International non-profit organization World Habitat, in partnership with UN-Habitat, has announced the World Habitat Awards 2024. The prizes strive to highlight projects that demonstrate novel and transformative approaches to housing that incorporate principles of climate change adaptation and community-driven solutions. This year, 8 projects have been selected, out of which 2 projects were recognized with the Gold World Habitat Award.
In the ever-evolving landscape of urban development, cities are faced with an array of challenges that demand quick and innovative solutions, ranging from the critical issue of affordable housing to the pressing need for efficient and decongested infrastructure and sustainable energy practices. As the demands of the built environment expand, local authorities worldwide are redefining policies and regulations to shape their cities. These innovative regulations can drive sustainable and consistent progress as cities stand at the intersection between their present challenges and future aspirations.
MVRDV has revealed the design of a new residential complex located in the Enterprise Research Campus in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, a site adjacent to the Harvard Business School. The development, already under construction, features 343 apartments with a quarter of them dedicated to affordable units. It also includes amenities for the residents and retail spaces for small local businesses, aiming to create an inclusive and enjoyable space within the new urban district.
Architectural studio Parabase has been chosen for the development of several plots of Areal Walkeweg in Basel for the purpose of creating affordable apartments and an integrated migration center. The design solution, titled “Elementa,” reuses components from deconstructed cantonal properties, transforming the former columns and floor plates into walls and façade elements. The project was chosen following an open competition, where the international jury favored Parabase’s solution for its strong aesthetics combined with the creative reuse of prefabricated concrete elements.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
By the time I was 17 years old, I had moved 11 times. Because of my own experience relocating from one place to another, I’ve spent the better part of the last several decades focused on making sure that everyone has a place to call home, that everyone enjoys the human right to housing. But it was not until my time at Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit focused on community development and affordable housing, that I realized the methods and materials we employ to realize that human right matter.
Organized by the Ministry of Housing and Territorial Planning of Uruguay (MVOT) and MEVIR, with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), the International Architecture Competition "Wood: Innovating Social Interest Architecture" involved submitting proposals for new types of wooden housing extensions. These could be either paired or standalone single-level structures, to be built by MEVIR in a demonstration set of 20 social interest houses within the town of Tranqueras, Rivera Department, Uruguay.
The result of a collaboration between OMA / Jason Long and Y.A. studio, the joint development of 730 Stanyan in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco broke ground. Upon completion, the 8-story building will accommodate 160 units of deeply affordable homes and amenities for low-income people, including formerly unhoused families, and homes and amenities for people with low incomes in San Francisco, including families, formerly unhoused families, and Transitional Age Youth (TAY). The project is scheduled to be completed in the Fall of 2025.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
One of the principles of comedy is that you “punch up.” If you have to make fun of someone or something, make sure it’s more prominent than you, and deserving. You can’t get much higher than Santa Clara, California, and you can’t get much more deserving. Santa Clara is, arguably, the city at the heart of Silicon Valley, a globally famous urban region that is so ill-defined as to deny its own existence. Those ranch houses and corporate headquarters represent a distinctly 21st-century brand of power. And a distinctly 20th-century brand of urbanism.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
Ice caps are rapidly receding; one of America’s two political parties is actively undermining federal authority; despite new materials and additive manufacturing, most houses constructed today are built much as they were several generations ago; the pathological suburbanization of the nation continues unabated. In the face of this and more, it seems, “the center cannot hold.” Such were several of the issues that prompted Keith Krumwiede, a soon-to-be fellow at the American Academy in Rome (AAR) at the time, to argue in 2017 that if a single detached house for every family is at the core of “The American Dream,” then we need a new dream.
The Canada Council for the Arts has chosen the curatorial collective Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA) to represent Canada at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2023, with the Not for Sale! exhibition. The pavilion, open from May 20th until November 26th, 2023, aims to draw attention and encourage dialogue on potential solutions to the challenges generated by the housing crisis in the country.
During the 2023 Architectural Biennale in Venice, Holcim and the Norman Foster Foundation will announce the start of their Essential Houses Research Project. Through this collaboration, the Norman Foster Foundation created necessary housing to give displaced communities safety, comfort, and welfare while allowing them to live in temporary settlements for over 20 years. To make sustainable buildings accessible to everyone, Holcim constructed these necessary homes using various green products, such as Elevate Insulation Boards and ECOPact low-carbon concrete.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
Architect and planner Peter Calthorpe has a new book coming out, Ending Global Sprawl: Urban Standards for Sustainable Resilient Development. But when I called Calthorpe last week to interview him about it, he was more interested in talking about something else: last year’s passage in California of AB 2011, the so-called “Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022.” That’s legislation intended to significantly increase housing production by allowing construction on commercially zoned property. Calthorpe had an active hand in crafting many aspects of the bill, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 1.
RAMA Estudio has won a competition organized by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (Miduvi) to transform public buildings into social housing. "Casa Cevallos" seeks to give a new face to the Miduvi Tungurahua building, located in front of the Cevallos Park in Ambato, Ecuador, incorporating 16 apartments for 45 inhabitants through 7 adaptable typologies.
New York City Council has approved Innovation QNS, a neighborhood-focused initiative in Western Queens, designed by ODA. The five-block master plan generates two acres of open space, community health & wellness facilities, hundreds of affordable apartments, and thousands of jobs. The project was initiated in 2020 as part of New York's effort to recover from the impact of the COvid-19 pandemic, and it aimed to revitalize a largely dormant block area in Astoria, Queens, and transform it into a vibrant, walkable, and diverse creative district.
Community development proposals in Disney World come from back days. One of Walt Disney's last visionary projects was the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), a center for American enterprise and urban living. Disney advocated that the problems of cities were the most critical issues facing society and planned a city that could develop in a controlled manner, contrary to the urban expansion in the USA during the first half of the last century. After Disney died in 1966, the "EPCOT" concept was abandoned as the company was uncertain about the feasibility of operating a city. Fifty- five years later, after a thorough search, Walt Disney World chose The Michaels Organization for its experience in building and managing attainable housing communities.
Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk, the hosts and producers of the Uncertain Things podcast, interview people from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of expertise to ask the question: “now what? What is happening and how did we get here?”. In this episode, they talk with urbanist, architect, and professor Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, to seek to understand how the cities got so expensive. Together they delve into the affordability crisis, the detrimental effect of progress, and what we need to do to have better cities.
According to the World Population Clock, the human population reached 8 billion on November 15th. According to the UN, this milestone represents a celebration of human longevity due to improvements in public health and medicine, but it also comes with warnings about inequality, limited access to food and resources, and environmental damage. Despite the impressive number, the annual World Population Prospect report shows that the global population is growing at the slowest rate since 1950, and it predicts a continued deceleration in the second half of this century.
As more than half of the world population lives in cities, an estimated 55.7%, according to UN-Habitat’s latest reports, the urban challenges are growing exponentially. The UN expects this number to increase to 68% by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa. Accelerated urbanization can pose significant risks, such as increasing inequality, poverty, sectorized development, social exclusion, and pollution. In this context, a well-balanced urban agenda becomes crucially important in achieving inclusive, safe, and sustainable cities.
Brink Tower by Mecanoo was just granted planning permission and construction works are planned for mid-October 2022. Located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the 90-meter-high building, developed by Xior Student Housing and DubbeLL – winners of the competition for this tower together with Mecanoo Architecten in 2020- will offer a mixed program, including spaces to live, work, and relax in a healthy environment. The residential tower is set to create an" energy-positive, green, and inclusive neighborhood" and contribute to the development of Overhoeks in North Amsterdam.
