Headlines at a Glance - March 7, 2005
Building News Coast to Coast Home Builders Becoming Fans of Easy-to-Apply Plaster Made From Potter’s Clay American Clay — an earth clay plaster derived from potter’s clay — is increasingly being used by builders in Albuquerque, N.M., as an alternative to cement, acrylic, lime and gypsum plasters, according to Carol Baumgartel, the company’s vice president of marketing. Because it is a mechanical and not a chemical bond, the plaster doesn’t harden when it’s trowled on, allowing it to be reworked and retouched. Once applied, it takes six to eight hours to dry and is dust-free. The clay plaster — which won an NAHB award for outstanding green building product in 2004 — comes in 32 colors, can be mixed with straw or mica, resists molds and fading and has a suede-like finish. The cost is 90 cents a foot for the primer, color and plaster, and materials for a 12-foot square room cost $360. Business for the 10-person company has grown 400% since last year. www.abqjournal.com
Albuquerque Journal (2/26/05); Aurelio Sanchez
Set in Concrete Texas leads the country in residential insulated concrete form construction, with more than 5,000 homes being built with the innovative technology each year, according to Joe Lyman, executive director of the Insulating Concrete Forms Association in Chicago. He adds that the state’s ICF market is growing by about 25% annually. Poured concrete walls, according to manufacturers and industry associations, are twice as energy efficient as wood. They are also nine times stronger than wood, making them popular in tornado- and hurricane-prone locations such as Galveston and Padre Island. In 2003, the Texas state legislature passed a law requiring insurance discounts for owners of concrete houses because of their fire, wind, insect and mildew resistance. A Texas distributor says that the cost is less than 5% higher than wood. Concrete homes are not visibly different from wood-framed, except the window sills are 11-inches deep instead of the standard 8 inches. In 2003, more than 16% of all new houses were made with concrete walls, up from 2% a decade earlier, according to Dawn Faull, program manager for the Concrete Home Building Council of NAHB. She said that concrete is replacing wood at a rapid rate nationally, especially in coastal areas. www.dfw.com
Fort Worth/Dallas Star–Telegram (2/25/05); Teresa McUsic
Experts: Homes Better Today Home builders say that those who bemoan that they don’t build houses like they used to are misguided. “Thank God we don’t build them like they used to,” said Dominic Moceri, president of the Building Industry Association of Southeastern Michigan, who is thankful that formaldehyde flooring, asbestos insulation and lax environmental safety concerns are things of the past. “We’re building traditional design neighborhoods with a blend of housing types, the nostalgia of front porches and porch swings, and they back up and preserve open spaces where there was very little regard to natural feature protection (in the past).” In his list of the latest advances he has seen in the 54 years he has been in business, Dave Kellett Sr. of Kellett Construction in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., cites high-tech windows that cut down on air infiltration, air-powered tools, new glues, engineered studs for two-by-fours, computer-generated architectural drawings and exact site development, engineered-woods, fiberglass-reinforced concrete and laser-assisted excavation. www.detnews.com
Detroit News (3/3/05); Lynne Meredith Schreiber
Disney Concrete Hall to Lose Some Luster Just two years after the landmark $274-million Roy and Edna Disney California Arts Theatre opened in Los Angeles, construction crews are set to take a hand sander to some stainless steel panels and a marquee that have been baking condominiums across the street. Beams of sunlight reflected from the hall have raised the sidewalk temperature to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, high enough to melt plastic and cause sunburn to people standing on the street, according to a report from a consultant hired by the county. The building’s architect, Frank Gehry, has agreed to make the fixes. Most of the hall is clad in duller brushed steel, and the sanded portions of the surface will look more like brushed steel than polished steel. “Even great architects make mistakes with materials and designs,” says Pauline Saliga, director of the Society of Architectural Historians. “I think you just have to admit it and you have to be pragmatic about it and alter the design if necessary. Architecture is a functional art form, so it really does have to function.” www.latimes.com
Los Angeles Times (3/3/05); Jack Leonard and Natasha Lee
Complex Affordable-Housing Ordinance Freezes 90 Projects Since California’s Sacramento County adopted a law in December requiring 15% of new homes in most subdivisions to be affordable to lower-income buyers, proposals to build more than 20,000 homes in the country are frozen in the pipeline while developers and planners try to find a way to make them satisfy the complicated ordinance. Because of the law’s complexity, county planners, Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency planners and builders are struggling to write conformity plans for each project, and developers are worried that their projects might miss the current building season. “It was the county’s choice to adopt a policy they weren’t ready to implement,” said Dennis Rogers, director of government affairs for the Building Industry Association of Superior California. “It was a stupid choice.” After reading it several times, local land-use attorney John Hodgson said he finds the plan confusing. “I’m taking it on my vacation,” he said. “Maybe after a couple of mai tais I may be able to understand it better.” www.sacramento.bizjournals.com
Sacramento Business Journal (2/28/05)
Archstone-Smith, Oakwood Agree to $1B-Plus Deal Denver-based Archstone-Smith has signed a $1.4 billion deal to buy 30 multifamily rental communities with more than 10,000 units from Oakwood Worldwide. Los Angeles-based Oakwood is the largest global provider of corporate housing. Archstone-Smith said it expects to close on most of the portfolio late in this year’s second quarter. More than 40% of the portfolio is within walking distance of current Archstone-Smith communities, and 78% is concentrated in the company’s core markets, including 40% in Southern California; 20% in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area; and 18% in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Chicago and Seattle. www.globest.com
GlobeSt.com (3/1/05); John Rebchook
World’s Coolest Condo Lets Residents Take Their Units for a Spin
Moro Construction’s Suite Collard condominium project in Curitiba, Brazil, is the only building in the world where each floor can spin separately, in either direction and at variable speeds. The kitchen and bathroom of the building’s 11 homes — each on one floor — are located in a fixed central structure. The rest of the apartment is in a round capsule fixed on a concrete platform that spins. A full rotation takes about an hour and can be set in motion by a voice command. Prices start at $300,000 for the roughly 3,000-square-foot apartments. www.multihousingnews.com
Multi-Housing News (3/1/05)
An Exodus From Suburbia Census figures showing a 20% decline between 1990 and 2000 in the number of 18- to 34-year-olds living on Long Island, N.Y., has made the local population more amenable to proposals for affordable housing, although there remains a historic aversion to anything other than single-family homes. Other older suburbs, such as California’s Orange County and Silicon Valley, also are wrestling with a housing crunch that is pushing out younger workers. Long Island could receive some help from a bill by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) that would provide $250 million in federal grants and tax credits for revitalization projects aimed at the nation’s aging suburbs. Wages on Long Island, where about three-quarters of its residents work, have increased by 8% in the past 15 years, compared to 12% nationally. As of last July, the median price of a single-family home on the island was $393,000, more than twice the national average. www.chicagotribune.com
Chicago Tribune (2/24/05); Leon Lazaroff
Sunlight to Fuel Hydrogen Future
David Auty, CEO of Hydrogen Solar of Guilford, England, doesn’t assume that the United States will be able to shift from fossil fuels to the hydrogen economy by 2020, as touted by the Bush Administration, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and many scientists. However, working with Altair Nanotechnolgies, his company is building a hydrogen-generation system that captures sunlight and uses the energy to break water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. His company’s current project, a fuel station in Las Vegas, will soon be dispensing hydrogen fuel. He said that a hydrogen solar system on a home’s garage roof that is 10% efficient could provide enough hydrogen for a fuel-cell car to drive 11,000 miles per year. www.wired.com
Wired News (12/7/04); John Gartner
Builders See Smart Homes as Intelligent Decision for Home Owners
A recent survey of more than 1,000 home builders by Lowe’s found that nearly two in three say they already construct homes with an eye on “smart home” technology. David Steed, the company’s senior vice president for merchandising, said that, “Builders are keenly aware of how their business is changing and being driven by technology considerations.” About 51% of the builders polled said that their customers are asking for the technology now. Only 14% said that the smart house concept is five or more years away from widespread consumer acceptance. Steed said that while beefed-up wiring in a home seems simple, having it centralized with easy access for upgrades and adaptations is the linchpin that will allow a home to change along with technology. Scott Goodelle, of Pass and Seymour, a supplier of high function junction boxes, says that the cost of cable is about a nickel per foot, adding incrementally to construction costs. One quarter of the builders polled said that the perception among home owners that the added cost may not be worth it may be a significant barrier to smart home technology. www.insidevc.com
Ventura County Star (2/6/05); David Bradley | 
