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Dense Cities, Open Homes: 8 Multifamily Housing Projects Built for Modern Life
CategoriesArchitecture

Dense Cities, Open Homes: 8 Multifamily Housing Projects Built for Modern Life

By Zarkon Group,

Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletters.

Housing is central to architecture and cities. Across generations and socio-economic backgrounds, a mix of housing options makes cities more lively, sustainable and human. Amidst global housing scarcity, the need to build more multifamily and affordable housing is widespread. Equitable housing begins with policy and planning, but it’s also tied to design. Architects worldwide are considering this idea and how to create more beautiful, integrated housing that reflects how we live today.

Multifamily housing is key to creating more equitable cities. In this type of housing, multiple separate units are contained within one or several buildings within one complex. A key benefit of multifamily in the current market is that it’s usually more affordable than single-family housing. With real estate today, it’s increasingly difficult for people to buy a home, especially for first-time buyers. In multifamily housing, less land is needed, and it helps to meet the growing demand for households of all ages and income levels. As architects consider the impact of housing, the following projects represent multifamily housing design across the world. Made for residents to either rent or own, they represent a cultural shift and underline the importance of housing in architecture today.

Timber House

MESH Architectures, Brooklyn, NY, United States

Jury Winner, 11th Annual A+Awards, Multi-Unit Residential Building

New York is a city known for housing scarcity, and a place that’s defined by reinvention. For Timber House, MESH Architectures was inspired by natural finishes and “botanical architecture.” The idea was not only to foster well-being, but create a new model for timber construction in the city. The project is the first mass-timber condominium in New York, and the structure was built with glue-laminated timber columns, beams, and floor plates. The six-story, multifamily project is comprised of fourteen homes.

Beyond the novel material approaches to construction in Timber House, it was also a test in learning from passive-house design. Those principles informed its high-performance envelope, with “intensive insulation, smart air sealing, and triple-glazed wood windows.” Less interior finishes were required thanks to leaving the wood structure exposed, while the team also prioritized low-carbon material choices. For Timber House, MESH wanted to demonstrate that sustainable multifamily buildings can balance well-being and comfort, as well as beauty.

Valley

MVRDV, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Jury Winner, 11th Annual A+Awards, Architecture +Façades

MVRDV has earned a reputation for reinvention and creating new building forms. That same approach extends to housing, where the team designed Valley with a more “green and human” touch. Built for developer Edge, the project is located in Amsterdam Zuidas. Rising to three distinct towers, the façades shift across the complex. The outer edges are mirrored glass, while the inner façades are clad with stone and swaths of greenery.

Valley was built for a mix of residents, as well as workers and visitors. Not only for multifamily housing, the project also includes offices while much of the building is open to the public. For the materials, over 40,000 stone tiles of varying sizes were used throughout the building’s façades. “Each of the 198 apartments has a unique floorplan, made possible by the interior designs by Heyligers Architects.” Outside, the team worked with landscape architect Piet Oudolf on the placement and selection of trees, shrubs and approximately 13,500 smaller plants that are in within the natural stone planters.

One Hundred

Studio Gang, St. Louis, MO, United States

Jury Winner, 9th Annual A+Awards, Multi Unit Housing High Rise (16+ Floors)

Few locations are more prominent for multifamily housing in St. Louis than Forest Park. Designed by Studio Gang, One Hundred is a residential tower overlooking the park and the studio’s first project in the city. The tower includes a mix of housing, retail and amenities on four-story stacked tiers. The apartments were designed for views of Forest Park and east to the Gateway Arch.

From a formal approach, Studio Gang designed the tower with an angled façade that creates a series of large outdoor spaces atop each tier. This move also produces outdoor space for residents atop the green roof podium. The team notes that, “each apartment features its own corner living room with double exposures that, in addition to offering panoramic views, enhance the amount and quality of daylight within the units.” The tower includes public and retail spaces at ground level adjacent to the park, while establishing a new landmark for St. Louis.

Cirqua Apartments

BKK Architects, Melbourne, Australia

Jury & Popular Choice Winner, 2018 A+Awards, Multi Unit Housing Low Rise (1-4 Floors)

The Cirqua project by BKK gained widespread recognition for creating beautiful, inventive multifamily architecture. The project includes 38 unique unit types out of the 42 total apartments made with spacious balconies and an integrated approach to landscaping. Combining two properties into a single block, the project was formed with careful attention paid to scale and the surrounding context. Cirqua not only showcases a smart, nuanced approach to multifamily housing, but also how to design for accessibility and passive performance.

As the team noted, prospective owners are increasingly buying into the apartment market (over detached housing) as owner-occupiers. A sense of place was a key driver of the design, establishing a neighborly feel. All living areas and bedrooms have direct access to ventilation, natural light and views, while maximizing glazing created connections to the surrounding garden. From the neighborhood scale, a study in massing led to reducing the overall building volume to make the development fit seamlessly into its site.

Caterpillar

Prince Concepts, Detroit, MI, United States

Caterpillar approaches density through a novel construction and design in Core City, Detroit. It utilizes a Quonset Hut structure that holds eight units, all entirely prefabricated. The result is an 8,000 square foot (745 square meter) residential project that prioritizes indoor and outdoor space. Prince Concepts created the project with tall ceilings that rise to 23 feet (7 meters); the units were designed to capture morning light in the bedrooms and evening sunsets in the living room.

Multifamily housing and density are charged subjects, but they also hold the potential to reimagine everyday life in cities. For Caterpillar, the team wanted to rethink the standard ratios of a multifamily project. To do so, instead of “150 apartments surrounded by eight trees with just one window per room, Caterpillar provides eight apartments surrounded by 150 trees and 12-18 windows per room.” The multifamily project built on the success of True North, completed in 2017. That Prince Concepts development was made with eight Quonset huts and ten leasable units.

Casa Jardin Escandon

CPDA ARQUITECTOS, Mexico City, Mexico

CPDA Architects designed this garden house project as a multifamily development in Mexico City. Located in the Escandón neighborhood, the project includes fourteen residential units. At its heart, a central courtyard is the connective element that defines the housing project, opening up access to natural light and cross ventilation. Ten townhouse units are set up the four ground-floor units below, all of which share a similar material relationship.

As the Escandón neighborhood has seen rapid growth, new populations moved in across age and income levels. The project provides a mix of unit types, as well as changing faces along its façade. The exterior showcases the concrete slabs that stand out and the gabled façade, while the interior has simple, seamless and integrated forms that define the inside complex. The idea was to create a “secret garden” that residents can enjoy within the city.

The SIX Veterans Housing

Brooks + Scarpa Architects, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Few cities in the world are grappling with homelessness and a severe lack of housing affordability like Los Angeles. Brooks+Scarpa has built a practice addressing issues in the city and across the nation. For this multifamily residential, The SIX was designed as a 52-unit affordable housing project that “provides a home, support services and rehabilitation for previously homeless and/or disabled veterans.”

Located in the MacArthur Park area of Los Angeles, The SIX was made to break the mold of multifamily housing by creating public and private “zones” in which private space was deemphasized to create large public areas. At ground level, the program includes support spaces for veterans, as well as bike storage, parking and offices. The second level is the core of the project, with a large, public courtyard. The idea was to create a community-oriented, interactive space that opens to its surroundings.

Jinshan 9

Steffian Bradley Architects, Shenzhen, China

Over the last two decades, development in China has been defined by a dizzying pace and new architecture produce in-mass. For Jinshan 9, this force behind new buildings was directed into a multifamily living community. Located in China’s Shekou mixed-use district, the project looks out west to wild, forested mountains and east to Shenzhen Bay Bridge. With a range of both low-rise and high-rise structures, the development was made for diverse lifestyles and populations.

With 210 townhouse units, the project also has four residential towers rising 32 floors in height. Between integrated pedestrian paths and trails, the development comprises a network of gardens and interconnected terraces. From its material palette, Jinshan 9 includes natural-colored terracotta panels with aluminum trim on the exterior. This combines with marine-inspired imagery and forms, like balcony details echoing sailboat decks.

Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletters.

Reference

Dense and Sensibility: How Architects Can Help Shape More Sustainable Cities
CategoriesArchitecture

Dense and Sensibility: How Architects Can Help Shape More Sustainable Cities

By Zarkon Group,

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the 11th Annual A+Awards! Interested in participating next season? Sign up for key information about the 12th Annual A+Awards, set to launch this fall.

How can cities have high urban standards and improve residents’ quality of life? As history has demonstrated, if the choices and strategies to achieve positive results are appropriate, the outcome delivers inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities; if wrong, the outcome is devastating, forcing cities to face challenges such as pollution, high energy consumption, insufficient affordable housing, inequalities and health risks, among many others.

Architecture must generate urban quality and environmental sustainability while reflecting the cultural heritage and empowering residents. The growing process of cities leads to transformations, and such transformations need to be associated with sustainable models to improve the social, economic and environmental conditions of cities, ensuring the quality of life of current and future residents.

The Mobile Joy-city Community Commerce Beijing, China_MAT Office

The Mobile Joy-city in Jingxi Xiangyun, Beijing, China, offers creative solutions for a community plan that integrates work, home, shopping, transportation and green spaces. The design focuses on three design concepts: “open archipelago concept”, “landscape urban place”, and “community space shaping.” Design and images by MAT Office.

Architecture as a Contributor to the Sustainable Growth of Cities

Architecture can incorporate social and environmental factors as a core part of its design strategy and contribute to cities’ goals as centers of economic growth, culture and innovation, which will translate into improved quality of life. Understanding architecture as an isolated discipline aimed at creating buildings uniquely might lead to a lack of cohesion and functionality. On the other hand, if we see it as one in dialog with other urban domains, such as landscape design and transit, we can build urban areas that are accessible, livable and affordable, ensuring that cities are engines of sustainable economic growth.

Alárò City_Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)

SOM‘s master plan for Alárò City lies in the growth path of Lagos, one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities with a population of over twenty million. Alárò City reinforces Lagos as the economic and cultural center in West Africa through a new sustainable community. The master plan highlights the site’s unique conditions enabling long-term resiliency. Design and renderings by SOM.

Co-Living, Transit-Oriented Developments and Sustainability

The examples of projects illustrated below show how different cities address their growth challenges through a mixture of spaces, functions and services that are accessible to the population. Each responds to the specifics of their economic, social and environmental situation differently but with a common goal: achieve quality of life and efficiency.

These examples are mixed-use developments that integrate housing, retail and community spaces to promote urban connectivity and social inclusion while making cities safer for pedestrians, motorized vehicles, and bicycles. Most of them feature an architecture that incorporates green strategies aiming at minimizing environmental impact.

Super Babylon_MAT Office

Super Babylon is conceived as a co-living community. The concept prioritizes sustainable living and shared communal spaces while giving privacy equal due. Design and renderings by MAT Office.

MAT Office proposes a series of linked transformable structures inspired by the New Babylon, a megastructure that Dutch visual artist and Situationist Constant Nieuwenhuys developed a half-century ago. MAT Office‘s Super Babylon is a modular structure composed of units that can generate four types of spatial and social relations: individual basic units, small family spaces, communal spaces and collective community buildings with access to commercial spaces at ground level. Following the shared community  — or, co-living — model, New Babylon attracts a diverse population of young professionals, retirees, singles, and families, all working together to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values.

Periferico 2008_BRAG Arquitectos

Periferico 2008 is a residential high-rise with public amenities on the ground floor and a rooftop terrace with panoramic views. Project by BRAG Arquitectos. Image by Felix Fernández.

Periferico 2008 is a multi-unit residential tower close to San Angel, a neighborhood south of Mexico City known for its colonial history, monuments and religious architecture. The abundant greenery in the area set the tone for Periferico’s design: a thirty-story tall parallelepiped with two carved-out sections to make room for green terraces. The building’s 184 apartments — with areas ranging from 700 to 2,690 square feet (65 to 250 square meters) — feature spacious layouts and optimal orientations to maximize views and optimize natural lighting and ventilation. The ground floor amenities include a gym, swimming pool, spa, business center, playroom, library, and a movie theater. The rooftop terrace offers opportunities for relaxation and entertaining with views of the city and beyond.

Connecting Cooksville_SvN Architects + Planners

Connecting Cooksville in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada is a development project that offers many connections for pedestrians and vehicles, highlighting opportunities to prioritize the human scale and overall urban connectivity. Design and renderings by SvN Architects + Planners.

SvN‘s design for Connecting Cooksville is a vision for an integrated transit-oriented development in Mississauga, one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities. The project will transform a site dominated by surface parking into an interconnected, transit-oriented, mixed-use development with interior streets and a regenerative landscape. At nearly 1.7 million square feet (157, 900 square meters) , the development will provide nearly 2,200 new apartment units and close to 100,000 square feet (9,290 square meters) of commercial space, including a community gathering space covering almost half of the site.

Walking trails, outdoor kitchens, classrooms, cafe seating, areas for recreation, exercise and outdoor daycare play zones provide additional ground-level programming. SvN, in collaboration with WHY Architecture Workshop, designed an urban forest as part of the development, which prioritizes climate resiliency by strategically designing the cluster of towers and the landscape responding to the City of Mississauga’s Climate Action and Strategic Plans.

Quayside_Norm Li

Quayside in Toronto, Canada, is conceived as an electrically powered, zero-carbon community where residents will have easy access to their daily needs, including jobs, education, healthcare, food, and recreation. Design and renderings by Norm Li.

Quayside is a mix of market-rate and affordable housing in Toronto for individuals and families of different backgrounds and incomes. A total of six buildings, including Canada’s largest mass-timber residential building, will also provide commercial and institutional spaces, as well as access to a three-and-a-half-acre public space. Additionally, a one-acre urban farm on the rooftop of the mass-timber building will be accessible to residents and the public. The project was conceived with sustainability in mind resulting in an all-electrically powered, zero-carbon community. The use of environmentally friendly materials and technologies will promote biodiversity and create comfortable and accessible green spaces, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the efficient management of severe weather risks.

Aiming for Sustainable and Livable Cities

The creation of high-density buildings offering easy access to daily needs and the use of sustainable building solutions can be considered good examples of how architecture can bring social and environmental change. City growth is inevitable but manageable with the right tools and the right decisions. The prominent role of the architectural community in envisioning and designing cities demonstrates that it can be beneficial to the betterment of citizens’ quality of life, social equity, health and the environment. Healthier places — no matter what their functions are — will result in healthier people, communities and cities.

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the 11th Annual A+Awards! Interested in participating next season? Sign up for key information about the 12th Annual A+Awards, set to launch this fall.

Reference

Pema Studio designs Forte House as “a dense and closed fortress”
CategoriesArchitecture

Pema Studio designs Forte House as “a dense and closed fortress”

By Zarkon Group,

Architecture practice Pema Studio drew on the idea of a protected fortress when creating the Forte House, a blocky, white-rendered home that replaces a neglected existing structure in Santo Tirso, Portugal.

The dwelling is set back from a retained facade and sits within existing stone perimeter walls on the site, creating an exterior space around its edges with private, skylit patios.

Aerial view of Forte House in Santo Tirso
Pema Studio drew on the idea of a protected fortress when creating the Forte House

“The house is designed in a complex balance between the creation of a dense and closed fortress and the reinterpretation of the typical patio house, looking for a protected oasis in its intimate relationship with the sky,” said Pema Studio.

“The intervention starts from a massive block that impertinently detaches from the limits and mimics the land plot outline.”

Sheltered outdoor space at Portuguese house
The white-rendered home is set back behind an existing facade

The retained facade and a metal gate of the former building now lead into an entrance courtyard, sheltered by a sloping roof punctured by a large opening.

Set back from the street, an entrance is tucked into the northern side of the home’s white exterior, leading into the more secluded study and bedroom at the front.

Courtyard outside Portuguese home
It sits within an existing stone wall

“The old facade, an element of the pre-existing [fabric], is one of the few remaining elements,” said the studio.

“With the necessary functional changes, it was restored and rehabilitated as an element of cohesion and framing with the adjacent urban fabric, reducing the intervention’s impact on the street,” it continued.

From the entrance, a corridor leads through to a more open living, kitchen and dining area at the rear of the home. This space is connected to a garden and swimming pool that can be independently accessed using the narrow pathways along each side of the site.

Two small planted courtyards have been cut out of the home’s southern edge, providing access to natural light and ventilation.

Swimming pool at Forte House by Pema Studio
There is a swimming pool

Stairs on both the interior and exterior lead up to Forte House’s first floor, where two additional bedrooms connect to rooftop seating areas and a balcony overlooking the street at the front of the site.

Inside, walls of white plaster in the circulation areas echo the design language of the exterior, while wooden panelling has been introduced in the bedrooms and living spaces, and used to create large areas of built-in storage.

White-walled living room with wooden cabinets
The living space echoes the white exterior of the house

Based in Santo Tirso, Pema Studio was founded by Tiago Pedrosa Martins in 2019.

Other homes recently completed in Portugal include a cork-clad dwelling near Lisbon by Inês Brandão Arquitectura and a minimalist white home on a narrow site in Ponta Delgado by Box Arquitectos.

The photography is by Ivo Tavares.

Project credits:

Architect: Pema Studio
Collaborator: Daniel Carvalho/Livre Atelier and Dário Cunha
Main architect: Tiago Pedrosa Martins
Construction: Construções Alves e Freitas, Lda.
Engineer: M2 – Gabinete de Estudos

Reference