Why America's New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same
The part about parking requirements and the "Texas doughnut" gave me a chuckle.
I didn't get that they covered the lack of difference in design/aesthetics. Still a pretty good read.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same
Cheap stick framing has led to a proliferation of blocky, forgettable mid-rises—and more than a few construction fires.
In the U.S., stick framing appears to have become the default construction method for apartment complexes as well. The big reason is that it costs much less—I heard estimates from 20 percent to 40 percent less—than building with concrete, steel, or masonry. Those industries have sponsored several studies disputing the gap, but most builders clearly think it exists.
They can also run to the nearest big-box store to find workers. Stick construction allows builders to use cheaper casual labor rather than often-unionized skilled tradespeople. And it makes life easier for electricians, plumbers, and the like because it leaves open spaces through which wires, pipes, and ducts can run. Still, there’s a reason why stick wasn’t the default for big apartment buildings until recently, and why these buildings are limited in height: Sticks burn.
Yes, the result can be a little repetitive, but repetition has been characteristic of every big new urban or suburban housing trend in the U.S. over the past century or two. There’s lots to like about stumpy buildings that provide new housing in places where it’s sorely needed and enliven neighborhoods in the process. A four-story Texas doughnut can get 50 or 60 apartments onto an acre of land, while the most aggressively engineered West Coast stick-and-concrete hybrid (two-story podiums are allowed now, along with other variations) can get almost 200. That’s not far from the range that the renowned urbanist Jane Jacobs deemed optimal for vital street life.
There’s also lots to like about building with wood, which, as long as the trees are replanted and allowed to grow to maturity, is now generally accounted to be a net consumer of carbon dioxide. Wood’s green credentials have helped spur a recent worldwide push for more construction with “mass timber”—softwood lumber glued together and compressed into thick beams, columns, and panels. The tallest such structure completed so far is an 18-story dormitory at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. Oregon has already changed its code to allow mass timber buildings of that scale, and the 2021 IBC is set to do the same.
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