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Size Matters

For MyMicro NY our latest modular project, size really does matter.  See what the experts have to say in this article.

Does size matter?

Architects are trying to convince New Yorkers that tiny apartments are the next big thing

April 28, 2015 01:35PM
By Konrad Putzier

Micro

Ask any New Yorker about their biggest grievances, and living in a shoebox will likely be near the top of the list. Young Manhattanites tend to talk about their space-starved living situations much like one’s grandparents talk about the war – all despair and deprivation.

But here’s a thought: what if smaller apartments actually make for better living?

At a panel hosted by the American Institute of Architects’ New York chapter Monday night, three young architects tried to make the case that micro-apartments are not just a possible solution to New York’s affordability crisis, but also fun to live in.

“For people coming fresh to the city, the first thing has always been to find a roommate and move to Bushwick,” said Michael Kim, an architect at ARExA. “But here you’re looking at market-rate units that are located in the city and offer very comfortable living and basic common spaces.”

The trick, according to the panelists, is to design micro-apartments in a way that makes them “as humane as possible.” Eric Bunge’s firm nARCHITECTS designed Monadnock Development’s 55-unit micro-apartment building My Micro NY, which is under construction at 335 East 27th Street in Kips Bay. The units average 286 square feet, but come with 10-foot ceilings and large windows in an attempt to make them feel less stuffy. “These units can actually feel very spacious,” Bunge said.

A 240-square-foot micro-apartment (Credit: Tim Seggerman)

Perhaps more important to the livability of micro units is common space, according to the panelists. Michael Kim took Brooklyn’s brownstone stoops as an inspiration for the corridors in a micro-unit building he is designing. They will offer space to sit and hang out with neighbors. And while some may consider common kitchens a nuisance, Kim believes they are actually a fun place to meet people.

The panelists insisted this kind of shared living holds appeal in the age of Zipcar and Citibike. “The micro-unit definitely lends itself to a specific population where sharing is actually a social and communal benefit,” said Miriam Peterson, a partner at Peterson Rich Office.

Still, they acknowledged that more communal space could also create its own problems. One is safety. “Something we’ve encountered time and again with our NYCHA work is how potentially dangerous shared space is,” said Peterson. “Who has ownership over them and what are the views within a population to actually share things?”

A member of the audience took the point further, asking if shared living might imperil diversity within buildings, as people tend to prefer sharing spaces with people that are like them. No one seemed to have an answer, although ARExA’s Kim suggested that “maybe ultimately there needs to be someone who oversees the schedule” for common spaces.

In the end, the panel left listeners with a sense that micro living may be the future, but that a cultural shift is needed for it to really take off. Comparing New York to denser cities like Tokyo, Eric Bunge said, “we have a different kind of DNA in terms of how much space we need. But this is something that eventually has to change.”

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/04/28/does-size-matter/

Latest Project by Capsys

Our Micro-Apartment project MyMicroNY is soon to be a reality.  We’d like to thank Ondel Hylton for the following article describing

 

City’s First Micro-Apartment Project ‘MY Micro NY’ Ready for Stacking

 

POSTED ON TUE, APRIL 21, 2015BY IN ARCHITECTUREGRAMERCY PARKNEW DEVELOPMENTSRENTALS

 

335 EAST 25TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES

Just in time for Earth Day, New York’s first micro-unit apartment building, dubbed My Micro NY, is entering its final construction phase. When finished later this year, urbanites will have a chance to live within the center of the city in a brand new building flush with amenities, all for under $3,000. Developed byMonadnock Development and the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the soon-to-be-nine-story structure wrapped up foundation work this past winter, and a one-story steel platform is ready to receive 55 modular units.

The units are currently being built off-site at the Brooklyn Navy Yard by a team of 50 workers. In late May, the units will be shipped to the Gramercy Park lot at 335 East 27th Street where they will be stacked and bolted together along with stairs, an elevator, and other shared spaces.

NYCHPD, Monadnock, My Micro NY, Micro-Apartments, Earth Day, nArchitects, modular construction

Responding to smaller household sizes and the city’s enormous demand for housing units, the My Micro NY pilot program was spearheaded by former mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2012 as a pilot towards adjusting the city’s building codes to allow smaller units. The city’s minimum legal apartment size is 400 square feet, while studios at My Micro NY will range from 260 to 360 square feet. It’s also seen as a way to reduce one’s carbon footprint.

NYCHPD, Monadnock, My Micro NY, Micro-Apartments, Earth Day, nArchitects, modular construction

Micro-apartment supporters say that the success of small living quarters relies on intelligent design and proximity to social venues. My Micro NY’s designers, Brooklyn-based nARCHITECTS, simulate spaciousness with 9-foot-8-inch floor-to-ceiling heights and Juliet balconies with laminated glass guardrails to optimize natural lighting. There will be ample storage lofts and full-depth closets. Kitchens will include a fold-down table/counter, full-height pull-out pantry, full-size fridge, a range, and room for a convection microwave. Building amenities will include a gym, small lounge, community room, shared roof terrace, bicycle and tenant storage, and an outdoor garden.

MyMicroNYC Gramercy Micro-Apartments, Bloomberg, Earth Day 2 (8)
Renderings courtesy of nARCHITECTS

Not only innovative for its cozy layouts, the $17 million, 35,000-square-foot project will only be the city’s second prefabricated apartment building, after the Stack in Inwood; and it will be the city’s largest until Pacific Park’s (Atlantic Yards) 461 Dean Street debuts next year. The project developer, Tobias Oriwol, toldAMNewYork that units will be priced at approximately $3,000 a month and twenty-two of the 55 homes will be designated affordable​ for low- and middle-income households.

335 East 27th Street, MY Micro NY, NYC micro apartments
Aerial view of the site via CityRealty

Follow updates for My Micro NY at CityRealty

Reporting contributed by Heather Cooper Vivares

 

http://www.6sqft.com/citys-first-micro-apartment-project-my-micro-ny-ready-for-stacking/

Home Shrunken Home

Hold your stomach in! Mini-apartments may be one way to solve New York’s housing shortage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/micro-apartments-tiny-homes-prefabricated-in-brooklyn.html?_r=0#

 

 

Modular Housing in UK to be used for massive Social Housing project

The UK has been employing off-site construction to provide speedy, high-quality social housing for many years. The percentage of all residential construction in UK utilizing off-site construction approaches 25%. The UK has been employing off-site construction to provide speedy, high-quality social housing for many years. The percentage of all residential construction in UK utilizing off-site construction approaches 25%. In some areas such as in Scotland, as much as 45% of all single family home construction utilizes off-site construction. The following is copied from Inside Housing.Co.UK a website which follows the “News, views and jobs in Social Housing” throughout the UK. This is an example of a creative and cooperative approach to achieving new housing. We should be so far-sighted in the US! InThe UK has been employing off-site construction to provide speedy, high-quality social housing for many years. The percentage of all residential construction in UK utilizing off-site construction approaches 25%. In some areas such as in Scotland, as much as 45% of all single family home construction utilizes off-site construction.
The following is copied from Inside Housing.Co.UK a website which follows the “News, views and jobs in Social Housing” throughout the UK. This is an example of a creative and cooperative approach to achieving new housing. We should be so far-sighted in the US!
some areas such as in Scotland, as much as 45% of all single family home construction utilizes off-site construction.
The following is copied from Inside Housing.Co.UK a website which follows the “News, views and jobs in Social Housing” throughout the UK. This is an example of a creative and cooperative approach to achieving new housing. We should be so far-sighted in the US!

 

Inside Housing.Co.UK

Landlords plan order of 500 off-site homes

5 September 2014 | By Pete Apps

An informal consortium of social landlords is planning to club together to order 500 off-site homes.

The landlords- which include Riverside, Manchester City Council and New Charter- are interested in delivering more homes through off-site production, but require a large order for the deal to make financial sense.

New Charter’s involvement also brings in JV North, a development consortium with 12 members which may all add orders to the bid.

The group plans to place an order of 500 homes by July with an as yet unknown factory based developer of housing.

The news follows north-west procurement consortium Procure Plus’s plan to build a factory to construct off-site homes which could be up and running by 2016.

Mark Patchitt, director of regeneration at Riverside, said: ‘A lot of [off-site] manufacture needs a big order for it to make sense. The companies that set up the factories need to know they have volume and continuity to make it a worthwhile venture.

‘So we’ve got together an informal off-site manufacturing club to see if we can get together an order of at least 500 homes.’

The government is actively seeking to increase off-site production among social landlords, with a fifth of the homes under the next round of the affordable homes programme likely to be built off site.

Brandon Lewis, the housing minister, said: ‘We are encouraging the use of innovative off-site construction in house building, through planning guidance and our house building programmes.’

The “Other” Huge Modular Project in Brooklyn

Our friends at Modular Home Builder an industry blog run by our friends at www.modularhomecoach.com ran the following article the other day about our on-going Nehemiah Spring Creek housing project.  We are proud of our almost 20 year affiliation with Nehemiah and Monadnock Construction the GC of the project.  Capsys has provided hundreds of high-quality family houses and apartments to the Nehemiah Organization since 1996.  This article describes our current project and contains a neat Spring Creek neighborhood drive-through video at the end.  Our thanks the Mod Coach for the posting.

MODULAR HOME BUILDER

The leading blog for the modular home industry.

 

Monday, September 1, 2014

Brooklyn’s Other Huge Modular Project on Schedule

Capsys Corp is currently finishing up the first grouping of homes for the next phase of Nehemiah’s Spring Creek project located on a former 45 acre former landfill site east of Brooklyn, NY.
Built in partnership with East Brooklyn Congregations and designed by architect Alexander Gorlin, Nehemiah is composed of prefabricated one-, two- and three-family homes assembled at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Homeowners put down as little as $8,000 to purchase their houses, which ranged in price from $158,000 to $488,000.
When completed by 2016, over 1,525 new homes and apartments will be built on these streets tucked in behind Related Companies Gateway Plaza Mall, Belt Parkway, and two state parks opening by 2014. In September, three new schools will open on a $75 million campus constructed by the Department of Education.
Spring Creek Nehemiah (as residents call it) will be home to 233 first-time homeowners who won the right to live at Nehemiah in a lottery sponsored by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, a major partner in the project. They applied to the lottery more than five years ago, some as many as 17 years back. Soon, 50 new owners will move in. Five parks, a supermarket and EMS station will be finished upon plan completion.
Nehemiah Spring Creek 1 Nehemiah Spring Creek 2
These prefabricated townhouses are part of the Nehemiah program to build the largest affordable housing development for first-time homebuyers in New York City. More than 800 homes are planned around a vibrant community-oriented streetscape and neighborhood.
The first two phases and phase 3B, approximately 287 of 578 townhouses, are now complete with phase 3A under construction. Individual modular units are constructed in a nearby factory and trucked to the site where they are then joined together into two-, three- and four-story houses.  To create visual interest and distinct identities, multiple facade types were designed, each of which can be clad in one of a dozen different colors of siding. A modern interpretation of traditional Brooklyn townhouses, stoops line the street leading to a raised front door. Parking is along rear alleys in the interior of each block, allowing the homes to open directly onto the sidewalk.

More Nehemiah Spring Creek Homes Are On The Way

We are currently finishing up the first grouping of homes for the next phase of Nehemiah’s Spring Creek project.  The attached is an informative piece describing the continuing Spring Creek housing project as it appears at the website of the Project Architect Alexander Gorlin.

http://gorlinarchitects.com/projects/nehemiah-spring-creek

“Disaster Housing Gets A Surprising Makeover In New York City” – The Huffington Post

Disaster Housing Gets A Surprising Makeover In New York City (PHOTOS)

 

The Huffington Post
Posted: Updated: 

When you think about your surroundings during a natural disaster, style isn’t ever likely to come to mind. Thankfully, New Yorkers, the Office of Emergency Management has done the thinking for you, unveiling a housing unit designed to ride out relief efforts when the next “superstorm” hits. And to our surprise, it’s quite stylish.

First, a little backstory: Last year, a report released by the Department of Homeland Security revealed ongoing criticism against the accommodations traditionally used to house residents displaced by natural disasters. In addition to their unappealing aesthetic, the 64-foot long, 14-feet wide FEMA-run trailers, have posed a number of concerns for those who often occupy them well beyond the amount of time they were originally intended to stay. Namely, the housing is expensive, costing taxpayers some $48,000 each, CNS News reported. In highly populated areas like New York City,space is another concern when you consider that a one-acre lot, which normally contains 200 households can only house 10 single-family FEMA trailers.

But a new pre-fab prototype by Garrison Architects aims to address some of those concerns. And did we mention, it’s pretty, too?

The model units confirm what some housing industry insiders (and many of the tiny-home dwellers we’ve come across here at HuffPost Home) have known to be true for some time: bigger isn’t always better. Not only have they proven successful in places like Europe, smaller modular units can be built inside, away from weather and dirt, with much less wasted material as Tom O’Hara, director of business development at Capsys, explained to Marketplace.org, possibly solving for the issue of getting larger trailers to the scene of a disaster — a concern highlighted in the Homeland Security report.

Check out the photos below and read more about Garrison’s project over at Architizer.

  • Andrew Rugge/archphoto
    The three-story unit located in downtown Brooklyn is a welcome alternative to theFEMA trailers traditionally used to house residents displaced by natural disasters.
  • Andrew Rugge/archphoto
    Inside, three apartments range in size from a 480-square-foot one bedroom to an 813-square-foot three bedroom, and include living areas, full kitchens and storage space.
  • Andrew Rugge/archphoto
    According to Architizer, city staff will put this prototype to a year of testing as they live in the unit at five-day intervals at a time.
  • Andrew Rugge/archphoto
    But despite the homes’ comfier offerings and ability to stack on top of one another, questions remain about whether they really area viable alternative for urban evacuees.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/30/nyc-disaster-housing_n_5544350.html

Concern Amityville Veteran’s Housing, Amityville, NY

Concern Amityville

“Prefab Apartment Buildings on the rise” according to Marketplace.org

Prefab apartment buildings on the rise

​by Dan Bobkoff

Monday, April 21, 2014 – 16:13

Dan Bobkoff

The first floors of a modular apartment building are already in place behind the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Dan Bobkoff

The skeleton of a new apartment module comes together at Capsys’s factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Dan Bobkoff

A bathroom in an apartment at The Stack. All fixtures were installed in the factory, not at the site.

Dan Bobkoff

A kitchen in an apartment at The Stack. Even the appliances were installed in the factory.

Dan Bobkoff

A model living room at The Stack in the Inwood section of Manhattan.

Dan Bobkoff

The staggered block design of The Stack was designed to highlight its modular construction.

A new apartment building called The Stack is about to open in the Inwood section of Manhattan. By design, it looks like a collection of staggered Lego blocks. On the inside, it’s like any other modern rental building in New York. It has a sleek, simple design.

What’s different is that these apartments were not built here in Manhattan, but almost entirely somewhere else.

“The paint, the lighting, the kitchen cabinets, the appliances, the bathroom tile, fixtures, mirror, all of that is done in the factory,” says The Stack’s architect, Tom Gluck, with the firm GLUCK+.

Gluck has been an architect for years, but this is the first time his firm has built what’s called a modular building.

Each apartment comes out of a factory from a company, like Capsys in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It looks like an auto plant, complete with assembly line run on a track in the ground.

“Where we’re building pieces of building like you’d build a car in a factory. You get that repetition, that precision,” says Tom O’Hara, director of business development at Capsys.

On one end of the plant, a team is joining steel beams to make the skeleton of a new apartment. On the other end, a crew is putting the finishing touches on a unit. One guy is tiling the bathroom. You could cook in this kitchen. There’s even a thermostat on the wall already. The apartments are so close to finished that they look like you could move in immediately, if they weren’t sitting on a factory floor.

 

An apartment module nearing completion at Capsys. It will soon be trucked to the building site and hoisted into place. (Photo: Dan Bobkoff)

But soon, this entire apartment will be put on a flatbed, trucked to the Bronx, then hoisted on top of all the other modular apartments. When the building’s done, you won’t even know it was built this way.

There are many reasons proponents like O’Hara think modular construction is better: it’s built inside, away from weather and dirt. It’s faster because you can build the foundation and the building at the same time. There’s much less wasted material. And yet, while it’s popular in Europe, modular construction in the U.S. remains a rounding error, accounting for just a tiny percentage of new home and multifamily construction.

“I think a lot of people really have misconceptions about the modular business,” O’Hara says.  “I think they feel somehow that there’s substandard construction in the factory.”

He says most people think modular means mobile homes or boring, blocky buildings. To him, it just means it’s built better.

“Why would I want my toaster built by a guy sitting on a bench with a ten snip banging things together. I want it out of a factory! Why shouldn’t the building come out of a factory?” O’Hara says.

Modular has been seen as the future before, and yet never caught on beyond certain sectors like college dorms and hotels.

But nearly everyone I talked to thinks this is the moment that changes.

“A lot of it truthfully has to do with this building that we’re standing in front of,” says Jim Garrison, an architect and professor at the Pratt Institute. We’re behind the new Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, looking at what’ll soon be the tallest modular building: 32 stories of apartments.

It’s funded by a big name developer. Garrison says it’s the biggest example that modular is possible, practical, and not necessarily cookie cutter.

“We now have opportunities to build very interesting buildings using these systems. And, people are listening to the benefits that come with it,” Garrison says.

That’s not to say modular doesn’t have downsides. Because it’s made of boxes, you end up with walls against walls, taking up valuable square footage in the building. Designers have to decide everything on the front end. But more developers are attracted to modular’s faster, and sometimes cheaper construction. And, with new projects in the works, maybe this time is different.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/prefab-apartment-buildings-rise

MyMicro NY, our modular, micro-apartment tower coming to Manhattan later this year

M&T Bank Finances Manhattan’s First Micro-Unit Development

BY DAMIAN GHIGLIOTTY 4/02 12:54PM

It was a tight deal for an even tighter development. M&T Bank recently closed a $10.3 million construction loan for the creation of Manhattan’s first micro-unit rental property to be built in Kips Bay. The loan went to Brooklyn-based Monadnock Construction, which is leading the project’s development team, Mortgage Observer has first learned.

The nine-story “My Micro NY” project, located on the northeast corner of East 27th Street and Mt. Carmel Place, will consist of 55 prefabricated apartments averaging about 300 square feet with 40 percent of the units being offered at below market rates. The mini apartments will contain nearly 10-foot ceilings and seven-foot-wide balconies in addition to 16-foot-long overhead loft spaces and full closets.

My Micro NY RenderingMy Micro NY Rendering

“Modular construction is cost efficient and we believe these micro-units will fill a need in the Manhattan market,” said M&T Regional President Peter D’Arcy. “As one of New York City’s more experienced commercial real estate lenders, we’ve thoroughly reviewed the business case for this project and are very comfortable providing the financial support.” M&T declined to discuss the term and rate of the construction loan, which closed in March.

Monadnock and its partners, the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation and New York-based architecture firm nARCHITECTS, won a competition to build the city’s first micro-units in early 2013. Installation of the 55 units, prefabricated by Capsys Corporation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, began earlier this year. The micro-units, being installed on the site of an old surface parking lot near Bellevue Park South, are expected to be available for rent in 2015. The ground floor of the completed property will contain 678 square feet of retail space.

Additional financing for the $16.6 million project will come through equity provided by the project’s developers and a secondary loan from the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

“It’s exciting to pioneer this new housing type in association with the City and our partners, including M&T,” said Nicholas Lembo, Monadnock’s president. “It’s an ideal application for modular construction, and we’re proud to use this innovative approach to offer another affordable option to New Yorkers looking for housing that fits their lifestyles.”

 

M&T Bank Finances Manhattan’s First Micro-Unit Development