Construction Maison

By Katherine Shaver The Washington Post From the rooftop terrace of their new townhouse, Keisuke and Idalia Yabe take in their suburban Maryland neighborhood : a staid, 1970s- era office park of glass office buildings and concrete parking garages . The Yabes say they have found the advantages of urban living in a shorter commute and the ability to walk to shopping centers and a park. They also have what feels like the best of suburbia -- mature trees, plentiful parking , Bethesda's sought-after schools and a more affordable mortgage. From the Washington and New York suburbs to North Carolina's Research Triangle Park , traditional corporate campuses that have struggled since the Great Recession are trying to transform from sterile worksites into vibrant mini-towns. In addition to housing, they're adding restaurants, grocery stores, playgrounds and outdoor concert spaces -- anything to draw people in and make them want to stay. Although it might sound strange at first, th...

Lee Valley VeloPark Standing on the tenth floor of TfL's soon-to-be offices in the heart of the Olympic Park, there's a panoramic view of Stratford and the rest of London beyond. The landscape is littered with cranes and unfinished tower blocks like the one we're standing in. Among them there's a sprinkling of former Olympic venues that provided the catalyst for this re-imagined Stratford to occur. Or did they? A huge slice of the changes in the Olympic Park comes from International Quarter London . IQL is run by property development company Lendlease , and totals up to 4 million sq ft of offices. Lendlease also built the luxury apartment complex Glasshouse Gardens in the Olympic Park and, originally built the Athletes' Village for the games. The team here knows intimately the rapid changes the area has undergone. Kevin Chapman, head of offices at IQL, tells us, "what we've had to do is bring the commercial office element into the Olympic Park as part...

It was the type of celebration that’s become commonplace in the Seaport District . Investors, developers, and other real estate types mingled earlier this summer at a groundbreaking ceremony for Echelon Seaport — $900 million worth of luxury condos and apartments set to rise from a parking lot on Seaport Boulevard. Advertisement Under a big white tent , guests sipped cocktails and listened as Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh touted the glassy, gleaming business district sprouting around them.Away from the festivities, Alex Shing of Los Angeles- based Cottonwood Management — the project’s developer — spoke about the strong interest from investors all over the globe who wanted to buy into Boston’s booming Seaport. Get Talking Points in your inbox: An afternoon recap of the day’s most important business news , delivered weekdays. “This is probably the most valuable piece of dirt in the world,” Shing said. Yet to help finance the project, Cottonwood and its...

The Late Victorian period in the United States—roughly the last third of the 19th century—produced some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the history of Western civilization . It also produced some of the most hopeless slums. In response to the crisis of industrial cities, the modern discipline of city planning emerged . The tools of this new profession helped clean up many unhealthy aspects of urban industry , but also stifled some of the best innovations of Late Victorian urbanism . By the 1920s, planners in the industrial world had established the legal authority to promulgate land-use regulations, and over the next generation, they succeeded at slowing the construction of slum housing and segregating noxious industries from incompatible activities, such as housing and office space. Through some of the same devices, however, planners curtailed some positive features of 19th- century urbanism , including the rich variety of free- form industrial development and the adaptiv...

August 22, 2017 Apartment complex in California made of recycled cargo containers Potter's Lane cost $6.7 million and took six months to build, with 15 units just for homeless vets. By AMANDA LEE MYERS Associated Press The apartment complex made out of recycled shipping containers just for homeless veterans is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. MIDWAY CITY, Calif. — Vernon Poling was 44 years old when he finally got a home of his own. The Iraq War veteran was medically discharged from the Army in 2014, had to quit his trucking job for medical reasons, and found himself living out of his pickup last year in Orange County, a sprawling area of Southern California known for beaches, Disneyland and high housing costs . Poling was homeless for seven months before he found temporary housing in the area. He then learned about Potter's Lane, an apartment complex made from recycled shipping containers , just for homeless veterans. It's beli...