The housing crisis is a tough nut to crack. Obstacles of politics, economics, and design all stand in the way of the amount of quality housing for all levels of income that U.S. cities need. Can architects come to the rescue?
John King writes in search of a solution to one of the defining dilemmas of the present day. "The need for housing is so profound—across all spectrums of society—but government hasn’t caught up and financial resources are scarce."
King, however, seems hopeful, because "potential remedies do exist." And many of those remedies will lend creative form to the old multi-family model.
"Nobody knows this better than architects—the ones with a social conscience, at any rate—who are exploring forms of living arrangements that might expand the options and pull down the costs," explains King. To exemplify the types of creative housing opportunities currently being explored by architects around the world, King lists micro-units, newly constructed 'group housing,' cohousing, modular or prefab housing, and tiny houses.
With several examples of projects underway or complete around the world, and examples of architects working hard on this problem, King puts out a call to action:
But good architects can produce good models, attractive and tactile structures showing us that the future needn’t be as frustrating as the recent past. With luck, those models will be noticed—and emulated— more and more in the years to come.
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