The Milllennials, the generation born from 1983 onwards, enjoyed a childhood free of bunkbeds or even shared bathrooms. Growing up in plush megahomes undoubtedly helped them become, in the words of one author, “self-centred, needy, and entitled with unrealistic work expectations.” Oddly, it also spawned a group of people patently unimpressed with backyards and breakfast nooks. — news.nationalpost.com

As Britain's housing shortage deepens, we asked top architects for their solutions to the affordable living dilemma — guardian.co.uk

"I think that [austerity] is used as a cliche because people don't have ideas, they want to crib [old ones] to do bad stuff," she said, in a Q and A session with Guardian deputy editor Kath Viner. "Schools, housing, hospitals – I think the government should invest in good housing." — guardian.co.uk

"Despite potential increases in new construction, most of the houses that seniors will release in coming years were built when energy was inexpensive, nuclear families were the rule, incomes were increasing for most Americans, and mortgages were generally predictable and easy to obtain. …the next 20 to 30 years to depart from this historic picture, with more expensive energy, growing diversity in race, ethnicity and in household structure, and more intense international economic competition." — scribd.com

Built for Swire Properties Ltd. (962), the structure cost HK$27,000 ($3,477) per square foot to construct, including land premium. A standard high-rise apartment in the city can cost as little as $HK4,000 per square foot to build, according to Swire Chief Executive Officer Martin Cubbon.

“Of course, it’s going to be enormously expensive by any standards,” says Cubbon. “In rental values and capital values, it’s going to command the highest numbers that Hong Kong has ever seen.” — businessweek.com

In 2009 and 2010, we visited residents of Lafayette Park with photographer Corine Vermeulen while researching our forthcoming book Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies. Vermeulen’s portraits of townhouse owners in their homes appeared in the New York Times. Here we present the corollary to that series: tenants of the Pavilion and the Lafayette Towers in their apartments. Vermeulen’s portraits are accompanied by Lana Cavar’s photos of the views from each apartment window and by excerpts from interviews — places.designobserver.com

LAN Architecture recently completed 70° Sud, an apartment building in Boulogne-Billancourt, a western suburb of Paris. The project emerged as the winner of a competition back in 2008. — bustler.net

Los Angeles was one of the first large cities in the U.S. to adopt a kind of modern zoning to keep the industrial away from the residential.

If the city would have more mixed use, with people living closer to retail and workplaces, Los Angeles would feel like another city, with less of its land area dedicated to low density, single family residential neighborhoods, and more streets with shops and businesses on the ground floor and homes above. — kcet.org

The winners of the 2012 Housing Tomorrow competition were just announced. The annual competition promotes the exploration of contextual, cultural, and life cycle flows that offer new housing strategies for living in the future.

Sponsored by New York-based d3, the competition invites architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore innovative approaches to residential urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects. — bustler.net

Young Chinese firm FangCheng Architects has sent us their proposal Bridge Urban Life Typology, a city-wide network of bridge buildings which won the team the Second Prize at the 1.100.10000 Ideas Competition. The contest sought for innovative ideas to rapidly add 240,000 affordable housing units for more than 800,000 people in China's mega-boomtown Shenzhen. — bustler.net

ARTIST Damien Hirst has unveiled plans to build more than 500 landmark eco-homes in Ilfracombe, which he hopes will regenerate the town and provide a national blueprint for environmental housing.

Architects working for Hirst, said to be the richest living artist in the world, hope to submit a planning application for the development at Winsham Farm in six months. — thisisnorthdevon.co.uk

How should the state pursue the goal of making decent housing affordable and accessible to all its citizens? How can we mobilize our collective resources in the service of social justice? In what other ways might we imagine living together? What is a house? — Places Journal

Goldhoorn’s concept, called Block City, proposes the introduction of a standard size urban block that — as with standard shoe sizing — won’t create standard architecture, but on the contrary, diversity. At the Jaroslav Fragner gallery in an exhibition bearing the concept’s name, Goldhoorn walks viewers through past and present mass housing to his future vision. — ceskapozice.cz