A rendering for 56 Leonard, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and currently under construction in New York's Tribeca neighborhood. (Hines).

When the story of the Teens is set down in stone, the section on how people lived will include plenty of shudder-worthy chapter headings: crop-tops, selfie sticks, sharing plates small and large. But the portion on housing in the 2010s will have just two factors: stacked and elevated.

The “Jengaform” look of recovery-era multifamily architecture is everywhere. New York is chock-a-block with blocky-looking buildings. New designs for San Francisco, Washington, D.C., even Skid Row in Los Angeles have all followed suit. Late Obama-era architecture puts the part before the whole. A modest new project for the District of Columbia is a stellar example. It’s designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, and it’s planned as a replacement for a small gas station in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. Given the tiny footprint, the city’s strict height regulations, and the neighborhood’s historic NIMBYism, it was never destined to be an extravagant tower. But Souto de Moura delivered on the design.......Continue Reading

> via citylab.com