resource, construction waste, in a process called “biocycling”, which essentially recycles old buildings into new ones using plant materials. — The Guardian
“I like to refer to Cleveland as ‘ground zero’ for biocycling,” says Maurer, who believes the city has the perfect conditions and challenges to serve as a prototype for the process. Cleveland architect Christopher Maurer of Redhouse Studio argues how mycotecture (architecture that uses... View full entry
While some were delighted that at least a small part of the architectural heritage of Robin Hood Gardens was being preserved for posterity, others were furious that the V&A – a so-called ‘arms-length’ body, governed by a Board of Trustees appointed by the Prime Minister – considered the estate valuable enough to collect, but not valuable enough to help save from demolition in the first instance. — frieze.com
The story behind London's brutalist Robin Hood Gardens reveals issues pertinent to our current housing crisis. Crystal Bennes unpacks the V&A's decision to preserve and display a section of demolished housing in this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, revealing condemnation of the building... View full entry
Back in March, Elon Musk announced that his Boring Company would be selling LEGO-like bricks made from leftover dirt, excavated to make way for his Boring tunnels. Land excavation is a costly endeavor and the question of "where will 550,000 cubic yards of dirt go?" poses many economic and... View full entry
Homelessness in America has reached crisis levels and I am determined to do everything in my power to fix the problem as long as it doesn’t involve changing zoning laws or my ability to drive alone to work or, well, changing anything, really. I’m more than happy to give a hungry man a sandwich once a year and then brag to my friends about it as long as he doesn’t sit down anywhere in my line of sight to eat it. Same goes for hungry women because I’m also a feminist. — mcsweeneys.net
A superb piece satirizing the homelessness and housing crises by McSweeney's writer Homa Mojtabai. From a privileged and entitled point of view, Mojtabai highlights extreme issues on how problems are being "solved". This is of course an exaggeration—but by how much? View full entry
Hot-market cities grappling with a dearth of housing, like those along the coast of California, are increasingly looking at accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—commonly known as "granny flats—to help abate the statewide shortage. In 2016, California passed three laws aimed at facilitating in-law... View full entry
For eight years in a row, an international survey of nearly 300 cities has named Hong Kong the world’s least affordable housing market. [...]
Architects and developers have also put forward some novel proposals, ranging from the quirky to the audacious. While some of the ideas may be repackaged versions of the cramped spaces the city has long known, others could reshape the future of housing in Hong Kong.
— The New York Times
The proposal by architect James Law to squeeze 100-square-foot micro apartments into concrete drainpipes was widely published a few weeks ago. The NYT lists a few more 'solutions' — some lofty, others being already implemented. View full entry
ICON has developed a method for printing a single-story 650-square-foot house out of cement in only 12 to 24 hours, a fraction of the time it takes for new construction. If all goes according to plan, a community made up of about 100 homes will be constructed for residents in El Salvador next year. The company has partnered with New Story, a nonprofit that is vested in international housing solutions. — theverge.com
Today at SXSW, The first model is scheduled to be unveiled by Austin-based startup ICON. The company uses the Vulcan 3D printer in order to generate an entire home for $10,000 with plans to bring costs down to $4,000 per house. Using concrete rather than plastic, the model features a living... View full entry
At Leicester magistrates court, Herzallah and Almasri, of Enderby, Leicestershire, were each ordered to pay a £770 fine, legal costs of £1,252 and a £77 victim surcharge. — The Guardian
A couple, who had disguised housing on their property with a fake garage door, has been fined by Leicester Magistrates Court. The case was brought about by the Blaby district council after they were notified about unauthorized work being carried out at the couple's home and discovered the hoax... View full entry
