Harvard’s new book on the state of housing underscores architecture’s limits

Harvard’s new book on the state of housing underscores architecture’s limits

Posted on March 15, 2024

It features 113 projects—discussed across 25 essays and interstitials—that speak to these themes. Some of them include building density, water and energy efficiency, rehabilitating old buildings into something more useful, creative financing, and experimenting with new materials. These attributes show up in developments spanning a $350-a-month apartment in a San Francisco Bay Area exurb (that would be Stonegate Village, by Self-Help Enterprises) to a $3.75 million condo in Brooklyn (SO – IL’s multi-family project 450 Warren) and everything between. While the JCHS has published an annual report about the real estate market for 35 years, this is the first time it has examined the physical form of housing that responds to the problems outlined in those reports.