Trendwise, architecture is notoriously slow, given the cumulative pace of design and construction. Many trends arise from events in the recent past and changes that evolve over the years. To make some predictions concerning what trends will form structure in 2013 is a tricky affair, mixing some glances to the past and a few prognostication. This ideabook assembles a few strands that I see occurring in 2013, appropriately based on what really happened in 2012.
Habitat Post & Beam, Inc..
Living with nature. If one occasion in 2012 had long-term implications for the future of structure that it had been Hurricane Sandy, which struck the East Coast of the U.S. in late October. Replies to climate change are finally entering the political picture, after being batted about by architects, landscape architects, urban planners and others for years. While the effect of rising seawater points to large fixes (levees, locks and so on) and questions where we construct, not all replies need to be large. This Florida island house points to a single strategy: Improving a building’s living spaces over high waters.
Chad Chenier Photography/Make It Right
Rebuilding with new and old techniques. In 2013 parts of New York City and New Jersey will be reconstructed. A previous hurricane, Katrina, demanded even more rebuilding, much of it in bad regions of New Orleans. 1 high-profile response was spearheaded by Brad Pitt with architects such as Frank Gehry, whose design for Pitt’s Make It Right foundation is pictured here. The house is fairly dim for Gehry, but its combination of being raised up on stilts (not apparently high enough, given the 8 ft of water which inundated the Lower Ninth Ward, where it is located) and having solar panels to get off-the-grid power in emergencies is a good model: component historical precedent and component modern technologies.
American Institute of Architects, San Francisco
City living. A current Home Design Trends Survey by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) suggests a growing appetite for living in towns. Higher-density dwelling is one reason for it, as is access to public transport, multigenerational housing and other aspects. This tendency will not completely replace the desire for suburban living, but it will require more apartment buildings such as this one in San Francisco, made by David Baker + Partners. It is important to incorporate shared open spaces in multifamily housing.
John Hill
Low-maintenance exterior stuff. Another trend in the AIA survey is the use of exterior cladding materials which do not need lots of upkeep. Fiber cement siding is one popular material in this regard, and its color possibilities are exploited in this large project in Brooklyn, New York, made by Alexander Gorlin. The project also incorporates prefab construction (fabricated in the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard) to bring costs down, ensure increased quality in construction and allow work to proceed during inclement weather.
Eric Higbee | Landscape Architect
Community gardens. One more piece of the AIA survey is the desire for community gardens. Employing open space for flowers, vegetables and other plantings not only allows vacant lots or rooftops to be used beneficially, but it allows neighbors meet one another, fostering connections in everything are generally seen as anonymous locales.
See more about the garage-top garden shown
Rasmussen / Su Architects
Conversions. The development of towns has come after decades of the decline of manufacturing, meaning plenty of strong buildings made for industrial applications are now readily available for conversion to residential and other applications. Although this fact doesn’t gel with the triumvirate of location, location, location, industrial pockets is many cities have become thriving residential areas, thanks in part to the upkeep of old buildings.
Tom Hurt Architecture
Contemporary cores in old buildings. The reuse of old buildings increases the question of exactly what occurs inside. 1 tactic is to keep the historical character of an exterior whilst opening up the interior to fulfill the desire for modern spaces and conveniences. It is amazing to think that this old house in Austin, Texas …
Tom Hurt Architecture
… is a shell with this spacious and modern interior.
Microliving. In 2012 Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a call for designing microunits in New York. These roughly 300-square-foot flats would tackle the expanding population of singles and young professionals living in town, a characteristic shared with other towns. (San Francisco held a vote in November 2012 for components as little as 220 square feet) It’s easy to dismiss living in tiny flats from the vantage point of a 2,000-square-foot house (suburban or urban), but if microliving is seen as a design issue, then ideally innovative alternatives will allow it to be a good solution for people. (My quick sketch to get a 220-square-foot unit is pictured here.)
Microunits Are Coming to NYC. See the Winning Style
City_Leaks
Urban interventions. The United States pavilion at the 2012 Venice Biennale was focused on urban rhythms, small designs dreamed up and often realized by designers and architects in reaction to a community demand. Interventions such as PlayMo in Australia (revealed) also bring life to dead and dangerous pieces of a town. For PlayMo, milk crates were creatively used to make a temporary social space.
Elevation Architects
Get rid of the yard. Artist Fritz Haeg recognized his first “edible estate” in 2005, but reversing the tendency of resource-gobbling yards is a slow procedure. Haeg will create a couple more setups in 2013 (numbers 13 and 14), but his influence can be found in yards like this one in California. While the plantings may not be literally edible, this design could be applauded for the use of porous paving, which can help decrease the runoff of rainwater into sewers.
Elliott + Elliott Architecture
Break up the house. Another trend which needs some reconsideration is the bloated size of single-family houses. In lieu of an immediate shrinking of houses, one way of designing a large house is to split it into smaller parts, like this job in Maine (abandoned: bedrooms; center: living room, dining room and kitchen; appropriate: master bedroom). Breaking a house into smaller components can help preserve important website elements, namely trees, and place inhabitants back in touch with nature’s cycles by forcing them to move outdoors when moving from one part of the house to another.
Rockefeller Partners Architects
Suburban infill. When you understand that a home office or any such space is needed in your house, but there just is not room, think about including a little building to your website instead of buying new house. This “tree house” in Los Angeles serves as an office and studio on a difficult website, but the creative design 12 ft above the ground makes it a getaway as well, something which could hardly be accomplished within a large house.