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Interesting developments from the last two decades

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In today’s edition of Links in Progress, Coby Lefkowitz returns to review more beautiful developments built around the world in the last two decades.

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This issue of Links in Progress is dedicated to practicing and aspiring architects, developers, planners, policymakers, public officials, and the general populace, who are interested in creating a better built environment in their own communities. Enjoy!

LC Line & Low

• Location: Charleston, South Carolina

• Year Completed: 2025 (Completion later this year)

• Building Type: Mixed-Use

• Unit Breakdown: 293 apartments, 22,000 square feet of commercial space

• Architect RAMSA

• Developer: Lifestyle Communities

Most mid-rise apartment buildings have come to be looked at with derision in recent years among the general public, due to the cheapness of their construction, their anti-urban orientation, and dreary (while also incomprehensible) designs. This new development in Charleston transcends all of what most people are trained to think of when they visualize a mid-rise. Robust, expertly detailed, and coherent. It is a gold standard for what new development can be.

Fouquet's New York

• Location: New York City

• Year Completed: 2022

• Building Type: Hotel

• Unit Breakdown: 96 key-hotel, 2 restaurants, 2 bars.

• Architect SBJ Group

• Developer: Caspi Development

Blending in seamlessly with the historic character of New York’s Tribeca neighborhood, Fouquet’s is a gorgeous composition of brick, stone, and cast iron elements. As a luxury hotel, one would expect a high quality suite of finishes, but somehow the work of Stephen B Jacobs Group surpasses reasonable expectations for what a new structure should offer.

El Andaluz

• Location: Santa Barbara, California

• Year Completed: 2009

• Building Type: Mixed-Use

• Unit Breakdown: 7 residential condos, 2 retail units

• Architect: Jeff Shelton

• Developer: n/a

Jeff Shelton is the best practicing architect in America today. What do I actually mean here? Simply that Shelton consistently creates structures that are captivating and whimsical, and top in class on the marks of liv-and-lov-ability. Beyond this, they are so full of spirit they have the opportunity to do what precious few structures in North America can – endure with affection. El Andaluz is one of his studio’s largest projects (if not the largest), but unlike many other firms, his work improves as it scales. His signature details have not been diluted with size. If anything, extra attention is given to them to ensure size does not obviate,

Palma Social Housing

• Location: Palma, Mallorca

• Year Completed: 2022

• Building Type: Multifamily

• Unit Breakdown: 8 apartments

• Architect Miguel Nevado, Alfonso Reina, Antonio Martin, Carles Oliver, Xim Moya

• Developer: Balearic Housing Institute

It is rare to see high quality, robust construction in new housing developments today, much less public housing which has become nearly synonymous with cheap and thoughtless composition. It’s in this context that this warm, earthy, and eminently welcoming social housing in Palma is made all the more remarkable. Marès sandstone courses through these 8-units, cladding enchanting barrel vaults and walls, accented by lovely wood.

The Red Roof

• Location: Quang Ngai, Vietnam

• Year Completed: 2019

• Building Type: Single Family Home

• Architect: TAA Design

• Developer: Private Client

A home in a smaller city along the central coast of Vietnam, The Red Roof punches above its weight relative to its size and location. At just over 800 square feet, this home’s impact comes from its two most defining features: a stepped roof garden, and red plaster facade, which warm and enliven the street. As the small lot denied the possibility of creating a large yard space, the architects opted to move the gardens to the roof, and enclose other outdoor spaces in a series of small courtyards. This creates a level of intimacy that’s rare in single family homes, without crowding uses together.

Mass Timber Parisian Courtyard

• Location: Paris

• Year Completed: 2020

• Building Type: Multi-family building

• Unit Breakdown: 14 apartments

• Architect Mars Architectes

• Developer: Gecina

Located on the site of a former parking lot in the courtyard of a Parisian apartment building in the 12th arrondissement, Mars Architectes have delivered one of the more attractive, and welcoming, buildings of recent years. The warmth of the wood and the consideration of the landscaping combine to create a harmonious and supremely compelling product. It is a reminder that every patch of land has the ability to completely transform our built environment

Grace Farms

• Location: New Canaan, Connecticut

• Year Completed: 2015

• Building Type: Public / Cultural Venue

• Architect SANAA

• Developer: Grace Farms Foundation

Carving through the hillsides of Southwestern Connecticut, Grace Farms is one of the more surprising structures one is likely to come across. The acres of large, well manicured plots of this staid suburb don’t at first seem to make the best neighbors for a bold architectural foray. Maybe the contrast is what makes SANAA’s building so appealing. Adorned with glass, steel, concrete, and blonde woods, it is a work of grace, floating above the 80-acre public nature reserve. I have had the fortune of visiting Grace Farms several times, and fear I can’t give written justice to the tranquility that washes over one whilst spending time there.

Little Island

• Location: New York City

• Year Completed: 2021

• Building Type: Park

• Architect: Heatherwick Studio

• Developer: Hudson River Park Trust and Pier 55 Project Fund

Structures that don’t have a functional commercial or academic use have become the subjects of derision among a subset of critics of architecture and political economy. But for the millions who visit this park Little Island is a triumph. Expanding the usable square footage of New York’s park system by extending into the Hudson River on 132 bulbous concrete columns, it remains a surprising delight every time one passes by. Without parks, we are lesser beings. New Yorkers (myself included) are better for the existence of Little Island. May a thousand further islands (preferably with housing!) bloom.

Dapi Mountain Restaurant

• Location: Xun County, Henan Province

• Year Completed: 2023

• Building Type: Restaurant

• Architect Galaxy Arch

• Developer: n/a

With its sweeping roofline, natural materials (like local grey stone from Taihang Mountain, the same wood used in local historic building, and slate roof tiles), and seamless integration into a historical style, Dapi Mountain Restaurant is an escape into beauty and harmony. The structure contours itself, and thus blends, into the natural environment, seeming as though this place on the mountain top was waiting especially for it. If only all structures availed themselves so well to bounty of their local contexts.

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Coby Lefkowitz is a real estate developer and writer based in New York.