2012
"San Francisco can become a world capital. First it needs to get over itself"
When San Francisco’s planners recently considered a proposal to build tiny apartments in the city, opponents of the plan began calling the spaces “Twitter apartments.” The name was a reference to their micro size — these apartments will be as small as 220 square feet, about the size of a parking space — but it was also a knock on their presumed techie tenants. The micro apartments will rent for $1,300 to $1,500 a month — crazy in most places, but a steal in San Francisco, where regular person-sized studio apartments now go for an average of more than $2,000 a month. The high price means that they’ll mainly be snapped up by young tech workers.
...More"Sneak peek of Panoramic Interests’ micro apartments in San Francisco"
Panoramic Interests is weeks away from finishing up Smartspace SoMa, the firm’s first, 23-unit, micro-apartment building at 38 Harriet St. in San Francisco’s South of Market district.
...More"Home, squeezed home: Living in a 200-square-foot space"
Step into an alleyway in the Northeast Washington neighborhood known as Stronghold, and you will see a vegetable patch, a campfire, a view of the Capitol and a cluster of what neighbors call “those tiny people, building their tiny houses.”
...More"House Tour: How Carrie And Shane Caverly’s 200-Square-Foot Home Helped Them Bond"
After being married for about a year, Carrie and Shane Caverly gave themselves the ultimate couple’s test. With her background in sustainable design and his in building green homes, the couple worked together to plan and build their own 200-square-foot tiny home on a flatbed trailer. And although it was challenging at times, the collaborative process was truly a bonding experience.
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"Micro-Apartments So Nice You’ll Wish Your Place Was This Small"
This week the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco will consider amending the city’s building code to let micro-apartments become even more micro. At present, dwelling units must be a minimum of 220 square feet of living space plus bathroom, kitchen, and closet — roughly 290 square feet in all. The amendment [PDF] would reduce that minimum to 150 square feet of livable space, for a total area of 220. If you could trade stock in real estate terms, now would be the time to buy cozy.
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"In San Francisco, Life Without ‘Starchitects’"
WHETHER it’s Frank Gehry at New York by Gehry, Christian de Portzamparc at One57 or Robert A. M. Stern at 15 Central Park West, showcasing a “starchitect” is part of the arms race that is luxury condo development in Manhattan these days.
...More"La Eace: San Francisco Housing Rents Climbing Faster Than Most Know"
As of late, it seems the only things hotter than our home sales market is our rental market—and of course our San Francisco Giants! Who would have thought a year ago that the Giants would be facing the Detroit Tigers in the World Series? Or that rents would be up by as much as 15 percent year-over-year in San Francisco.
But are they?
...More"Density makes cities more affordable"
In the middle of this piece on the tranSFer of development rights (a useful approach, in which a developer pays farmers not to develop their farms into subdivisions, and is given a height bonus in return by local government, allowing him or her to build a taller building), there sits this strange quote:
...More“Of course, TDR is not without its critics. Many green-minded people will celebrate density until it arrives in the form of a high-rise condo next door. But this hesitation is about more than just NIMBYism: Anna Nissen, a design professional in Seattle who takes a critical eye to TDR, points out that upscale development — like Olive 8, for example — drives up property values and hastens gentrification. ‘The poor, the working class, and their employment have been bounced out of central cities that unaccountably are making matters worse by designating dizzying amounts of increased density,’ she writes in an email. ‘TDR rides aimlessly on top of all that.’”
"Miniature Digs"
Roll out of bed and you are already in the kitchen.
Here’s a rental notice that might surprise even the most jaded of San Francisco apartment hunters: “Studio, 300 sq. ft., $1,500 a month.” Yes, that’s $18,000 a year for a home the size of two parking spaces. But such pint-sized digs are scheduled to hit the market in SoMa this month, thanks to Patrick Kennedy, developer of SMARTSPACE. (Kennedy won’t confirm any prices, but sources have reported anywhere from $1,300 to $1,600.)
...More"My City is My Living Room"
The real estate blog Curbed recently published a post entitled “Ten Hilarious Quotes About Living in ‘Micro-Dwellings‘”. The post is a collection of quotes from various publications that cites the way micro-dweller’s rationalize their small digs. There were quotes like “We don’t do closets” or “On Saturdays, if we both get work calls, one of us has to take theirs into the bathroom.”
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