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THE AMAZING FLEXHOUSE
The flexhouse is a live-work type that does not match the narrow range of housing types that American builders are comfortable producing. While a range of variations on the shop house, including versions of the flexhouse, have been produced by small specialized builders — typically in greenfield traditional neighborhood developments — it is by far the least common live-work type. Published 2012.0620
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THE PROJECT IS GOING DOWN...
What will you do to save our vital project?
You are the project manager for the most important project in the history of your firm, and you see the project heading into serious trouble. What do you do? Published 2012.0307
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AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE AWARDS 2011
On a tiny site measuring only seven by six meters (23 by 20 feet), a compact new home rises four and a half stories amidst the urban fabric of Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, Australia.
Designing for himself and his partner, Sue Bassett, architect Domenic Alvaro achieved an unexpected sense of expansiveness within this small space through the use of large precast concrete panels and plate-glass windows, with minimal additional interior detailing. Published 2012.0125
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ANATOMY OF METABOLISM
The exhibit "Metabolism, the City of the Future" at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo is a major retrospective looking at Japan's most widely known and perhaps least understood modern architecture movement.
Subtitled "Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan," the exhibit throws up images depicting a sci-fi world of floating cities, metropolises in the sky, and soaring geometric shapes and patterns repeated over and over with little apparent correspondence to the psychological needs of humans. Published 2011.1214
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UP ON THE ROOF
More than half of all the single-family homes in the United States were built in the last three decades of the 20th century, and it is estimated that half again of the current total number of dwellings — about 80 million — will need to be built in the next three decades of the 21st century. Published 2011.0727
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POCKET NEIGHBORHOODS
Architect Ross Chapin defines a "pocket neighborhood" as a "cohesive cluster of homes gathered around some kind of common ground within a larger surrounding neighborhood" — achieving a small scale at which meaningful neighborly relationships are fostered. Here he discusses a 19th-century precedent for the pocket neighborhood, along with three modern examples. —Editor
Workingmen's Cottages of Warren Place Published 2011.0525
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AIA HOUSING AWARDS: MULTIFAMILY
The condominium building at 1111 East Pike Street in Seattle offers a lively contribution to an urban environment. Located in a dense, walkable, transit-served neighborhood that was formerly Seattle's "auto row," the six-story building features panelized siding in four colors inspired by classic cars of the 1950s. With condo owners given a choice of color for the unit exteriors, those four colors combine to form a variegated patchwork. Published 2011.0330
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DOCKSIDE GREEN: PHASE TWO
The second phase of the Dockside Green project in Victoria, British Columbia, recently received a high-scoring LEED Platinum certification from the Canada Green Building Council. Known as Balance, this part of the development comprises 171 residential units in two adjacent towers. It earned a LEED score of 63 points out of a possible 70, matching the score of Dockside Green's first phase, Synergy (featured in ArchitectureWeek No. 401). Published 2011.0302
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BILLION-SQUARE-FOOT GREENBUILD
"The USGBC has just reached a historic milestone," announced Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council. "We have one billion square feet [93 million square meters] of LEED-certified construction."
Speaking to an audience of thousands at the organization's annual Greenbuild conference and expo, held in Chicago in November 2010, Fedrizzi also cautioned the cheering crowd, "We're still at the beginning of the journey." Published 2011.0126
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NICE AND NARROW
The Borneo Sporenburg development lies in one of Amsterdam's former working harbors. The city and West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture planned an urban development with a density of 40 dwellings per acre (100 dwellings per hectare).
The area was, therefore, subdivided into strips, and the block on which the Stuurmankade 266 to 304 townhouse project by KCAP was constructed is part of several elongated tracts of land. Published 2011.0126
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