Was asked to put together a slides for talk on high FAR and why it makes point access blocks infeasible.

Left: 6 stories, 45' deep floor plate. 16 BRs in 8 units. FAR = 1.86

Right: 6 stories, 85' deep floor plate. 21 BRs in 19 units. FAR = 3.5 (matching max - nearly double PAB) The floor area for 5 extra bedrooms ends up being 5,880 s.f. - or 1,176 s.f. for each additional bedroom over the Point Access Block's 16 bedrooms.

5,880 s.f. * 6 floors * $400/sf construction cost = $14.1M

Point Access Blocks nearly halve construction costs for 76% of bedrooms

One of our favorite books is Christian Schittich's 'Einfach Bauen' (German, translated to 'Building Simply')

But this isn't just a book full of stunning projects we enjoy.

This very idea - building simply - is a foundational ethos here at Larch Lab. 6 years ago, Larch Lab's founder wrote about why simple boxes deserve praise:

They are, the 'least expensive, the least carbon intensive, the most resilient, and have some of the lowest operational costs compared to a more varied and intensive massing'

theurbanist.org/2018/08/22/in-…

2 months ago, an article in the @nytimes tried to get at why apartment buildings in the U.S. are so large, and so incredible bland.

Posited modulation, design review, cheap materials.

It's none of those.

It's our building code.

Us, in @archpaper:

archpaper.com/2023/03/why-do… @nytimes @archpaper Building codes in the U.S. require (at least) 2 stairs & corridor connecting all units to them, with >4 units per floor, and/or higher than 3 floors.

In order to maximize the built floor area, and because we fail to regulate building depth, you end up with a hotel-like building

When I was working in Germany, there were seemingly continuous events about housing, living in the future, and quality of life.

These weren't 'how can tech save us' kinds of events - but rather, how can the public decide how they would like to live in the future. It's no secret that the housing options in the US today are extremely limited (in Seattle, those options are largely expensive townhouses and detached houses, or small apartments in massive buildings with little open space and typically crammed on loud, polluted streets)

Going to try something here...

Which one of these buildings has the highest FAR?

From left to right, let's call them A, B, C, D, E, F, and G...

Any thoughts? Alright. I can't count, apparently. There was no G!

So the answer is... It depends!

A-E are all FAR of 2.0 on 50'x100' lot.

A: 3 floors @ 3,333 sf. 66% lot coverage, LR2 setbacks @ 7' ea. avg
B: 4 @ 2,500 sf. 50% coverage, LR2 setbacks. rear yard is 23'-6"x50'

Should our building designs change in response to changing climate?

The answer should be an overwhelming yes.

And yet, AEC industry as whole has seen almost no change from business as usual development in the US.

You would think that we aren't in the midst of a climate crisis. There is effectively no active solar protection industry in the U.S.

Power outages will likely increase in the future - especially during heat waves. How will residents or workers keep cool when they can't even keep the sun out of their buildings?

Had interesting discussion today on @the_iPHA's ouPHit program, @EnergiesprongEU - and the lack of movement on this in the US (though that's slowly changing). There has been a ton of research in the EU on this, and some really amazing firms have (ahem) sprung up to support DERs The idea of a systematized facade module for DERs has been around for a while.

Energiesprong's work here has been incredible, and is a decade old idea:

Alrighty... Let's do this.

One ♥️ = one #EarthDay2022 climate action 1. Ginormous electric SUVs and trucks are to sustainable mobility, what 'natural gas' is a bridge to clean energy.

Buy a leaf.

vice.com/en/article/3ab…

Unsure how best to crit @_brianpotter's (good) threaded crit of my (hopefully excellent ;) ) thread - but I'll take a shot here. Not trying to talk past you, just really interested in keeping this dialogue going.

So a few comments to rebut...

https://twitter.com/_brianpotter/status/1517173900613980166

Given the photos shown, we're sort of talking about 2 different things - more suburban style or outer city development, v the dense urban infill and re-compaction that we're trying to highlight.

We had a *really* interesting discussion with a prefab company today about barriers to entry in the US, and why there seems to be more broad success of prefab (non-modular) projects in the EU.

It eventually came around to (you guessed it!) building codes. The problem in the US is complicated by a number of issues - but lack of regularity between jurisdictions can be a big one.

Take, for example, Seattle. Let's say you designed a panelized system that could be utilized on small to medium sized lots utilizing point access blocks.

Quick overview of the IPCC WGIII chapter (nr. 9) on buildings.

Expect Passivhaus to play a central role...

report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg3/pdf/IPC… 'Bottom-up studies show a mitigation potential up to 85% in Europe and North America and up to 45% in Asia Pacific Developed compared to the baselines by 2050, even though they sometimes decline'

retrofits!

Alright... Megathread unpacking our report on Point Access Blocks (single stair buildings) for the city of Vancouver.

'Unlocking livable, resilient, decarbonized housing with Point Access Blocks'

larchlab.com/2022/01/06/cit… The report starts off talking about 3 of the main means of vertical access in buildings - the point access block (single stair w/ units arranged off core). single loaded corridor (stairs lead to an exterior passageway or external side corridor units are access from)

Station area planning in the US is fundamentally broken. If we continue down this path on remaining Sound Transit stations, we'll see housing unaffordability skyrocket, as we completely whiff on meeting our climate goals. I think it's imperative we look at, and learn, how other cities are planning for growth, and looking at it as an opportunity to improve neighborhoods and livability.

To do this, I'm going to compare Seattle's Northgate (left), with Vienna's Sonnwendviertel (right)

This year has been an interesting one for us...

First full year back in the U.S., after moving to work in Germany for what we thought would be forever.

Started out working on a 50k sf mass timber school (glu-lam + CLT) here in Seattle... I wrote a piece in February for the @UrbanistOrg about how well-off households in Seattle are using historic districts as a means of preserving exclusion

theurbanist.org/2021/02/08/are…