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Urban, market-rate housing that lower-income workers can actually afford is one of our country’s biggest needs. For multifamily designers, this challenge presents several opportunities for creating housing that workers can afford on their salaries.
Demolished in 1989, The Phoenix Ironworks Steel Factory left a five-acre hole in West Oakland, Calif. After sitting vacant for nearly three decades, the site will soon become utilized again in the form of 316 affordable housing units.
In the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles, a new affordable multifamily housing project using shipping containers resulted in 24 micro-units for formerly unhoused residents. The containers were acquired from a nearby port and converted into housing units at a factory.
AI ChatBots, ambient computing, floating MRIs, low-carbon cement, sunshine on demand, next-generation top-down construction. These and 35 other innovations make up our 2024 Great Solutions Report, which highlights fresh ideas and innovations from leading architecture, engineering, and construction firms.
Modular building is the growing trend of assembling structures from prefabricated, interchangeable components. After being constructed in a controlled environment away from the building site—such as a factory—the components are then transported to the final location and assembled on-site.
This growing collection of news, trends, case studies, white papers, and innovative projects bring you the latest in modular design and construction.
These three developments faced certain obstacles during their building processes—from surrounding noise suppression to construction methodology.
More than ever, AEC firms and their suppliers are wedding innovation with corporate responsibility. How they are addressing climate change usually gets the headlines. But as the following articles in our AEC Innovators package chronicle, companies are attempting to make an impact as well on the integrity of their supply chains, the reduction of construction waste, and answering calls for more affordable housing and homeless shelters. As often as not, these companies are partnering with municipalities and nonprofit interest groups to help guide their production.
Everett, Wash.-based Pallet Inc. helped the City of Burlington, Vt., turn a municipal parking lot into an emergency shelter community, complete with 30 modular “sleeping cabins” for the homeless.
Prefabricated modular design and construction have made notable inroads into such sectors as industrial, residential, hospitality and, more recently, office and healthcare. But Dafna Kaplan thinks that what’s held back the modular building industry from even greater market penetration has been suppliers’ insistence that they do everything: design, manufacture, logistics, land prep, assembly, even onsite construction. Kaplan is CEO and Founder of Cassette, a Los Angeles-based modular building startup.
In our latest call for entries, Building Design+Construction collected over 20 multifamily projects with a focus on affordable housing. Here is a comprehensive list of all projects in alphabetical order.
Southland Industries breaks down the prefabrication benefits of Modular Electric Rooms (MERs).
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, in partnership with the National Institute of Building Sciences and MOD X, has released the Offsite Construction for Housing: Research Roadmap, a strategic report that presents the key knowledge gaps and research needs to overcome the barriers and challenges to offsite construction.
Perkins Eastman’s M.O.O.D. Space aims to make mental healthcare more accessible—and mental health more achievable.
Here are six innovative products for various multifamily developments, including a condominium-wide smart electrical system, heavy-duty aluminum doors, and prefabricated panels.
Modular builder Joshua Mensinger details three ways modular solutions aid in lowering construction costs.
