affordable housing: The Latest Architecture and News

On the southern edge of Vienna, a cluster of monumental terraces rises above the cityscape, their stepped balconies cascading with greenery and their rooftops crowned with swimming pools. This is the Wohnpark Alterlaa, one of the most ambitious social housing projects in postwar Europe. Designed by Austrian architect Harry Glück and built between 1973 and 1985, the complex was founded on a provocative principle: municipal housing should not only provide affordable shelter but also offer the pleasures and amenities usually reserved for the wealthy.

With more than 3,000 apartments housing nearly 9,000 residents, Alterlaa was conceived as a city within the city. Alongside its residential towers, it incorporates shops, schools, medical services, and cultural facilities, ensuring that daily life can unfold entirely within its boundaries. The project reflects a moment of optimism in Vienna's urban policy, when housing was understood as infrastructure for collective well-being rather than as a commodity.

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This week's review focuses on concrete responses to shared urban challenges, including housing affordability, long-term resilience, and the role of cultural and material innovation in shaping cities. The selection spans regulatory measures affecting housing markets in European cities, high-density residential and mixed-income proposals in New York, and major renewal and planning efforts in London, Barcelona, Ulaanbaatar, and Drammen. It also highlights research-driven and built projects in Chicago, Buenos Aires, Las Vegas, and Riyadh that explore circular construction, adaptive reuse, and new models for cultural and public infrastructure. Together, these worldwide projects offer a snapshot of how architecture and urban planning are addressing immediate pressures while laying the groundwork for more resilient and inclusive urban futures across diverse geographic and cultural contexts.

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In January 2025, New York City Mayor and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced new steps in the reimagining of Gansevoort Square, a 66,000-square-foot site located on Little West 12th Street between Washington Street and 10th Avenue in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. The redevelopment of the site aims to integrate a mix of affordable housing for New Yorkers, new retail space for residents and visitors, and opportunities to expand the Whitney Museum of American Art and the High Line. The Request for Proposals outlined a vision for up to 600 units of mixed-income housing, with a goal of 50 percent of the total units being permanently affordable, along with ground-floor commercial space. International architectural practice Powerhouse Company recently revealed its competition proposal, exceeding these demands with 1,000 rental homes in a supertall tower, half affordable and half market-rate, mixed equally throughout the building's full height.

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Across Europe's major tourist cities, housing affordability has increasingly emerged as one of the most pressing urban challenges, prompting governments to reassess the role of short-term rentals within residential neighborhoods. In Barcelona, Mayor Jaume Collboni recently announced plans to phase out tourist short-term rentals entirely by 2028, framing the decision as part of a broader effort to protect residents' right to remain in the city. The announcement coincides with a €64 million fine imposed by the Spanish government on Airbnb for advertising unlicensed properties, placing Spain at the center of an intensifying debate over how tourism-driven accommodation models intersect with housing access, inequality, and urban stability.

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Human Rights Day is observed annually on 10 December worldwide. It commemorates the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Drafted by representatives with diverse legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions, the Declaration was proclaimed as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. For the first time, the document set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected and inalienable, entitling every human being to them regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or any other status. Today, the Declaration serves as a global blueprint for international, national, and local laws and policies. Available in 577 languages, it is the most translated document in the world. The United Nations has set the theme for this year's observance as "Human Rights, Our Everyday Essentials," aiming to "reaffirm the values of human rights and show that they remain a winning proposition for humanity."

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Founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2007 by Johanna Hurme and Sasa Radulovic, and shortly afterward joined by its third partner, Colin Neufeld, 5468796 Architecture was established as an architecture firm whose early work explored the current state of housing in North America. The Canadian studio operates as a collaborative group of approximately 20 designers, where they prioritize the collective value of ideas over individual authorship.

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The Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) has been organized by the Estonian Centre for Architecture (ECA) since 2011. Since its founding, it has become Estonia's leading international festival dedicated to architecture and the built environment. The ECA recently announced that the upcoming edition will be curated by Stuudio TÄNA and Mark Aleksander Fischer, winners of the Curatorial Competition for the 8th International Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB 2026). Their winning proposal, titled "How Much?", poses the question of what affordability truly means in architecture today. The event, which in previous editions has included exhibitions, lectures, seminars, tours, satellite events, and installations across Tallinn, seeks to open a space for reflection on how architecture and design can be genuinely cost-effective, addressing the broader implications of cost and consumption. TAB 2026 will take place in the Estonian capital from 9 September to 30 November 2026.

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Founded in 2006 in Copenhagen, Cobe Architects has become known for its focus on public life, urban transformation, and strategic master planning. From cultural buildings and public spaces to large-scale urban developments, the office has played a central role in shaping Copenhagen's contemporary identity, particularly through its work on harbor regeneration. Among these, the Nordhavn master plan stands out as one of Europe's most ambitious waterfront redevelopments. During the Copenhagen Architecture Biennial, ArchDaily's Editor-in-Chief, Christele Harrouk, met with Mads Birgens, Head of Urbanism at Cobe, at the firm's office in Nordhavn. In the conversation, Birgens reflected on the evolution of the project since the office first won the open international competition in 2008, and on the broader lessons of designing cities for proximity, diversity, and long-term adaptability.

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Videos

During 2024, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) launched a three-part documentary and exhibition series titled Groundwork, exploring alternative modes of practice in light of the current climate crisis. The process began with a series of studio visits in search of offices addressing substantial questions for contemporary architecture through practice, culminating in the selection of three projects: Xu Tiantian's "minimal intervention" museum on Meizhou Island, Carla Juaçaba's community pavilions in a coffee field in Minas Gerais, and bplus.xyz (b+)'s European Citizens' Initiative for a new legal framework to facilitate the renovation and transformation of existing buildings. The latter, HouseEurope!, was recently recognized as the winner of the seventh edition of the OBEL Award and was showcased at the international exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025.

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The proposed mixed-use tower at 175 Third Street is the fifth building planned across four sites within the Gowanus Wharf development in Brooklyn, New York. With views toward Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, the 1,080,000 sq ft proposal includes affordable housing, retail and artist spaces, fitness areas, social and entertainment spaces, culminating in a rooftop with lounging zones and an outdoor pool. The project also envisions a 28,000-sq-ft public waterfront esplanade designed by Field Operations, intended to contribute to the ecological rehabilitation of the Gowanus Canal, continuing the broader transformation of this industrial neighborhood. Other project collaborators include dencityworks | architecture, AKRF, bucharest.studio, DeSimone, Ettinger Engineering Associates, Fried Frank, Hatfield Group, Impact Environmental, and Jenkins and Huntington.

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As urban neighborhoods continue to evolve, design plays a key role in shaping how buildings respond to urbanization, functional demands, and the character of their surroundings. Intertwined, these elements guide the transformation of urban life and influence how new developments engage with their context—a dynamic clearly visible in Seattle's Central District. Long considered a historic hub for the city's African American community, the Africatown Plaza project proposes a comprehensive approach that integrates architectural performance with community resonance, using the building envelope as a primary medium.

The Empire State Development (ESD) Board of Directors has approved a major office-to-residential conversion project at 5 Times Square, New York City, as announced by the New York state government. Originally built in 2002 as the headquarters for Ernst & Young, with Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) as the design architect, the building has been largely vacant since the corporation vacated the premises in 2022, with vacancy rates remaining around 75 percent. Gensler's proposal aims to repurpose this underutilized office space into a mixed-use complex, introducing up to 1,250 new homes, including 313 permanently affordable units.

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At the dawn of Modernism, in the fervent search for innovative, efficient, and cost-effective building systems, the idea of modular construction offered the promise of exactly that: an industrialized system comprised of ready-to-assemble elements, easily configured, cost-effective, and quality-controlled. While the idea did not gain as much traction as was initially expected, it has remained an attractive premise for architects and designers. Now, new developments in the field have led to a renewed interest in the matter, as modular housing emerges as an effective measure in various fields, from affordable housing to emergency shelters, or even as platforms for interdisciplinary collaboration, participation, and co-design. The following article explores this promise of accessibility, creativity, and affordability that has become an integral part of the debate around modular architecture.

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What makes a building architecture? The eternal debate over what distinguishes architecture from mere utilitarian construction has often included affordable and social housing as an influential topic, sparking different points of view. This question is particularly significant in the Latin American context, where unique conditions go beyond cost concerns, whether imposed or unavoidable. Limited access to financing, the prevalence of self-construction, and the spread of informal settlements are interconnected factors shaping the built environment. These dynamics foster an aesthetic that, for some, challenges notions of good architecture, manifesting in urban landscapes where exposed materials become a defining feature.

What defines good housing and a good living environment? What political framework is needed to create them? How can we design socially equitable, affordable housing? And what strategies lead to the best results? These are the questions guiding Lorenzo Romito, Sabine Pollak, and Michael Obrist's proposal for the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025. The building, designed by Josef Hoffmann and inaugurated in 1934, will become an interactive space with the opening of the "Agency for Better Living", an exhibition dedicated to exploring the new political dimension of the fundamental right to housing. The proposal takes as its starting point a comparison of social housing models in Vienna and Rome, creating a space for sharing ideas on better living for all.

SO-IL (Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu) is an architectural design firm based in Brooklyn, New York, founded in 2008 by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu. Known for an architecture deeply engaged with social, cultural, and environmental contexts, the studio focuses on exploring innovative materials, creating fluid spatial experiences, and prioritizing ecological sustainability. SO-IL's work spans various scales and program types, reflecting their versatile approach to design. In 2024, their housing project 450 Warren in Brooklyn was selected as ArchDaily's Building of the Year by the audience in the housing category.

In their latest book, In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today, SO-IL explores the evolving concept of home in contemporary urban contexts, transforming it "from a source of vulnerability into a tool for empowerment." The book redefines domesticity as an active and shared experience and examines how architects can address pressing urban challenges such as affordability, density, and sustainability. SO-IL's work advocates for flexible, resilient housing that fosters community while integrating ecological and social dimensions. ArchDaily spoke with the architects about the innovative solutions and ideas presented in the book, delving into how their projects challenge conventional systems and envision a future where architecture is a tool for empowerment.

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The housing crisis, the need for effective land management policies, and the growing demand for housing aid are global challenges, and Spain has taken significant steps to address these issues in recent years. While this effort is closely tied to rehabilitating obsolete buildings, it also tackles the challenges of densification and gentrification. These factors have prompted the exploration of new housing models and ways of living, leading to the development of affordable residential buildings designed to accommodate large numbers of inhabitants while maintaining high-quality living standards.

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Rising populations and soaring real estate prices pose significant challenged to urban housing. In a desperate hunt for affordable living options, communal co-living spaces have emerged as a creative solution, offering quality living conditions through clever space optimization strategies. By implementing innovative design techniques, these shared living communities maximize every square foot to create functional spaces within compact footprints.

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