A Better Way to Build

From pre-fab to microunits to using public land for middle-income housing, there are many ideas for how to provide less expensive housing in a hot market. Part two in a series on the cost of housing, this forum looks at how we can bring less expensive housing to San Francisco. 

Join ZETA Design+Build's Taeko Takagi at the SPUR Urban Center on February 11th at 12:30 PM

Today, affordable housing seeks to do more than simply create decent spaces for living. 

Instead, new affordable housing models incorporate sustainable features that reduce the cost of construction maintenance, technologies that help empower residents and connect them to outside resources, and greater reverence for human scale and connection to the street—beneficial features that we can only hope to see more of in the future.

Some stumbling blocks associated with building information modeling may be removed by a new framework called Levels of Development (LOD), which specifies how detailed the models are.

Buildings that consume no outside energy are being developed today using existing technology. This is the first of a two part series.

AP 1211 micro apartment in São Paulo by Alan Chu with storage space created by wooden crates and a black metal spiral staircase.

VideoAt the height of the economic downturn more than 700 construction projects were idled across New York City’s five boroughs, according to the city’s Department of Buildings.

North American construction companies are reporting higher project ROI, less injuries and faster production after implementing safety programs such as building information modeling (BIM), according to a new survey by McGraw Hill Construction.

The single biggest cost sink in most building construction projects stems from information asymmetry.  This occurs when various stakeholders – i.e. developers, architects, engineers, and general contractors – assess a project’s viability and cost from their unique perspectives and often at different phases of a building’s life cycle.

WASHINGTON, DC - In a pioneering new approach to acquiring safe, decent and affordable housing, the newly formed Housing Partnership Equity Trust...

The single-family home isn’t obsolete, yet. But the aging of the baby boomers could reshape the U.S. housing market and economy in the coming years.

For developers in San Francisco, “it’s the best of times, and it’s the worst of times,” says Panoramic Interests CEO Patrick Kennedy.

Green, net zero building principles encompass the entire life cycle of a building—from the design and construction phases to the operation and maintenance of the building.

Buildings that consume no outside energy are being developed today using existing technology. This is the last of a two part series. Read part one here.

This micro-apartment in San Francisco's SOMA neighborhood makes use of every square inch of space and rents for $1,600 a month.

...It combines the two aspects of what we do:  Design – represented by the pencil led; and Build – represented by the universally recognized shape of a roof.

Since early 2011, the Army's Fort Detrick, Md., has been on a mission to use only as much energy as it produces by fiscal 2020.

Since its introduction in 2011, the connected thermostat Nest has emerged as a shining example of a smart device that’s actually smart.