Buying an attainably-priced green home is a no brainer for most creatives given the option, however finding one is comparable to a needle in a haystack. So, in the District of Columbia the GreenHomes DC program is launching an opportunity for prospective home buyers (and renters) to crowdsource their own affordable green place to live.

In partnership with a sponsoring developer per specific project, GreenHomes DC is a joint venture between Green DC Realty and CoolTown Beta Communities.  Approximately $1000 will be contributed to environmental organizations that refer eventual green home buyers, including Green Drinks DC and Live Green.

The launch event took place on July 8, 2008 (last night) at Lofts 11, a 27-unit green residential building completed by Taurus Enterprise Group. It’s pioneering president, Gail Montplaisir, spoke to a crowd of a hundred on how she’d been supporting green development for decades without any industry support back, and was heartened by the green tipping point sweeping the country. She was enthused that there were so many people interested in green building, and was open to crowdsourcing their next green development.

Inter-national Small Cool Apartments 2008

Not to be outdone by the smallest coolest apartments in the U.S. brought to you by Apartment Therapy, here are the international winners:

First place (topmost image) - Nicolas' Mini Loft, Lille, France, 630 s.f. "I keep things that are useful or important to me, and get rid of the rest : no extra room to accumulate! You feel lighter when you don't own too much stuff!..."

Second place - Aad's Compact Dwelling (Suitable for Laziness), Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 624 s.f. "This particular apartment I truly love because there's large windows and light coming from three directions into the room, all windows surrounded by large trees giving you the ultimate tree house feel..."

Third place - Marcus and Mel's Charming Flat, Helsingborg, Sweden, 715 s.f. "The flat is converted attic space so all the windows are inside these cozy little alcoves. They add lots of charm and architectural interest, not to mention we get lots of sunlight..."

Small Cool Apartments 2008

It's that time of year again to check out the winners of Apartment Therapy's Small Cool 2008 contest to discover the smallest (under 850 s.f.), coolest apartments in the U.S.

First place (topmost image) - Tony and Hilary's 3 in 1 Studio, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY, 460 s.f. "Living here as a couple with a cat, we have enough space to store everything we need without sacrificing comfort."

Second place - Jordan's Ordo Ab Chao, Los Angeles, CA, 412 s.f. apartment rental. Note the office nook in the kitchen.

Third place - Luca's Surplus of Storage & Light, Chelsea, NYC, 400 s.f. "I love my home because it's comfortable, full of storage area and light. Also, there are no traditional walls: the built-ins (left of image) separate the living area from the sleeping area."

Fourth place - Stephanie's Life of Pie, Chicago, 441 s.f. "Without being precious, everything here is special to me. But the best part? The heart of downtown (my "rec room") is just a 29 story elevator ride away!"

You can also take a look at the winners from Small Cool 2007 and 2006.

The continued rise of the home office

We hear a lot of buzz about the popularity of people working at home, but how prevalent is it? Here's a snapshot via answering a few questions:

How many U.S. Americans are working at home? 28 million at least part time in 2006.
Is that number growing? That's a 10% increase from the previous year and a 40% increase from 2002.
Do U.S. Americans have home offices? 7 out of 10 have offices or designated work stations, a 112% increases since 2000.
How important are home offices in new homes? Fourth, after security.

For sources to these findings, check out the NY Times article, The Office, Housebroken. Apartment dwellers should peruse the profile of Alessandra Gouldner's 2.5 x 4 foot workspace.

Sarah Susanka, author of the wildly popular Not So Big House series of interior design books, observes that many people often prefer working in nooks and spontaneous spaces (see all three photos) rather than in assigned rooms. The NY Times article also looks at the opposite spectrum, albeit those with a a much larger budget and need for status, thus fueling home office sections in retail stores.

'Workforce housing' and why local businesses want it

Imagine if half of all your employees suddenly couldn't afford to live conveniently near your workplace? Many of them would leave rather than spend two hours of their daily lives in traffic or transit. Of course you'd replace them, but you wouldn't be attracting the same level of talent, then naturally, your customers would gradually realize the same.

Thus local businesses today are advocating for more 'workforce housing' - housing that is attainable to working families earning between 60%-120% of the median income for the area, and typically unsubsidized, as defined by real estate industry representative Urban Land Institute.

The following survey results of local businesses (this one in New Orleans) reflects a growing national concern, a result of a peaking perception that more square footage is better.

- 71% said the lack of workforce housing negatively impacted their business;
- 65% considered the need serious;
- 42% felt developer incentives would increase the supply;
- 33% proposed public-private partnerships as the answer.

Myriad solutions are provided for such a pervasive issue, but the most logical lies with the fact that the average area of living space per occupant in the U.S. was 290 s.f. in 1950 and is 939 s.f. today. So maybe the answer isn't how do we build affordable 1200 s.f. homes, but how do we make 'not so big' cool again.

Image source: The equivalent of workforce housing in Munchen, Germany, by rondelro

The ultimate small apartment design guide

If you live in an apartment and you care about good design, it'd be a shame if you've never been to Apartment Therapy's 3-million-unique-visitors-a-month site, featuring great apartment design examples via several illustrated blog entries a day.

Being a regular at the site, one can fathom the criticism following the site's founder and HGTV design expert Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan for not having pictures in his first Apartment Therapy book. He didn't make the same mistake in his second book published March 5, 2008, Apartment Therapy Presents: Real Homes, Real People, Hundreds of Real Design Solutions, richly infused with 400 photos over 40 case studies.

Each of the home profiles provides floor plans and "how I did it" explanations from the renters/owners themselves, along with beautifully shot photos.

Check out previous Apartment Therapy entries here, especially their stunning Fall Colors and inspiring Smallest Coolest Apartments contests.

Micro-housing affordable to buyers, profitable to developers

There is not a desirable city that exists that doesn't have a lack of attainably-priced housing, and it's been covered pretty extensively. Smaller homes have been one of the most logical answers, and developers are starting to agree to the point investors have termed the smallest end of these offerings...

Microhousing is defined as very small one-two bedroom units, 300 to 500 square feet, with an emphasis on shared amenities like fitness facilities, party rooms with kitchens, libraries, laundry rooms, and car-sharing. While they are more expensive to build per square foot, they also sell at a higher dollar value per square foot, with the key benefit to first-time home buyers being a much lower price point to own rather than rent.

Pictured is downtown San Francisco's Book Concern Building, a five-story microhousing redevelopment of a 1906 historic landmark, with its 60 units starting at 275 square feet. When dealing with building codes that limit numbers of stories and not height, mezzanines often do not count as a story.

Apartment Therapy's Fall Colors 2007 winner

If you're looking for color inspiration when it comes to home interior design, it'll be tough to find a better source than the annual Apartment Therapy Fall Colors 2007 contest. Apartment Therapy itself is one of the best daily resources for apartment design.

This year's winner hails from a couple in Chinatown, Los Angeles. See a full range of rather stellar photos here. From the home owners, "We have never seen white as the starting point to develop a color scheme...in our apartment, which is in Chinatown, blood red is the starting point and the palette moves on from there. The apartment is all about fun. Every decision we made about color was made with the goal of creating a joyful, playful place to be for kids and grown-ups alike."

If you don't think color has much of an impact, read some of the feedback...

"God, I love this space so much I want to marry it!"
"Holy Crap! What a great space."
"Wow! This is the most beautiful red room I have ever seen!"
"This is by FAR my favorite space. The color is amazing..."

Check out the runners-up here, and the profile of the 2006 winners "here.

Color is probably one of the most underestimated yet cost effective means of creating attractive places - you can learn more on how to get color assistance here.

Pictur- esque infill

Every once in a while it's important to show a bit of beauty in an urban infill development, even though it might not be attainably priced. The ultimate goal of course, is to combine beauty with attainability.

One of the development partners, the I'on Group, specializes in building beautiful homes. The other development partner, Civic Square, builds beautiful public spaces into their projects, "that contribute to the ideal of a more successful public realm, whether in the form of a beautiful new park, a more sustainable community organization, or a well-built new sidewalk."

So what happens when the two are combined? The result is Morris Square in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. You can immediately absorb the craftsmanship in the homes and landscaped park, while the hardscape plaza with a fountain is yet to come, but will be the most striking feature in the project.

70 homes on the 2.7 acre site will range in size from 900 s.f. to over 2300 s.f., including a diversity of housing types: single-family detached, townhomes, and condos. There are 8 affordable homes, and profit from the project will contribute to the creation of 15-18 affordable homes on the Charleston Peninsula.

Self expression at its residential best

In the industrial age people had a choice of either a mass-produced suburban home or a mass-produced apartment. In the knowledge age where individual expression as a community is the norm, these lucky residents in Amsterdam were able to fulfill that notion.

...and lucky is right, for people had to win a lottery for the right to buy one of 60 'free parcels', as in 'free to design their own building'. As you can see in the image above, it shows, and compared to the rest of the 2500-unit Borneo Sporenburg housing development on the docks, it's by far the most humane, creative and attractive section in the neighborhood.

At least 30-50% of each dwelling is open space, such as a patio or courtyard at high or low level. Parking is only on the property, none on the street, providing a much more appealing walk or bike ride to and from the city center 15 minutes (by bike) away.

Thank you to Matthew Hardy at INTBAU for the reference.