Pandemic Era Multifamily Design

California Buildings • Q1 2022

One of the most exciting and beneficial changes resulting from the pandemic is a refocus on multifamily design, and it comes at a time when apartment and condo living is becoming more popular than ever, especially among the young and seniors. There is a new focus on creating more outdoor spaces like balconies or other areas where residents can gather safely and enjoy a biophilic experience. We are realizing the benefits of healthier ventilation and keeping elevators and common areas safer from airborne infections with new technology. Technology is also being used more to provide better access and communication and used also to improve 24/7 delivery and mail access. And the massive work-from-home trend will result in designs that permit multifamily residents to work without encroaching on living spaces. Architects are devoting considerable attention to new multifamily requirements.

Michael C. Lin, a design director of Gensler’s San Francisco office, says, “The role of home has evolved over the course of the pandemic. Now that people are spending more time at home, spaces need to accommodate different modes of living and working. For multifamily design, residents’ priorities have shifted to in-unit experience, well-designed spaces, and affordability. Shared amenities can help attract residents to the building, but they are currently not a primary driver for resident satisfaction. There is a new importance placed on designing versatile work zones, reliable internet connectivity, storage solutions, and lobby delivery systems. The pandemic has also emphasized the importance of health and wellness, particularly through outdoor spaces, natural light, and ways to bring the outside in like operable windows and balconies.

“It is critical to understand who spaces are designed for and their priorities. Units designed with a user-centric approach will consider diverse lifestyles, interests, expectations and the overall satisfaction of residents. According to our recent residential experience survey, respondents ranked affordability as the top driver for choosing a home, regardless of location, housing type, and income and they are willing to trade building amenities for affordable

California Buildings • Q1 2022

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Multifamily Design (Continued from page 14)

options. Multifamily residences also have an opportunity to design resiliently by switching from gas to electric stoves and making recycling and waste disposal more efficient for users. Small steps and intentional design choices can make a significant impact.”

“COVID-19 was a wake-up call about how important the environment is in nurturing our wellbeing,” says Leslie G. Moldow, FAIA, principal of Perkins Eastman, who is based in San Francisco. “Considering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as architects we recognize that at a minimum our buildings need to address our primal physiological needs, and then help keep us safe from the dangers of a pandemic. What became increasingly evident as this pandemic dragged on from months to years is how important it is as designers to reinforce that our designs must support our need as people to be loved and feel a sense of belonging.”

w Utilizing systems to purge air of harmful viruses; and w Installing touchless hardware for faucets, door openers, etc. to eliminate transmissions. w Improve sleep and our body’s natural ability to heal by installing circadian rhythm lighting.

w Eliminate internal corridors, where possible, if you can provide direct access to the outdoors; w Creating transition zones for staff or visitors to verify they are safe to enter; and w Considering new dining options through grab-and-go pick-up stations, larger dining areas for smaller groups of people, and spaces for food drop-off at designated resident entry spaces.

w Clustering residents into neighborhoods and households with a subset of associated services; w Connecting people to outdoor life-enhancing spaces for activities and reflection; w Accommodating family visits; and w Creating ways for dedicated staff to care more personally and effectively with a specific group of residents.

“Each of these ideas and more can utilize new technology and link with better operations. Many ideas are simple and enable our residents to live in environments that consider all aspect of their wellness, contributing to their longevity and sense of belonging,” Moldow explains. n

California Buildings • Q1 2022

AMLI Residential and TCA Architects won top honors at this year’s NAHB Pillars of the Industry Awards; presented by the National Association of Home Builders. AMLI Marina Del Rey, a 585-unit mixed-use luxury apartment community won for Best Low Rise Apartment Community (non-garden, 5 stories or less) and Multifamily Community of the Year, the top honor in the multifamily category. Designed for AMLI Residential by TCA Architects, the community was developed on a 10.4-acre site in Marina del Rey and features scenic views, high-end interior finishes and incomparable amenities. The apartments range from 643-square-foot studio to a 2,240-square-foot three-bedroom. AMLI Marina Del Rey is certified at LEED Silver®, which enables residents to lower their environmental impact while also lowering their utility bills. The property is located within the walkable Silicon Beach neighborhood, near a host of local restaurants and shops, as well as close proximity to LAX, freeways, Santa Monica, Venice and more. The apartment community’s marina setting served as the primary design inspiration, according to TCA Architects. “The view of the bay and luxury apartments along the coastline are two important characteristics of this location. The architectural task at hand brought two important challenges. First, it was necessary to design and create a high-quality living environment for residents; and second, to redefine the look of the marina and, through architecture, enhance the surrounding context. This created a strong link between the buildings and the community. The architectural character of the project re-interprets the rustic nature of the boathouse to invoke an aesthetic that feels very much a part of the marina,” said Tim Mustard, Principal at TCA Architects. Photo courtesy of TCA Architects.

A newly completed mixed-use project in San Diego’s National City, designed by The Miller Hull Partnership — Parco, just opened. The 130,00 square foot, 8-story building offering 127 residential units and ground-floor commercial space was co-developed by Malick Infill Development and Protea Properties. Inspired by the opportunity to bring a new mixed-use approach to the San Diego region, Parco challenges typical unit scale and operational models to provide housing at an affordable price. The building begins as an 8-story tower along the primary boulevard consisting of small-scale residential units, communal lounges and kitchens, and usable outdoor space. The tower transitions to a 4-story mixed-use building along a commercial avenue and culminates into a series of 3-story townhomes along the residential end of the property. The transition of mass coincides with the residential scale and character of the neighborhood. Designed as a true mixed-use project, Parco Image credit: Chipped Hatter. includes retail, office, and residential uses. Each space is carefully and intentionally designed at a reduced scale to keep lease and use costs down without minimizing the comfort or opportunity afforded the user. At ground level, retail spaces are designed to engage the sidewalk and the alley, providing an active and blurred boundary to the city core. At upper levels, common areas are designed as premium gathering spaces, developing a community-focused neighborhood atmosphere with a density needed to support our region’s housing needs. The community felling and mixed-use approach are further enhanced by a diversity of unit typologies ranging from studios to 4 bedroom row homes, each with a visual connection to local views and direct physical connections to the outdoors.

California Buildings • Q1 2022

The new Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr. Center for Performing Arts dramatically amplifies the scale of opportunity San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) provides for students and deepens its engagement with the community of San Francisco’s Civic Center. A “vertical campus” designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates (MCA), the Bowes Center incorporates affordable student housing, dining, classrooms, rehearsal rooms, performances spaces, faculty and partner offices, a recording studio, and a radio station under one roof. The building enables students to create, learn, and share music in an integrated, collaborative environment located within walking distance of SFCM's Ann Getty Center. It also acts as a laboratory for projects to be developed between SFCM and its newly acquired management company, Opus 3 Artists. The building features apartments for over 400 student-artists, including housing for students at the San Francisco Ballet School and short-term housing for visiting faculty and guest performers, as well as apartments for tenants of the building previously on the site of the Bowes Center. Residential amenities for students include a student center with social and study spaces, dining from Chef Loretta Keller, and acoustically isolated apartments that allow for practicing. The Bowes Center also includes three distinct new performance halls: the jewel-box Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall on the ground floor, visible to passersby through floor-to-ceiling windows; the 200-seat Barbro Osher Recital Hall on the 11th floor overlooking Civic Center landmarks; and the black box Technology Hall. It contains state-of-the-art music education facilities, including acoustically controlled classrooms and practice rooms with self-service recording capabilities, a keyboard lab, full recording studio, and the Center for New Media featuring critical listening rooms for Technology and Applied Composition and Roots, Jazz, and American Music students. There is also an flexible event space and terrace on the top two floors of the building and offices for faculty, staff of Opus 3 Artists, and broadcasting facilities for KDFC Classical Radio. MCA is a socially- and environmentally conscious architecture firm known for civic and institutional projects in San Francisco. The white and transparent glass design welcomes the city in to witness and participate in the craft of music, and the building’s 170,000 square feet effectively doubles the size of SFCM’s campus. The $200 million project was completed in 2021 and is named in honor and recognition of a $46.4 million gift on behalf of the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation. In total, SFCM raised more than $130 million to fund the project. Top photo: SFCM exterior. Lower photo: Barbro Osher Recital Hall. Photos courtesy of the Bowes Center.

The recently opened Westmont of Encinitas is an 91,334 square foot assisted living center for seniors, located in Encinitas and designed by Ware Malcomb. It is a two-story garden-style structure built on 3.2 acres. It incorporates 101 beds and 93 units: 35 studios, 50 one-bedroom units, and 8 two-bedroom units. Designed in the Craftsman style with coastal influences, the structure is built on a wood and steel frame. A clean and modern aesthetic was created through careful choice of building materials, including board and batten, stucco, a standing seam metal roof and rough sawn wood bracing. A light and inviting earth tone palette is complemented by crisp white and red cedar. Inside, amenities for residents include an indoor therapy pool, library, theater, beauty salon, activity rooms, full fitness center, full-service kitchen and a commercial laundry center. “Our San Diego team was proud to work closely with Westmont to bring their vision to fruition, and we believe the residents will find it a beautiful place to call home,” said Brian M. Koshley, Regional Director of Ware Malcomb’s San Diego offices. Construction on Westmont of Encinitas was led by general contractor Westmont Construction. Westmont of Encinitas prides itself on providing the right amount of support for seniors seeking active, maintenance-free lifestyles with added help for daily living activities. Photo: Haley Hill Photography.

California Buildings • Q1 2022

Angeles (USGBC-LA) has launched the Green Affordable Housing Program (GAHP), which expects to fill a current gap in market support and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in multi-family properties located in low-income communities. The program will provide tenant education, property owner and manager project and rebate support, and the installation of heat pump space and water heating technology, community EV charging, indoor air quality monitoring, and innovative technology pilots. This program is primarily supported by a grant from LA Department of Water and Power, as well as grants from TECH Clean California and the CalEPA state programs.

The program is focused on low-income communities in L.A. Council Districts 2, 6 and 7 in the Eastern San Fernando Valley (e.g. Pacoima, Panorama City, Van Nuys, and North Hollywood), and will focus on two cohorts of ten buildings in 2022 and ten buildings in 2023, expected to positively impact at least 1,500 residents in that area. Buildings may apply to be part of the program by visiting the GAHP program page.

The GAHP’s support by the Quick Start grant from TECH Clean California will fund the installation of heat pumps (HPWHs and ASHPs) in selected properties. CalEPA’s funding will support installation of indoor/outdoor air quality sensors and onsite water testing, where there is a critical need for more building level data from low-income housing. USGBC-LA’s Healthy Building Alliance program and focus on decarbonization helped create the framework for this program, ensuring the inclusion of air and water quality testing, education and workshops, EV charging, and replacing gas fire equipment with heat pumps to lower tenants’ utility bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve both indoor and neighborhood air quality.

This program is directed to the East San Fernando Valley because it exemplifies an area disproportionately affected, one that experiences a lot of the issues talked about in climate change—high heat days, poor air quality (exasperated by many of the wildfires), a great deal of industrial activity through manufacturing, and a lot of driving impact through streets and nearby freeways. “From an equity standpoint it is critically important we address decarbonization and occupant health for our multifamily housing in low-income communities, otherwise we will only continue to exacerbate the inequalities heightened by the impacts of climate change,” states USGBC-LA Executive Director Ben Stapleton. “This program targets head-on our biggest challenge in decarbonizing our buildings in LA, which are those apartment buildings built in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, accounting for the majority of our residential energy use and in desperate need of modernization, as well as the support to get there.”

The two technologies selected as pilot projects from USGBC-LA’s Net Zero Accelerator will help the property managers and the occupants easily understand their current status and how they can personally activate change in their homes. The first, YellowTin, is a user-friendly, AI-powered consumer education and engagement platform that lets a homeowner, property manager or renter calculate their own personal GHG emissions footprint and look at how to reduce energy use in their home or apartment through choices they make. The other is Dynamhex, which provides calculations for building portfolios — how many emissions they are creating and then offers which strategies will reduce submissions and by how much for each of those buildings.

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Under a bill sponsored by the California Apartment Association, the state’s anti-pricegouging law would only apply to rental housing if an emergency declaration specifies that the declared emergency would have an impact on the price of housing. This clarification would ensure that emergency orders declared after oil spills, droughts, heat waves and other emergency declarations that have no impact on the price of housing do not lead to price controls on rental homes.

Sen. Bob Archuleta, D-Pico Rivera, has introduced SB 1133, legislation that would clarify the scope of the anti-price-gouging law and make it easier for landlords and other businesses to follow the law.

California Buildings • Q1 2022

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This will be a very challenging year on Capitol Hill, and BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association) International Advocacy is currently managing over a dozen issues. Individual fact sheets on all of the current issues can be found at this link https://www.boma.org/ BOMA/Advocacy/Priority_Issues.aspx. Due to limited time with legislators during a recent national issues conference, the association targeted the following issues. Carbon Reduction – BOMA International is asking Congress to avoid blanket, unachievable carbon reduction mandates and instead to work with the commercial real estate (CRE) industry to support meaningful carbon reduction strategies that are balanced, logical and produce actual results. Workforce Development – BOMA is asking Congress to move forward in recognizing CRE job classifications for workforce development funding at the Department of Labor and Department of Education and to address larger fundamental issues on training and labor shortages.

Legislation – BOMA International is asking members of Congress to co-sponsor and support the Green Energy Loan Enhancement Act authored by Rep. James Crow (D-CO-6). The bill would provide funding for energy efficiency improvements for commercial real estate.

California Buildings • Q1 2022

Commercial construction is predicted to increase. Photo: Adobe Stock.

control software companies are now installing simpler and more affordable platforms for offices, schools, warehouses, retail stores, and other small to medium commercial structures. Typically, these systems use cloud-based analytic software to limit on-site installations to a few simple components—smart thermostats, energy monitoring, and a communication gateway.

With California’s energy and climate policies evolving to meet net zero targets, utilities are now focused on designing new rates and incentive programs that will accelerate GEB adoption.

When considering an investment in modern GEB systems, make sure your selection will be able to: u Accurately adapt to your specific utility rates and future rate changes u Earn demand flexibility incentives and participate in upcoming load flexibility markets u Work with all of the flexible loads in your building.

The work at CalFlexHub will ensure that every building can be a GEB. Think of this technology as the smartphone for buildings. It will be compact, powerful, intuitive, predictive and affordable enough to fit in every small and medium commercial building in California. n

According to a new report from the American Institute of Architects, the nonresidential building sector is expected to see a healthy rebound through next year after failing to recover with the broader economy last year.

The AIA’s Consensus Construction Forecast panel— comprising leading economic forecasters—expects spending on nonresidential building construction to increase by 5.4 percent in 2022, and accelerate to an additional 6.1 percent increase in 2023. With a five percent decline in construction spending on buildings last year, only retail and other commercial, industrial, and health care facilities managed spending increases. This year, only the hotel, religious, and public safety sectors are expected to continue to decline. By 2023, all the major commercial, industrial, and institutional categories are projected to see at least reasonably healthy gains. (See chart below.)

“The pandemic, supply chain disruptions, growing inflation, labor shortages, and the potential passage of all or part of the Build Back Better legislation could have a dramatic impact on the construction sector this year,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “Challenges to the economy and the construction industry notwithstanding, the outlook for the nonresidential building market looks promising for this year and next.”

Overall nonresidential building 5.4% Commercial total 4.7% Office space 0.8% Retail and other commercial 7.5% Hotels -0.4% Industrial total 9.4% Institutional total 4.4% Healthcare facilities 6.2% Education 3.5% Religious -1.1% Public safety -1.3% Amusement/recreation 7.7%

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