Tag Archives: apartments

Spain’s global lead in elevators tied to housing policies

Posted on by

Spain leads the world in elevators per 1,000 people and this is the result of certain housing policies:

Compared to other countries, Spain’s elevator supply looks remarkably, well, elevated.
Spain Has Risen to the Top of Global Elevator Rankings
Quartz

At face value, there’s a pretty simple reason why. Spaniards are some of the world’s pre-eminent apartment-dwellers. In 2012, roughly 65 percent of the population lived in apartment buildings, much higher than the euro-area average of 46 percent. (The only other European countries that compare to Spain in terms of apartment-living are Latvia and Estonia, which are both also around 65 percent.)…

Top-down planning gave rise to relatively high-density urban building, often by politically connected construction companies in a building boom that stretched from the 1960s into the late 1970s.

“The dominant form of this housing was estates (apartment complexes) with over 1,000 dwellings,” wrote then Harvard academic Eric Belsky and colleague Nicolas Retsinas, in a paper on the Spanish housing market back in 2004. “These estates replaced many of the shantytowns that developed near cities like Barcelona and Madrid in the late 1940s and early 1950s.”

Thus was the modern Spanish city born.

With the emphasis on agricultural land in the Franco regime, dense cities and elevators were the result.

Given all this, what are the implications?

1. Do all those elevators detract from or enhance walking (taking the stairs versus having denser communities where walking is the norm)?

2. Are there any unique features of Spanish elevator culture?

3. Do the Spanish any sort of edge in elevator technology or maintenance?

Selling smaller yet posh apartments plus an urban lifestyle to younger renters in Tampa Bay

Posted on by

The Tampa Bay real estate market may have picked up again but it includes some new options: stylish, small, urban apartments for millennials.

So last month, the 28-year-old dietitian moved into a stylish flat in downtown’s newest apartment tower, Modera Prime 235. The trade-off? It cost $1,330, double her last rent, for a one-bedroom matchbox spanning 700 square feet.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be in a McMansion. . . . but it’s definitely enough space for me,” she said. “That price was a lot, like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m going to have to watch my budget.’ But I’ve enjoyed every penny I’ve paid for it so far.”

Developers are racing to build more than 8,000 new apartments across Tampa Bay, sparking one of the biggest building surges since the housing bust. But to win big rents from millennials, the biggest generation in American history, they’re building in a way that looks nothing like the suburban booms of years past.

The emerging apartment complexes are more closely connected to city centers and packed with metropolitan perks, but they’re also surprisingly pricey and getting smaller. While the median new American home swelled last year to a record-breaking 2,384 square feet, Census data show, the nation’s median new rentals have narrowed to 1,043 square feet, the smallest since 2002.

“The younger generation, under 35, they don’t want to own homes. They don’t want a yard. … They watched what happened (during the recession), watched their parents lose their houses,” said John Stone, a managing director of multifamily housing for Colliers International, a real estate brokerage. “They have a different taste, a different value system. . . . These kids are more than happy to pay $1,200 in rent to walk out their door and immediately go to their favorite bar, their favorite restaurant.”

This has been a trend predicted for a while now by a number of people ranging from Richard Florida to James Howard Kunstler. Because of a variety of pressures from the increase in gas prices, the limited possibilities and decentralization of suburban sprawl, a changed job market, and new technologies, younger Americans may just want desire more exciting urban neighborhoods (though these don’t necessarily have to be in the city center or even in large cities) and smaller homes and private spaces. This is happening many metro areas throughout the United States but it is unclear how big the phenomenon might grow or how much other groups of Americans want to join millennials/the Creative Class.

Yet, as the article notes, this is all tending to lead to a segmented housing market with large suburban McMansions (or something like them), trendy yet small urban apartments for those who can afford them, and the lower end of the housing market that is still struggling.

Baseball stadiums of the future to be more integrated with surrounding cities?

Posted on by

Urban baseball stadiums became all the rage after the early 1990s (the new Comiskey Park in Chicago was the last of the old models) but one projection regarding baseball stadiums of the future suggests they will be even more integrated into the surrounding cityscape:

Looking forward, there’s no need for the high-arching concrete and steel that separate today’s stadiums from the city around them. Mirakian anticipates “transformative stadiums that will really build a community.” The glass structures horseshoed around Living Park, for example, aren’t just premium seating, but also serve to combine the city and stadium. A street front on one side that hosts everything from offices and apartments to retail and restaurants turns into a stadium portal on the backside, offering stellar views onto the field. Instead of rising out of the city, the stadium sinks into it.

Trending data suggested increased urban densification, giving Mirakian the idea to create a linear park environment that allows the building to play as the central theme—a place activated during a game, but where the community can gather at any time, during either the season or offseason. In this case, the building itself is defined by the edges of the city, acting as a window into the building on game days. There’s no need for fanciful facades, as the stadium instead flows with the park and city…

You’ll still find a traditional seating bowl tucked below premium glass-enclosed spaces, but with the future of team revenue not as reliant on gate receipts, designers can offer new types of space. A city park overlooks rightfield—a riff on Fenway Park’s famed Green Monster, but this time with a green roof—and an enlarged berm beyond leftfield gives the stadium community-inspired life and public accessibility 365 days a year…

Getting to urban sites often proves tricky, so Populous brought the public transit line straight through Living Park, giving transit users a free look at one of the most stunning views in the city. Mirakian called it a “pretty distinct” element of the design.

Sounds like the goal is to make the stadium more of a lifestyle center than just a place where baseball games are played 81 home dates a year. This may require owners to open their park up more to the community and other events, which should appeal to them in the long run because there is an opportunity to generate more revenue from other events. Think of recent efforts to have football games, rock concerts, and hockey games in baseball stadiums. (The owners of the Chicago Cubs have followed this plan in recent years with Wrigley Field.)

While this kind of park sounds appealing, another aspect of the experience is not addressed in the article: what are the costs for all of this? Can the average fan easily attend a game at this new stadium? Some of the new features may make attendance cheaper – we attended a game a few years ago at Petco Park in San Diego and they had a good number of cheaper tickets in their outfield lawn area. Yet, if the Padres were a better team, those prices might be a lot higher. Additionally, in bigger cities with more ticket demand, prices are higher: the cheapest seats at a summer premium game at Wrigley Field start at $25 (more like $34 when you factor in all the fees and taxes).

Note: although it looks less sexy than the Populous projection, the Lansing Lugnuts, a Class A team, are trying to bring in more residents into the ballpark itself:

The Lansing (Mich.) Lugnuts and the city that owns their ballpark want to take a page from Wrigley’s book and construct perhaps 100 apartments literally inside of the stadium. By way of a $22 million project split down the middle with public and private funds, the Midwest League’s Class A club for the Toronto Blue Jays and the city seek to expand and upgrade Cooley Law School Stadium in downtown Lansing, the state capital.

The plan, called the “Outfield,” would be part of a bigger plan to upgrade parts of downtown as a whole. It’s a similar concept to what Fort Wayne, Ind. has done with its pro team, the Tincaps, and the Harrison Apartments beyond the left field fence.

I wonder how much of a premium such apartments inside, or very near, a minor league baseball stadium in the Rust Belt can command.

Ten enviable, but not necessarily realistic, TV homes

Posted on by

Take a closer look at the sometimes ridiculous dwelling places of ten well-known television shows.

There are few things quite as frustrating for those bunked away in crappy, overpriced rentals as watching sitcom characters putter around in homes that—in real life—would be astronomically expensive even with a steady income (which television characters often mysteriously lack.) Whether it be the NYC-based Friends apartment or the California-cool New Girl loft that’s causing a big dose of sitcom real estate envy, do have a look at some of television’s most enviable living situations—presented below in order of least to most realistic.

The Cosby Show and Big Bang Theory take the honors as the most realistic. Even as the average new American home has increased over the decades, might TV homes have increased even more?

As this is not the first article I have seen on this topic in recent months, I wonder what the outcomes of such analyses. One way to go would be to get into a discussion of how realistic TV shows should be. How much should television portray real circumstances of Americans who as a whole have a median household income around $50,000? In order to be good shows, do they have to present something close to reality? Or, do Americans prefer entertainment that is more aspirational? Perhaps there are audiences for both though the general trend seems to be that fans are not very worried about whether the homes are realistic.

A more interesting route would be to consider what effect these depictions of homes have on viewers. As sociologist Juliet Schor argues, does this give viewers a different reference group? Schor suggests when Americans see “normal” TV life – which, in reality, it typically upper class life even when the characters are supposed to be middle or working-class – they readjust their own consumption patterns to match those on TV. So, if viewers of Sex and the City see single women in New York enjoying rather large apartments, they then expect to find such places for themselves and might be beyond their means to make it happen.

New TV shows with young adults feature unrealistically large city apartments

Posted on by

The dwellings of many young adults on television are quite large:

Plenty of things are unrealistic about television: No iconic moment in my life has ever been accompanied by Ellie Goulding’s “Anything Can Happen,” despite how much I wish it were. But the perpetual tiny-but-annoying quirk that most shows are guilty of is the unemployed twentysomething with a fabulous apartment. I’m onto you, Girls: No matter how much junk you throw around in Marnie and Hannah’s onetime-shared living space, it doesn’t hide the fact that they’ve got a ton of room. I live in New York City; I know you’re lying to me.

This isn’t anything new, of course. The go-to example is usually Carrie Bradshaw and her ridiculous Manhattan apartment with its gorgeous walk-in closet full on Manolos when her only source of explained income was a weekly newspaper column. But while everyone loves some good 1998 nostalgia (the Friends’ West Village apartments are another egregious example), the trend of the unbelievably large home isn’t fading away.

I’m not simply talking about gorgeous, jealousy-inspiring apartments; I totally get and buy into the fact that say, Dr. Lahiri from The Mindy Project would have an awe-worthy living space to bring all of her meet-cute boyfriends. What I can’t get behind is recent shows like dearly-departed Happy Endings (perpetually unemployed Max’s “gross loft” in Chicago is gorgeous) or 2 Broke Girls‘ Williamsburg, Brooklyn, apartment (They’re supposed to actually be broke, not heiresses!) where the characters ostensibly “have no money,” yet are somehow chilling around complaining about said fact in an abode that would retail for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sure, this is a minor issue. None of this is getting in the way of my enjoyment of all of these shows. But there is some point during each of these programs’ respective runs — often more than once — where I’ll laugh out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of it. It’s all I can do; I can’t change the channel: basically all shows with twenty-something characters are guilty of this. Weirdly enough, the most realistic living set-up on television right now might be the Big Brother house, with all 16 of its residents fighting in a Hunger Games of sorts for limited bed space.

Several quick thoughts:

1. If Big Brother is perceived to be more realistic, these other shows may have some problems.

2. Of the examples cited above, most of the urban apartments are in New York City with one in Chicago (Happy Endings). Manhattan and some of the surroundings areas are some of the most expensive areas in the country so the housing situation as portrayed on TV is really unrealistic. At the same time, TV shows with young adults in places like Atlanta or Houston or Dallas or some other cheaper markets could feature bigger apartments without losing all realism.

3. This is not a new phenomenon on TV. In The Overspent American, sociologist Juliet Schor talks about the expanding middle-class lifestyle on television in the later decades of the 20th century. As the years went by, middle-class people on TV had more and more material goods, larger houses, and had fewer concerns about work and money. Schor then argues that TV contributed to changing perceptions among Americans in what they needed to own to have “the good life.”

4. Shows on channels like HGTV don’t help. It seems like every show features a person looking for the most-updated features. Granted, their price range varies quite a bit but the homes tend to be on the larger side. This is simply unrealistic for many emerging adults.

5. There is potential here for some TV shows to work with more size-appropriate dwellings. How about a show about young people revolving around micro-apartments? How about bringing back the starter home on TV?

Trial of 220 square foot apartments moves forward in San Francisco

Posted on by

A trial run of “micro-apartments” has been approved in San Francisco:

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors tentatively approved Tuesday a trial run of 220-square-foot “micro-apartments” — carefully designed compact living spaces that have become all the rage in urban development. Pending ratification and mayoral approval next month, the plan beats, in smallness, Vancouver’s 226-square-foot “micro-lofts,” and make the 275-square-foot units under trial in New York look like airplane hangars…

Depending on your perspective, the tiny living spaces are either a much-needed option for single people crushed by climbing rents, or community-destroying crash pads for young techie weekenders. Either way, the competition is fierce for creative floor-plan designs that do more with much, much less. The San Francisco measure requires of a minimum of 150 square feet of living space, plus a bathroom and kitchen, though the kitchen can be integrated into the living area. The trial approves 375 units total.

For a clue to what the micro-apartments will look like, Wired toured San Francisco’s new “SmartSpace” micro-apartment complex, which was unveiled last week by developer Patrick Kennedy — an advocate for the new, smaller limits. SmartSpace crams 23 units into its footprint, each 285 to 310 square feet. The floor plan is similar to the even smaller units Kennedy plans to build now that the new measure has passed, he says.

SmartSpace contains narrow rooms with a bathroom at the front, a wall-mounted TV over a computer workstation, and a window seat with a hydraulic pop-up table. (They call it “SmartBench.”) In some units, a fold-up bed reveals an integrated dining table. A closet near the bathroom was designed to hold a washer and dryer and some appliances, including a small convection oven. There’s a dishwasher, but no oven under the small, two-burner electric stove. High ceilings, says Kennedy, were key, noting that they had a grad student live in a 160-square-foot prototype in Berkeley, and made some significant design changes based on her input.

It is interesting to note the opposition these apartments have faced in San Francisco. It sounds like there are a few issues: do the units meet some basic requirements for living space, how will they affect the affordable housing market (and who will end up living in the micro-apartments), and where these units will be located and how the residents will interact with the surrounding community. But, if this size of apartment has worked in other cities, why couldn’t San Francisco look at the best examples and set tough regulations?

Also, I was struck in looking at these plans that more space could be created by transforming the unit more. For example, the small spaces in the IKEA showrooms tend to have a loft bed so it frees up more space. Or other small apartments utilize moving walls or space at a slight step-up. These particular plans look more like traditional apartments that have simply been shrunk to the bare essentials although this may be a function of cost.

“The [NYC 420 square foot] Studio Apartment with 6 Hidden Rooms”

Posted on by

I’ve highlighted innovative small spaces before (see arecent post on a two-level 130 square foot apartment in Paris) and here is another one: a 420 square foot New York City studio has six hidden rooms.

In the Soho neighborhood of New York City, where living space is both expensive and limited, Graham Hill and his team at LifeEdited have turned a 420 square foot studio apartment into the Petri dish of future urban living.

The single room studio apartment has been gutted and remodeled with convertible walls and furniture that transform into six different living spaces. “I wanted it all,” says Mr. Hill in his TED talk from a year ago, “home office, sit down dinner for 10, room for guests, and all my kite surfing gear.”

You have to watch the video to get the full idea.

A few quick thoughts about this:

1. What makes this space work are the movable walls. I wonder if this could catch on in larger homes.

2. There is no mention here of how much a place like this would cost. The suggestion is that they could be made cheaper if mass produced but might the price still be out of the range of many people? Is this primarily for young professionals? If these are seen as fashionable or trendy, it could drive the price up.

3. Graham Hill and Bill Weir suggest this may be the wave of the future in urban living. I’m not so sure. How many Americans actually want this as opposed to would take this only because something larger/cheaper isn’t available?

4. There is mention toward the end of the video that “stripping away the excess found in the McMansion has countless benefits.” Hill gets his facts right: we now have bigger new homes (about 2,500 square feet today compared to about 1,000 in the 1950s) and smaller families. Yet, it is a lot to ask to have people downshift from a single-family home (and the average new size of 2,500 square feet is probably not a McMansion) to a New York City studio apartment.

Wired: “Living Large in a 130-Square-Foot Apartment”

Posted on by

Tiny houses are getting their share of attention these days and I find it hard to resist seeing how people design and live in small spaces (in a country where new homes are roughly 2,500 square feet). Check out this gallery and description of  “Living Large in a 130-Square Foot Apartment“:

The apartment was once the master bedroom of a larger apartment, which should give you a pretty good idea of its postage-stamp size. The idea was to separate the room to create a small studio that could create rental income…

The smartest design trick was to create a split-level floorplan. Baillargeon and Nabucet divided the studio into two levels by building a platform for the kitchen and bathroom, which creates the illusion of separate spaces without using any walls or dividers. The only true partition between living and dining is a long, bar-height shelf that doubles as a functional table for eating. A smart take on the traditionally depressing breakfast nook…

The bed is always a challenge in a studio space. You don’t really want a mess of comforters and pillows in the middle of your living space, and no grown person should really be sleeping on a futon. Baillargeon and Nabucet brilliantly bucked the Murphy bed concept with a bed on wheels that slides elegantly beneath the kitchen platform. The bed can also do double duty, sliding halfway underneath to create the illusion of a couch, thanks to the addition of decorative pillows.

A coffee table, stored along the wall while the bed is in use, slides elegantly out in front of the couch. The convertible bed/couch is Ménard’s favorite feature, as it allows for maximum square-footage for socializing. “It’s a multi-faceted space which can be adapted for watching a movie, working, inviting friends over or cooking.”

Looking at the pictures, the split-level plan seems to make a big difference. So when can Ikea sell all of this as a package? I wonder how much an architect or designer can make for putting together a space like this…

Another thought: can tiny dwellings only really work in communities that emphasize or at least allow socializing in public/private spaces? How much time does the average tiny house dweller spend in their unit compared to people with bigger homes? I could see this as a marketing pitch for tiny houses: you’ll be forced to be more social in public!

The social factors that influence your tip for the doorman

Posted on by

Tipping the doorman is influenced by a number of social factors:

What this means is that even after you’ve rifled through the data and researched the gratuities administered by your neighbors and friends, you don’t know what you don’t know. Your superintendent could tell you what Mrs. Parsons in 5F gave him, but presumably he won’t. And Mrs. Parsons, if you ask her, is likely to abstain from the truth.

This habit of dishonesty is confirmed in “Doormen,” a generalized but thoroughly convincing book about the relationships between Manhattan doormen and tenants, by Peter Bearman, a Columbia University sociologist. In a chapter devoted to Christmas tipping, Mr. Bearman determines that people frequently understate the amount they are giving for the purpose of driving down the contributions of others, and thus distinguishing themselves as among a building’s more generous residents…

If Mr. Bearman were to arrive at Christmas dinner and listen to you fret about whether you tipped your doorman or your super sufficiently this year, he would not quell your anxieties but, instead, tell you that they were utterly justified. Tipping, in this view, is a complicated affair in which it is virtually impossible to establish uniformity. Tipping too little is embarrassing, but so is tipping too much, which can come with distasteful implications of hierarchy and servitude…

Tipping is affected by an infinite number of variables, not the least of them personal affinity. Most doormen will tell you that everyone tips something at Christmas, but that’s not quite true.

This small act is complicated by the relationship one has with the doorman, the setting of the building and the general socioeconomic status of the residents (as the article suggests, comparing the East and West sides), and wanting to appear somewhat but not too generous. It strikes me as well as the issues of tipping could be very unique to American culture where we talk about being egalitarian and therefore don’t like to talk about or even bring up differential positions of power (doormen vs. wealthier residents) but still want to appear nice (supplementing their salary with tips).

Another thought: couldn’t tipping be eliminated if the unionized salary for doormen in New York City was raised so that tips were not necessary to supplement incomes?

I wonder if anyone has solved this problem in a way that the doorman still receives a similar take and residents still tip something. Imagine if there was a website devoted to tipping that included real-time figures for different buildings in New York City. If residents had real data on what other people were tipping, not just suggestions from advice columnists, would this help them make tipping decisions? I suppose this would all depend on residents reporting their true tip, not the socially acceptable value.

To build or not to build a 20-story high-rise in Oak Park

Posted on by

While a proposed 20-story high-rise in Oak Park is unique in that it would be built just outside the Frank Lloyd Wright historic district, the conversation about whether the building should be constructed or not is one that may be facing more suburbs in the coming years:

She said the building’s size has been the primary complaint, but there has also been grumbling over the modern design looming over the historic Wright district.

“I think, in the end, a lot of people could live with the aesthetics if it weren’t for the height and the density,” she said.

Officials have been trying to attract new business and tourists by making the village more “walkable.” About $15 million in streetscaping improvements has been proposed, with $5 million already approved by the board.

Village Manager Tom Barwin says the building would help visually draw the downtown district together while creating a “Hey, what’s that?” mentality.

In built-out communities like Oak Park that have little or no open space, projects like this are going to become more commonplace. It sounds like the typical criticisms are being raised: the building is too tall, there are too many housing units (is this tied to the type of people who live in apartments or the strain on city services?), and it doesn’t fit with the character of the community. But the city suggests it has a plan to be more “walkable,” a buzzword among many designers (and perhaps started by New Urbanists), which is supposed to reduce congestion and improve neighborhood and community life.

On one hand, it might be easy to look at the criticisms of the project and suggest that some residents would resist almost any kind of change to their community. They know the Oak Park that they like and they will do a lot to try to maintain that. On the other hand, if land-challenged suburbs are going to experience any growth or change, redevelopment is going to be necessary. Of course, communities don’t want too many projects that are completely out of place but they don’t want to remain stagnant either. The trick is going to be how to balance the character of the community with change that is going to happen. Perhaps it doesn’t have to come in the form of 20-story buildings but I suspect more large Chicago suburbs, including places like Naperville, are going to seriously consider high-rise projects in the next few decades.