This summer Gerding Edlen Development opened a 51-unit apartment building in Portland, Oregon called The 20 on Hawthorne. The 20 is over 50% leased already and LEED Silver certification is pending. Homes range in price from $900-$2,500 and in size from 502 to 968 square feet. Perhaps more interestingly, though, this building has a stackable, automated parking system that fetches cars in about 30-40 seconds on average. It's pretty cool to watch.
Tomorrow morning, developers Jonathan Rose Companies and Malkin Properties will cut the ribbon and officially open Metro Green Apartments, a 50-unit affordable housing development in Stamford, Connecticut. Located at 84 Henry Street, Metro Green was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and it's already 90% leased. As the first phase of a TOD which will include a total of 238 mixed-income residential and 350,000 square feet of Class A office, Metro Green gets this development started on the right foot.
Prefab multifamily is the new black these days, which is why we’ve been watching startup ZETA Communities with interest. ZETA, which stands for Zero Energy Technology and Architecture, finished these live/work, net zero energy townhomes in Oakland and has a number of other projects in the works. The townhomes achieved LEED Platinum certification, a 240 green point rating, and an EPA Indoor airPLUS, the EPA’s highest indoor air rating. Each home is 1,540 square feet with two bedrooms and a single-car garage. And they’re packed with some of the following green elements and strategies:
Seeking to domino the success of the i-house, Clayton Homes just announced a partnership with general contractor Empire Construction to create a new e-living concept for green, multi-family dwellings. In a couple months, the e-living concept will be applied to the construction of six units at Raintree Apartments in West Knoxville. With construction estimated to be complete by December 2009, five of the units will be occupied by families, while the remaining unit will serve as a model home.
Architect Ray Kappe designed the first (and now iconic) LivingHome in Santa Monica, and now, he has a new multifamily design that LivingHomes will prefabricate for a site in Los Altos, California. The project includes three attached units, of which, two units will have three bedrooms and three bathrooms and one unit will have one bedroom and one bathroom. One of the units will be owner occupied, one will be low-income, and the other will be a standard rental. All of them will be green.
You're probably familiar with Brad Pitt's juggernaut project, Make It Right -- back in December 2007, we talked about thirteen single-family designs planned for construction in the Lower 9th Ward. A number of these have been built, and the progress has been interesting to watch. In addition, Make It Right just announced fourteen new duplex designs from top international architects. The designs emphasize community, affordability, flexibility, and sustainability, and starting in mid-August, Make It Right expects to break ground on two of these. Check out a preview of all fourteen and the firms behind the designs:
Earlier this month, Hardwick G.C. of Orlando received a Multifamily Remodeling Project of the Year award from the NAHB for converting an old single-family bungalow into a green duplex. The existing 1920s home was about 800 square feet, and the renovation added about 250 square feet and a garage. In addition, an attached home of about 2150 square feet (and its own garage) was added to the rear and second floor. Here are some of the green features of Amherst Place:
This is a guest contribution from Deborah Cameron, a designer / project manager who was on the design team for Cave Avenue Homes. Deborah also lives in this co-op community.
In Banff National Park in Western Alberta lies a 19-unit residential housing project called Cave Avenue Co-operative Homes. Cave Avenue was designed by one of the most prestigious architectural firms in North America, William McDonough + Partners. Completed in 2005, the project was built to LEED Silver certification. Cave Avenue has a light footprint with some of the following sustainable features:
It looks like Group 41 has been hard at work on a few designs for a multifamily project in Salt Lake County built entirely from containers. Below you'll see both proposals, the Curve Scheme and the Red Container Scheme, but the general idea is to create about 200 units of market-rate housing along the rail transportation corridor. Group 41's Container Nation developed the two proposals to take advantage of different approaches to the stacking and build out of the containers. In all, probably 1000 containers would be used -- but this is preliminary conceptual phase with preliminary local planning approvals expected in mid-2009 or so ...
A combination of various groups, including AIA Newark, Skanska, and Young Architects Forum, put together the Live The BOX competition to find innovative, visionary, and compelling proposals for container constructed, multifamily, mixed- use projects. The competition received tons of interesting container design entries, but only three won (with three more Honorable Mentions). Designs had to use standard shipping containers of 8'-6" height and either 20' or 40' length as main building blocks for the structure. Make sure to check out the winners below ... Also, I'll update this article as I find better images.
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