New York-based architecture office ODA has unveiled its design for Lorimer House and Copper Lofts, a development comprised of two residential buildings located in East Williamsburg in New York City. The design takes advantage of the triangular shape of the plot, employing rounded corners throughout the building to soften its image and create contextual references to its urban surroundings. Containing a total of 336 residential units, in addition to various amenities, the construction is slated for completion in 2024.
In a constant search to find new ways to reduce costs and construction times, modular architecture emerges as an opportunity to implement various methods, technologies, and techniques to design livable spaces using separate repetitive elements such as modules. As Tom Hardiman, executive director of the Modular Building Institute (MBI), maintains, "Modular" is not about a construction product but rather a construction process.
The Basque Country Architecture Institute and Arc en Rêve Centre d'Architecture, with the support of the Department of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport of the Basque Government, have announced the first edition of the European Collective Housing Award. This new award aims to highlight the value of collective housing as a cornerstone of the architectural heritage of an entire continent, and to promote innovation, inclusion and environmental responsibility in its design. Submissions are now being accepted until 7 May, 2024.
The aim is to showcase the architecture of collective housing constructions and their positive impact on society, while raising awareness of the importance of housing policies and their constant renewal. The European Collective Housing Award thus aims to generate a critical debate about housing, the right to quality domestic, everyday architecture, while also proclaiming the value of European-style collective housing, with a richness, diversity and multiplicity of options once more serving as the best possible tool to revitalize cities, policies and generational aspirations.
Almada Housing Plot C - Icaro / MASSLAB. Image Courtesy of MASSLAB
In every city, urban housing projects represent most of the built environments, reflecting an intricate weave of societal needs and architectural visions. This roundup of unbuilt projects submitted by the ArchDaily Community offers a lens into the dynamic interplay between design constraints and creative opportunities. From the revitalization of urban fragments to the exploration of innovative construction methods, architects navigate a terrain shaped by sustainability imperatives, community inclusivity, and evolving urban dynamics.
The diversity of unbuilt urban housing projects showcased here underscores the breadth of architectural interventions, featuring commitments to sustainability and inclusivity. From projects featuring new building materials such as wooden construction systems to those created to maximize sunlight or engage the larger community, this week’s curated selection showcases unbuilt collective housing projects from around the world.
CityMakers, The Global Community of Architects Who Learn from Exemplary Cities and Their Makers, is working with Archdaily to publish a series of articles about Barcelona, Medellin, and Rotterdam. The authors are the architects, urban planners, and/or strategists behind the projects that have transformed these three cities and are studied in the "Schools of Cities" and "Documentary Courses" made by CityMakers. On this occasion, Victor Restrepo, Coordinator of CityMakers in Medellin, presents his article "Medellin: A Case Study".
Medellín stands as an inspiring example for many cities worldwide. It is a city that transitioned from deep collective fear to hopeful enthusiasm for urban and social life characterized by quality and coexistence. The city's crisis has always been associated with violence and drug trafficking. However, this crisis is more structural and profound, it responds to many more factors, some of which are associated with the accelerated growth of its population, as in many Latin American cities.
What is symmetry in architecture? Why is it used to design spaces? What advantages and disadvantages does it present compared to other projection tools such as rotation, translation, and/or repetition? Contemporary architecture evolves day by day by implementing different strategies to create habitable spaces where people can carry out their daily activities, meet their needs, and more. Considering symmetry as a possible means of organization, distribution, and movement in the plane, architecture expresses and communicates largely through graphic means (floor plans, volumes, photographs, etc.) in a relationship that seeks coexistence, in most cases, of spaces, proportions, and scales in harmony.
Rehabilitation involves repairing, renovating, altering, or reconstructing any building or structure. It addresses the need to significantly improve a building's failing features, primarily through strengthening or replacing elements to restore the structure's optimal performance. The impact of building rehabilitation on the physical environment is significant. It is a sustainable strategy for preserving the built environment and mitigating the construction industry's impact on climate change.
However, its social impact is also considerable when viewed as a fundamental framework for sustainable outcomes. Rehabilitation can serve as a model that brings community members together for inclusive repair and restoration of structures. This positively affects communal life quality, social integration, environmental sustainability, and community perception of local architecture.
German-based architecture and design studio Beta Realities has developed the “Collective Parts” initiative, a design and technology platform for enabling the construction of affordable 3D printed housing. The project has been recognized as one of the winners of Inititative99by ICON, a global architecture competition aimed at reimagining affordable housing that can be built for under $99,000. The other winners of the open category are MTspace Studio from New Zealand and For Everyday Life from the United Kingdom. The competition also highlights contributions from students as a separate category, featuring Casa Fami by IAAC from Spain, Juan Felipe Molano from Colombia, and Victoria Roznowski from Germany.
Pioneering advanced construction and large-scale 3D Printing, ICON was selected as ArchDaily’s Best New Practices of 2021 due to its boundary-breaking technology that is advancing capability in the built environment. The Texas-based startup has just unveiled various toolkits and products to modernize construction processes further. Dubbed “Domus Ex Machina,” the event showcased a range of innovations, such as an AI Architect created for home design and construction, a digital library containing over 60 pre-designed home plans, a new eco-friendly building material, and a robotic printed facilitating multi-story construction. Together, these developments aim to offer a quicker, more environmentally friendly way to build high-quality, affordable housing globally.
Los Angeles Aerial. Image via trekandshoot / Shutterstock
Cities in the United States are short of millions of housing units. Compounded by other factors, this shortage is radically increasing the cost of both renting and buying houses. Los Angeles is no exception; with 74% of its land zoned exclusively for single-family homes, multifamily housing construction is limited to an extremely small swath of the city, making the construction of new affordable housing difficult. Complex multi-year permit approval processes often make these projects even less feasible.
That's why, in December 2022, Mayor Karen Bass took a drastic approach by declaring a state of emergency to speed up approval for affordable housing projects, allowing developers to expedite rent-stabilized projects through fast permitting times and exemptions from zoning rules. Executive Direction (ED1) created a surge of affordable housing applications, surprisingly not just from developers using public money but from private ones.
After two weeks of open voting in the 15th edition of the Building of the Year Awards, our readers have meticulously narrowed down a pool of over 4,000 projects to a select group of 75 finalists spanning 15 categories. This year's awards enthusiastically honor the pinnacle of design, innovation, and sustainability on a global scale, showcasing an exceptional range of projects within the shortlist. As a crowdsourced award, we take pride in affirming that your selections authentically mirror the current state of architecture, and the caliber of this year's finalists further underscores the excellence and diversity prevalent in the field.
Housing production has been relying on the same spatial configurations for almost a century, catering to a vision of domestic life that no longer constitutes the norm. The widespread housing shortage, the issue of affordability, the rise of single-person households, and an aging population prompt a re-evaluation of existing housing models to address a broader range of demographics and adapt to the changing needs of city dwellers. The following explores contemporary collective housing models that provide the framework for new dwelling experiences and support current lifestyles.
In Greater Boston's city of Malden, Massachusetts, an inter-generational community of thirty households hired an architecture firm and collectively designed their cohousing community. Responding to the cohousing community's request for collective living in an urban setting, French2D designed a typology-challenging building with individual residential units connected by a framework of shared spaces. The result is a 48,700 sqft unique and colorful type of multi-family housing. It is one of a growing number of cohousing projects in the United States.
Like most countries, India faces a perpetual housing crisis. As the world’s most populous nation, with an urban population expected to grow from 410 million in 2014 to 814 million by 2050, this becomes a pressing concern. The Indian built landscape brings further complexities in the form of a pervasive market-driven approach and the need for socially relevant housing. Looking into the future, how will India address the needs of its growing population to house the next million urbanites?
Despite the bad reputation of public housing in the United States, organizations, planners, and architects in Portland, Oregon are determined to create affordable housing that does not sacrifice quality or aesthetic appeal. While Portland has developed a bad reputation regarding its homelessness problem, in the past four years resources have flowed in the right direction, and designers have taken this in stride to design livable and striking buildings, within very restrictive budgets. Through innovative and creative approaches to construction and design, these organizations and designers have utilized federal, state, and city resources to make these types of projects a reality.
