The Ground Floor

Beautiful and Sustainable at a Surprising Price

Buildings can be judged successful thanks to good architecture, sustainable design, or a positive social impact. San Francisco's Plaza Apartments is a rare example of one that succeeds at all three.

A nine-story mixed-use building near downtown San Francisco, the Plaza Apartments contains 106 rental housing units, 1,000 square feet (93 sq m) of retail space, and a 99 seat performing arts venue. Not a conventional urban apartment building -- all 106 units are reserved for the previously chronically homeless. Developed by the nonprofit Public Initiatives Development Corporation on a $22 million budget, the project also contains services for building tenants, which include on-site case managers, a psychiatrist, and a nurse practitioner.

The project is part of a nationwide trend of "housing first" when dealing with homeless. New approaches recognize that securing housing is the first step to independent living. Cities across the country are finding that providing housing first and then treating underlying causes -- such as mental illness or drug addiction -- reduces the overall costs to taxpayers and social service agencies. Tenants of the Plaza Apartments pay half their income in rent, $410 on average.

In addition to the social mission, the structure also features cutting-edge LEED Silver environmental design. The roof sports both a sundeck and 26-kilowatt photovoltaic system. The creative facade is fine-tuned to maximize winter sun on one side and provide summer shade on another. The San Francisco Chronicle raved that the "designers crafted a structure of lasting warmth and presence," concluding the design features a "creative depth you don't find in most residential projects, including condominium complexes stuffed with seven-figure units."

Although the project wasn't developed for a profit, it has taken over a hundred of formerly homeless off the street and improved the character of the neighborhood. With city residents and officials pushing hard for community benefits, particularly in return for allowing lucrative investments in urban neighborhoods, the Plaza Apartments could contain ideas useful elsewhere. Instead of writing a check to a faceless housing fund, a donation towards a facility like the one described here could improve the neighborhood and set formerly homeless people on a path to recovery.

A complete case study of this project can be found on ULI's Development Case Studies web site, which features detailed descriptions of urban development projects around the world updated each quarter.

Only subscribers can access the complete case studies, but short descriptions are available to all. The complete case study for Plaza Apartments includes floor plans, contact information of the development team, description of building features, and a summary of important lessons learned.

NYC to Build Dynamic Tower

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Rob Goodspeed, an Information Intern at the Urban Land Institute.

Italian architect David Fisher announced on Tuesday that New York City will become the third city to host one of his groundbreaking rotating towers. The first two are planned for Dubai and Moscow.

The building will be the world's first factory-built skyscraper. Each floor contains completely prefabricated living or working space that connects to a central column. The complete independence of each floor enables the structure to take an infinite number of shapes.

Fisher reported additional towers would be built around the world, reporting interest by Canada, Germany, Italy, Korea, and Switzerland. His designs feature solar and wind power generation, making them energy self-sufficient.

Inhabitat website reports the Dubai structure will be mixed-use containing offices, a hotel, apartments, and condominiums. Interested in buying? The reservation list opened this week. 

ULI experts also had the opportunity to examine development patterns in Dubai first-hand during an advisory services panel there, which focused on areas of improvement in physical connectivity, quality of life, and good governance.

Thanks to the rapid urban development of the seven emirates making up the United Arab Emirates, in 2007 ULI established the ULI Centre for Real Estate Education in Abu Dhabi, a joint venture with the Abu Dhabi Tourism Development and Investment Company .

Images courtesy Dynamic Architecture.

Gehry Goes Market-Rate

Frank Gehry and the Forest City Ratner Companies are designing a 76-story skyscraper that will be the tallest residential tower in New York City. Beekman Tower will be located in Lower Manhattan, close to Ground Zero. Tenant will begin to occupy the tower in the fall of 2010.

The base of the tower features a 100-foot-tall podium clad in terracotta-colored brick that Gehry described as “laidback, quiet, simple,” the Architecural Record reported. The base will have a sculptural porte-cochere canopy that also forms the ceiling of the building’s lobby.

In full Gehry style, 18-gauge stainless steel that ripples among as they step back on the northern elevations, while the southern façade sits flush with the streetfront. The building’s folded surface, mapped by proprietary Gehry Technologies software called Digital Project, also impacts the interior experience, the Architectural Record said.

The originally shaped 903 market-rate apartments are each situated differently. Residents will have bay windows where the building façade curves outwards. Interiors spaces are also addressed by Gehry said that rental-building budgets and consumer expectations yielded certain design limitations. The stainless steel is less expensive than more adventurous cladding, he says, and the building offers few premium green features other than low-VOC materials, the Architectural Record reported.

Beekman Tower will also contain a public school for 630 students designed by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects. The 100,000-square-foot facility, along with a 21,000-square-foot medical center, will be located in the building’s six-story podium. Outdoor plazas will be situated along the east and west sides of the building, measuring 3,5000 square feet and 11,500 square feet, respectively. Public spaces designed by Field Operations and Piet Oudolf feature illuminated planters, water fountains, and vine-covered sculptural elements that compliment Gehry’s building design.

Cincinnati Adds to Skyline

The proposed Great American Building at Queen City Square be an economic boost for the city of Cininnati. According to an economic impact report completed by The University of Cincinnati's Economics Center for Education and Research upon its completion in 2011, the skyscraper could generate an annual economic impact of $1.66 billion throughout the greater Cincinnati region.

Western & Southern Financial Group commissioned the study as part of its due diligence in connection with its investment that will represent $319 million of the $322 million project cost.

A total of 8,655 jobs will be generated or retained, with annual earnings of $388 million for local area residents Phased over three years, the proposed tower could generate $715 million for the Greater Cincinnati economy.

An estimated 5,388 jobs would be associated with the construction alone. Construction activities are also projected to produce $3.7 million in earnings taxes for Cincinnati. Once development is complete, the building is expected to result in $7.7 million in annual tax revenues for the city and Cincinnati Public Schools.

Increased renovation/construction activities would include the conversion of some nearby office properties to condominiums or apartments. This would lead to increased property values and an increased demand for retail and entertainment uses associated with residential development.

Home on the High Seas

Wired magazine’s Alexis Madrigal reported that with a $500,000 donation entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Thiel, a Google engineer, and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities.

On April 14, the organization announced that it has been established in order to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems. It will continue and expand on the work of Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich, authors of "Seasteading: A Practical Guide to Homesteading the High Seas".

"The public sector is simultaneously the largest industry in the world and the least innovative, with a barrier to entry and lock-in on its customers that dwarfs any private monopoly", says Patri Friedman, TSI's executive director. "The world needs a new model of politics where a diverse ecosystem of providers offers a variety of institutions that evolve to serve their citizens. The open oceans, Earth's last frontier, are the ideal place to nurture this vision of a better world. By making it safe and affordable to settle this frontier, we will give people the freedom to choose the government they want instead of being stuck with the government they get."

The Institute will initially focus on three major areas:
Community: Building a network of potential residents who are inspired by the possibilities of seasteading and have the skills and resources to establish vibrant new communities.

Research: Exploring the core requirements for seasteading to be safe and affordable, such as structure design, political feasibility, and infrastructure (power, heat, food) and advancing key seasteading technologies through independent research and partnerships.

Engineering: Proving that the mission is viable by building a safe, cost-effective, gorgeous seastead, based in the San Francisco Bay and able to travel in the open ocean.

The Ultimate Green Building

New York City-based Work Architecture Company (Work AC) designed an apartment building with a working farm on top of it. The firm is interesting in urban farming and trying to make cities sustainable by cutting vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for food.

New York magazine asked four architects to design a vacant block site at the Canal and Varick Streets in NYC, in an article called  "Blue Sky on Canal Street." In it's criteria, New York required the designs to include a residential element and that it more or less meet zoning requirements.

Crops could be grown on different floors and green areas not in use could be used for recreation. The water tanks on the top of the building would be used for irrigation.

The owner of the vacant lot, Trinity Real Estate, has plans to construct a sculpture park in the location.

Walking Through Walls

Recently, the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) awarded 17 building industry professionals for excellence and innovation in green home building at the 10th Annual NAHB National Green Building Conference in New Orleans.

“These honorees are pioneers, artists and building scientists," said NAHB Sandy Dunn,president of NAHB and a home builder from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. "They've worked hard to bring sustainable building practices into the mainstream.  These winners are not afraid to put great ideas in motion."

Although not everyone in the industry can be recognized, there are companies not afraid to put great ideas into motion. According to the OPEN Prototype Initiative (OPI), the answer lies in the Open-Built® system of home construction.

For OPI, not all houses are created equal. OPI, a program of the MIT House_n Research Consortium, along with the help of Bensonwood Homes in Walpole, New Hampshire, and other industry partners, have set a goal to improve homebuilding across the country and to make homes more affordable, adaptable, and environmentally friendly. OPI developed a process that makes it possible to construct thousands of environmentally friendly Net-Zero homes, which produce as much energy as they consume).

"There are countless examples of green homes, but the industry has not developed a process to affordably mass produce these homes," said Kent Larson, director of the MIT House_n Research Consortium. "The OPEN Prototype Initiative has developed scalable processes, such as prefabrication and the separation of core services that, when followed, enable builders to create thousands of customizable Net-Zero homes that are being made more affordable right now."

Today's builders of tomorrow's homes are addressing a whole new reality: that to be truly durable and sustainable, houses should be able to adapt to homeowners' needs over time. A key ingredient that separates OPI’s homes and the building process from other green or prototype home projects, is the use of Open-Built(R) principles. Open-Built(R) thinking takes a layered approach to building, with each layer defined by its life span and anticipated need for future alteration.

Sky Gardens

In 2007, 30 percent more green roofs were installed in North America, the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities' 3rd Annual Green Roof Market Industry Survey said. According to corporate members of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the finding represents a five percent increase over 2006's annual market growth rate of 25 percent. The survey is based on square footage of green roof projects installed by GRHC's corporate members in 2007.

The top three cities on the Top 10 U.S. Cities list includes: No 1: Chicago, No. 2: Wilmington, D.E., and No. 3: Baltimore.

The city of Chicago remains the number one city for the fourth year in a row with over half a million new square feet of green roofs installed in 2007, evidence of the city's commitment to becoming America's greenest city through green roof policies and incentives that support green roofs, walls and other forms of living architecture.

Newcomers to the list include: Brooklyn, N.Y.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Royersford, Pa.; Philadelphia, Amery, Wisc.; and Germantown, Md.

Business of Nature Still Strong, Survey Says

Landscape architects reported that they were busy during the first quarter of 2008, according to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Business Quarterly survey.

According to the results of the survey 55 percent of respondents described their billable hours as average or above in the first quarter of 2008 and 53 percent reported average or above inquiries during the same period. Additionally, 38 percent plan to hire in the second quarter of 2008 -- unchanged from the previous quarterly survey.

"While the majority of firms reported steady or increased work, the housing troubles has certainly slowed some segments of the market -- especially major real estate developments," said Nancy Somerville, executive vice president and CEO of ASLA. "Landscape architecture firms have turned to high-end residential work, commercial development, and public sector projects to mitigate most of the slowdown from the housing market."

The survey also asked about interest in sustainability, with nearly 72 percent of respondents reporting clients as "very interested" in sustainable issues.

Respondents report the top sustainability issues as water including bioswales, stormwater management at 72 percent; energy efficiency through irrigation, low-maintenance, native plants, less lawn at 68 percent; Accreditation at 54 percent; habitat (open space and preserving natural habitat) at 32 percent; green roofs at 28.0 percent; and links to transportation, trails, and parks at 25 percent.

The ASLA Business Quarterly survey was fielded March 20-31, with 427 firms responding.

Belleview Place Takes the Top Spot

The winning entry, “Belleview Place,” captivated the jury members of ULI's sixth annual Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition with its integration of the Dallas-based Cedars neighborhood to the downtown area, and its use of ground leases to retain public ownership of land allowing the change of uses in the future.

The winning team received the top prize of $50,000; the three finalist teams each received $10,000.

The winning development scheme:

University of Pennsylvania, School of Design: Belleview Place harnesses Cedars’ assets to bridge neighborhoods divided by physical, economic and cultural differences by connecting open space, transit, and institutional resources. This planned-unit development orients Cedars along mass transit and creates vibrant, safe, and walkable corridors using urban design guidelines centered on streets as an integral part of the public realm. Civic amenities and commercial installations along these corridors strengthen connections between area neighborhoods by providing equitable standards of social and physical infrastructure.

The entries from the three runner-ups:

Design for the Masses

Public Architecture, a San Francisco–based nonprofit, created the 1% program, an initiative where architects pledge a minimum of 1 percent of their billable hours annually to pro bono service.

Based on a 40-hour workweek, 1% represents a modest 20 hours per year per person. Were all 240,000 architecture professionals in the U.S. to sign on, the collective resources would be the equivalent of a 2,500-person firm (the largest in the world) working full-time for the public good, totaling an estimated 5,000,000 hours annually.

Cambridge Seven Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the 300th architecture firm in three years to pledge their commitment to providing pro bono design services. "This represents a growth of 100 percent since the relaunch of The 1% Web site last October," says Public Architecture founder John Peterson. "The rapid growth is fueled in part by a new matching system through which architecture firms and nonprofits can seek out partnerships online."

"As architects whose projects are inherently public, we know how important design is for enabling people to interact and work with each other," says Peter Kuttner, president of Cambridge Seven Associates. "The 1% program of Public Architecture represents the first profession-wide pro bono movement in architecture."

The 1% program was launched by Public Architecture on March 31, 2005, with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Along with renewed support from the NEA, The 1% is supported by several groups, including The American Institute of Architects, Boston Society of Architects, corporate and private foundations, as well as leading firms such as Elness Swenson Graham Architects, HOK, HKS, McCall Design Group, and Perkins + Will.

In addition to The 1% program, Public Architecture sponsors a series of "design campaigns," including ScrapHouse and the Day Labor Station. Through prototypical design projects linked with comprehensive advocacy initiatives, design campaigns develop new design solutions to provocative social issues.

Compact Communities - Is Density Incompatible With Safety?

Reducing the carbon footprint of metropolitan areas will require making them more compact in order to reduce driving or vehicle miles traveled (VMTs). Forgive me for saying this (density being a four letter word) but this will require increasing the density of existing communities and building new ones with appropriate density. 

So what are the best ways to design compact, densely populated, walkable communities which are attractive, safe and lively? One thing clearly needed is enough housing so people live in the community; this is what creates the "24/7" communities which have been shown to be most successful over time. What are the best ways to do this while reducing crime and enhancing public safety?

The Urban Health Advantage

A recent article in New York magazine by Clive Thompson called "Why New Yorkers Last Longer" pulls together some intriguing facts that anyone interested in walkable, mixed use, mixed income communities should consider. The article, as the title suggests, explores why the "average life expectancy" of New Yorkers has grown faster than that of the U.S. as a whole, especially in since 1990. Now it is 78.6, while the national average is 77.9; as recently as 1990, the average life expectancy of a New Yorker was three years shorter than the national average.

Certain factors may be unique to New York, such as the drop in the crime rate (New York is now the safest city in the U.S.) and new drugs that have extended the life of AIDS patients. But other factors are more generic to all urbanized areas.

Here are some excerpts:

Designing Mixed-Income Communities: What Really Works?

This post was written by The Ground Floor contributor and ULI director of media relations, Marge Fahey.

The key to designing successful mixed-income communities is to make affordable units indistinguishable, dispersed and connected, according to industry experts assembled at ULI's fall meeting.

"HOPE VI in the 1990s transformed public housing into communities of mixed income," says Donald Carter, president, Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh.

By 2030, the United States will have an additional 90 million people and will need 60 million new housing units, one-half of which don't exist now. Changing demographics (less than 25 percent are now traditional households with children), will fuel this demand.

Consensus emerged among panelists that a variety of housing types using the design guidelines of new urbanism -- walkable neighborhoods, a street network, boundaries, a civic center, and an ability to provide chance meetings among neighbors -- are essential ingredients in creating mixed-income communities. Participants also agreed that the solutions are neighborhood and community based and that density is needed to make mixed-income housing work.

"Density provides an opportunity for design to be attractive and make a difference even at a small scale," says Geoffrey Wooding, design principal, Goody, Clancy and Associates in Boston.

Living LA-style in Shanghai?

A recent article in The Washington Post, "West Rises In China's Back Yard," offers a great illustration of the extent of the explosive development throughout China's largest cities. However, this is not a tale of tall buildings -- rather it details the how many new housing and mixed-use developments are attempting to mimic those found in cities from other parts of the world.

In Shanghai alone, there's a Venice look-alike, complete with canals; a London-style Thames Town, (other European villages are planned); and Rancho Santa Fe, designed to feel just like living in California.

"As China's modernization continues to pull hundreds of millions of people from farms to cities and suburbs, a construction boom has given rise to a vast landscape of foreign-looking settlements...(They) are the latest manifestation of the technique that has fueled China's economic boom: making copies," states the article.

Small is Beautiful

When designed well, small spaces can be very rewarding places. The Boulders in Seattle, located in Washington's Greenlake neighborhood is a cluster of nine single-family houses on a small (3.5-acre) lot. In the last ten years, Greenlake has become a very desirable neighborhood, with homes there commanding very high prices in the area market.

The site originally consisted of two seperate parcels, each with its own house, that had been upzoned for multifamily housing. However its small size, awkward triangular shape, 15 to 20 percent change in slope, and proximity to freeway noise presented major challenges to local developer William N. Parks. Parks met these challenges with a site plan that takes maximum advantage of the property's characteristics. The nine four-story, 1,800-square-foot houses are clustered around a central open space and placed on the slope in such way to create sight lines and view corridors for each of the residences. Mature trees and boulders further emphasize the site design, and a manmade stream flows between the houses masking the noise from Interstate 5.

A complete case study of this project can be found on ULI's Development Case Studies Web site. (If you are not already subscribed to the Development Case Studies, you can subscribe here.)   

Context is Everything

How a building relates to its surroundings and neighbors is crucial for the creation of an active streetscape and to foster a sense of community. West River Commons, a small (one-acre) mixed-use project in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is an excellent example of context-sensitive design.

Like many pre-WWII inner suburban neighborhoods, the Longfellow neighborhood comprises single-family homes sited on a dense and walkable street grid. Also like many neighborhoods from this time period, the scale and walkability of the area has been comprised by fast moving traffic on arterial streets lined with one-story commercial strip centers.

West River Commons fronts one of these arterials, Lake Street. Its 53 apartments, three townhouses, dry cleaning shop, two restaurants and one cafe are designed in such a way to provide a transition from the activity and traffic on Lake Street to the more quiet residential feel just a block away. The focal point of the project is a small park which provides outdoor setting for the restaurants and serves as an informal community gathering point.

A complete case study of this project can be found on ULI's Development Case Studies Web site. (If you are not already subscribed to the Development Case Studies, you can subscribe here.)

An Outside View On New Orleans

They came, they saw, they left -- and unfortunately, they left convinced that New Orleans has yet to set a steady course for recovery. The delegation participating in ULI's study tour of this city and other Gulf Coast communities came looking for investment and development potential in this hurricane-ravaged city. And while participants were impressed with the outpouring of volunteer work to help residents in the Crescent City rebuild their homes and their lives, they  clearly felt that the city's governing officials need to be providing far more guidance and far more leadership to get New Orleans out of intensive care.

Delegates were troubled by the haphazard shape of rebuilding -- a house here, a house there in various phases of redevelopment, surrounded by vacant lots, rubble, and empty houses. Equally troubling: no people and no housing means no retail, no neighborhood amenities.  Among the comments:

"You get the feeling that if you came back in a year, it would look pretty much the same."

"My concern is that New Orleans is 16 months into this, and the city has not made a lot of progress in getting cooperation between agencies. My question is,'Who is in charge?'"

"For anyone coming into the area, a big concern is having an exit strategy. That is the most wearing factor. You wonder how much the leadership here will be able to catalyze (sustainable development). You wonder how you are going to be able to keep operating and how you are going to get out. This is going to inhibit out-of-state investment."

Do you agree with these views? Give us your thoughts.

London 2012 Olympics Stirs Debate

In October, architect Richard Rogers threatened to boycott the London 2012 Olympics in protest at how building contracts are being awarded. Lord Rogers attacked 'design and build' contracts, where the architect's input comes after a contractor has been appointed.

Lord Rogers, whose works include the Millennium Dome and the Pompidou Centre, said contracts for the venues were not being made on an architect-led basis, leading to fears about the design quality, The Guardian reported.

A design director has long been missing from the Olympic Delivery Authority's line-up, but the omission has become more glaring in recent weeks following Rogers' threat. As a result, the ODA recently confirmed that architect Peter Cook is spearheading HOK Sport's design of the stadium, according to Building Design. Cook is best known for his work with Archigram, the 1960s collective whose 'pop' architecture defined a decade.

Do you think 'design and build' contracts would compromise the quality of design? What would be the best way to award such contracts?