Housing: The Latest Architecture and News

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Bee Breeders has revealed the winners of the 2019 Rome Collective Living Challenge competition. Teams were asked to to propose solutions for collective living in Italy's capital city. Participants were tasked with designing a concept for affordable co-living around affordability and community. Organizers sought ideas that could be implemented across Rome to increase the city's housing stock.

If you come to think of it, the urban development of the world's largest cities is like playing a game of Tetris; No matter how condensed or crowded, for architects, there is always room for more. However, this act of 'structural stacking' often creates unique architectural compositions.

As a follow-up to his first photo-series, Singaporean photographer and visual artist Kevin Siyuan put together 'Corridors of Diversity', a short montage of communal corridors and HDB (Housing and Development Board) block facades, featuring the dynamic designs and forms of Singapore's densely built environment.

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From short supply and high demand to a lack of affordable options, housing in Los Angeles is a complex and prominent issue that deserves the attention of local universities. As the crisis continues to evolve, architecture and architectural education are vital parts of the discussion surrounding housing equity.

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Videos

Introduction

The social catastrophe of Latin America has its epicenter in popular settlements.

It is in Latin America, the most urbanized and unequal region in the world, where 104 million people live in popular settlements. Here, 1 of every 4 inhabitants of urban areas, lives in a slum, villa, favela or camp, in a situation of poverty. These populations must subsist by their own means, with the constant violation of their rights.

The purpose of this competition is to challenge Architects and Students to design a replacement for the Townsite Homes in Henderson, NV, which have outlived their intended use and have mostly fallen into disrepair, creating neighborhood blight. The project should fully embody the principles of sustainable design and livable communities. It is the responsibility of the entrants to determine the number of new dwellings on the site, or re-purpose the existing home. The only city requirement is to provide a single parking space per dwelling. Please visit the competition website for information on Henderson, the Townsite, and how to enter.

Skyrocketing prices of London housing have become so unbearable that many have turned to less-than-ideal compromises. Large homes can be found but come with commutes of hours; places are still available in the city, but only for those with sky-high paychecks. Unable to balance their needs, people are resorting to workarounds that disrupt the existing urban fabric and dissatisfy all involved. Surely we can do better.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the foundation of a new award focused on recognizing work in housing in the UK. The award is named in memory of Neave Brown, the British architect, and designer famed for his many housing estates in London.

The urban consultancy Strelka KB has announced the winners of the international competition for alternative housing in Russia. Designed to test the country's new Integrated Guidelines for Urban Development, the competition asked participants to rethink standardized housing and apartment typologies. 689 projects were submitted from 37 countries to address issues of adaptability, ergonomic efficiency and functional diversity.

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For those in the northern hemisphere, the last full week in January last week kicks off with Blue Monday - the day claimed to be the most depressing of the year. Weather is bleak, sunsets are early, resolutions are broken, and there’s only the vaguest glimpse of a holiday on the horizon. It’s perhaps this miserable context that is making the field seem extra productive, with a spate of new projects, toppings out and, completions announced this week.

The week of 21 January 2019 in review, after the break: 

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This article was originally published on March 26, 2014. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

The two-family structure known as Houses 14 and 15, designed by International Style, Le Corbusier's work in Stuttgart serves as a critical prototype in the development and realization of the Swiss architect’s architectural identity, which would revolutionize 20th century architecture.

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This article was originally published by Common Edge as "Architecture, Aesthetic Moralism, and the Crisis of Urban Housing."

It may shock some people to hear this, but architecture is not urban planning. It is not transportation planning, sociology, political science, or critical geography. However, architecture, new-build apartment architecture specifically, has become a social media scapegoat for today’s urban housing crisis: escalating developer-driven gentrification.

Out of my own curiosity, I searched several academic databases for research that successfully correlates the architectural aesthetic of new build apartments with gentrification. While many writers and denizens of social media really want to blame today’s bland, boxy, cladding-driven style of multifamily urban housing for gentrification, I’m afraid the research isn’t there. In fact, one study featured in a paper on neighborhood early warning systems for gentrification cites historic architecture as one of five predictors of gentrification in the DC area.