Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Intelligent City, a Canadian company focused on innovation in housing, has offered a glimpse inside their new factory in Delta, British Columbia. The facility, which has now begun building mid-to-high-rise urban housing projects for Canada and the United States, will use advanced robotics to... View full entry
For instance, by the end of this year, approximately 20,100 units in older buildings (that previously served other purposes) will be starting a new life as apartments — that’s almost double the number of apartments converted in 2020 and 2019 combined. So far, through adaptive reuse alone, this new decade has already created nearly 32,000 apartments, 41% of which are in former office buildings. — RENTCafé
The shift to work-from-home caused by the coronavirus pandemic has also resulted in office spaces becoming one-quarter of the adaptive reuse projects that will make more than 12,000 rental units available by the end of next year. Hospitals, hotels, and even a houseboat are among the disused... View full entry
In an effort to tackle the effects of America’s ongoing affordable housing crisis on LGBTQ seniors, KFA and Leong Leong are teaming up with the Ariadne Getty Foundation on the design of a five-story apartment complex that will help meet the needs of the greater Los Angeles community. The... View full entry
U.S. home prices surged 19.7% in July, once again posting the biggest jump in more than 30 years. The record gain in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of property values nationwide followed a 18.7% jump in June and was the 14th straight month of accelerating price increases. — Bloomberg
A measure of prices in 20 cities posted a 19.9% gain in July, up from 19.1% the previous month. Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle reported the highest year-over-year gains, with 32.4%, 27.8%, and 25.5% increases, respectively. “The last several months have been extraordinary not only in the... View full entry
After a pair of marathon hearings, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission has amended and approved the draft DTLA 2040 plan, sending the proposed rezoning of the city's Downtown core on to the City Council for consideration next. — Urbanize LA
The area has been particularly beset by the pandemic, which is being seen more and more as a potential hub for housing in the city (and state) whose political landscape is increasingly shaped by affordability issues. Ten new land use designations, proposed under the DTLA 2040 plan for... View full entry
The cost of up to $1.7 million for building and installing the cabins, along with the dining and other facilities, will be paid for by the nonprofits DignityMoves and Tipping Point Community. The cabins will remain for 18 months, when the lease the city signed for using the parking lots as outdoor shelter spaces runs out. — The San Francisco Chronicle
The 64-square-foot cabins are produced by LifeMoves, a Silicon Valley-based company responsible for the installation of a similar development in nearby Mountain View in 2016. Neighboring Oakland has operated its own cabin site since 2017, albeit with mixed results for residents who have found... View full entry
As with many states, California is experiencing a lack of affordable housing, with 1.8 million homes needed by 2025 to satisfy the state’s housing needs. At present, the median home price in California has risen above $800,000, while more than 100,000 residents sleeping outside or in cars every... View full entry
Construction of MVRDV’s Ilot Queyries, a courtyard apartment building located in the French port city of Bordeaux, has been completed. The project is situated across from the city’s UNESCO World Heritage historic center. It is the largest building in a development of four buildings... View full entry
As the fallout of Hurricane Ida comes into focus in both the Gulf Coast region and the Atlantic Northeast, one area of chronic concern has become ground zero for planning gaps that are increasingly deadly indicators of race and class in cities that number among the most expensive in the world. The... View full entry
The Biden administration has announced a range of measures intended to address the US housing crisis. The measures, which do not require congressional approval, and are separate from measures included in the pending infrastructure bill, aim to built and preserve 100,000 affordable homes over the... View full entry
No other city has understood its connection to mobility the way Los Angeles has. There’s a longstanding view that the city is most legible through motion. You read it by moving through it. — Architectural Record
Christopher Hawthorne, LA Mayor Garcetti's architecture czar, and previous LA Times architecture critic categorize the city's problems into two groups. One is housing, housing, and housing. The other is housing, mobility, and equity.In the interview, these challenges are explained and some... View full entry
New York City has surpassed San Francisco as the most expensive apartment rental market in the country. According to August rental data from Zumper, an apartment listing company, San Francisco has fallen behind New York in median one-bedroom rent, with New York at $2,810 and San Francisco at... View full entry
A dramatic new statement about the arc and future of public housing developments is coming to Bavaria’s third-largest city thanks to a Dutch firm with a reputation for innovative design in the typology. MVRDV unveiled its concept earlier this month for an exhibition pavilion that will be part of... View full entry
MVRDV has broken ground on their Traumhaus Funari project in Mannheim, Germany, transforming a former U.S. military barracks into a suburban residential neighborhood. The design for the new neighborhood is shaped by a series of options and rules, intended to promote diversity in the streetscape by... View full entry
California needs more affordable housing — quickly. 1.8 million homes by 2025 to be exact. What the state will actually do about is becoming clearer after a Thursday decision to advance Senate Bill 9, a measure that would allow for multi-unit development on suburban lots previously reserved... View full entry