Multi-Family Buildings and the Architecture of the Future

With climate change in the forefront, developers, owners, architects, and designers are actively working to improve old and new buildings to battle the increasing risks. This includes designing net-zero or negative-zero carbon buildings, updating code requirements, and using more energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly materials and methods.

Make sure to check out the CooperatorNews article we were featured in Futurizing Multifamily Buildings: New Materials, Standards, & Designs, to gain some insight into how architectural design is evolving to combat and withstand climate change conditions. Or keep reading for the full questions and answers!

A multi-family project designed for downtown Sarasota, Florida. Architecture by Jonathan Parks AIA. Rendering by Jonathan Parks and Rod Gerrard.

1. CooperatorNews: Discuss how climate change is influencing how multifamily buildings are being designed and built. How does design differ and how has it changed in both aesthetic and practical ways in the past few years?

   Jonathan Parks AIA: Multifamily buildings are routinely exposed to destructive environmental forces over time. Due to climate change, these forces have increased environmental degradation to both manmade and natural habitats. Today, architects are working to address these issues with an approach to site and building design focusing on prevention, reduction, and recovery.

   Over the last few years, climate change has heightened the awareness of architects, engineers, planners, and other design professionals to consider resilient design strategies when planning for multi-family projects. As a framework within climate change, design professionals are routinely applying resilient design strategies seeking to address current and future risks:

   • How does the project address future risks and vulnerabilities from social, economic and environmental change?

   • How is the project designed for adaptation to anticipate alternate uses or changing markets?

   • How does the project address passive survivability and/or livability?

   Using these principles to inform the design process has created multi-family buildings that not only perform better but look different.

This project was designed as an 18-story sustainable, mixed use building with affordable housing and public parking. Dolphin Tower by architect Jonathan Parks AIA. Rendering by Jonathan Parks and Rod Gerrard.

2. CoorpertatorNews: Discuss climate-conscious innovations in building materials (using sustainable materials
wherever possible), floorplans, and amenities.

Jonathan: The most climate-conscious building trend is not to build at all. Individuals and organizations have placed buildable land into land trusts that then keep these properties undeveloped for perpetuity. If a project is to be built, then the second most climate conscious decision would be to not overbuild.

Projects that are at the forefront of innovative design to address climate change will stress conservation of land, materials, and energy as an important project narrative through both the design and lifecycle of a project.

A mixed use building designed to address resiliency and sustainable design goals. Architect, Jonathan Parks AIA. Rendering by Jonathan Parks and Rod Gerrard.

3. CoorpertatorNews: Discuss both how laws/ordinances and market pressure are influencing how developers / builders / architects are approaching multifamily projects.

Jonathan: Building and zoning codes have been addressing climate change for decades with significant input from the insurance industry. Many existing multifamily projects that were code compliant when completed if submitted today would not receive a permit due to major changes in both zoning and building codes driven by stricter insurance requirements. It has only been over the last decade that design professionals and building officials have embraced a step-by-step process to approach climate change for developments, including multifamily projects.

This step-by-step process has become typical for climate change planning to understand requirements of clients and stakeholders, define a work plan of project goals, uncover potential and existing environmental hazards, evaluate hazards, and then finally, develop resilient design strategies and test them for effectiveness.

4. CooperatorNews: How have these trends evolved and how will they further evolve in the future to give a preview of what multifamily buildings / HOAs might look like in another couple of decades?

• Jonathan: In the future, it is predicted that multifamily buildings and their associated HOAs will have to work at both a local and regional scale to not only share quickly changing code and insurance requirements but to group together in sharing common problems and solutions.

  In many communities, the requirements relating to insurance cost are so daunting that it is almost impossible for one individual HOA to understand and respond to the changing landscape. Future successes in this arena will be determined by the willingness of individual HOAs to connect and build relationships to problem solve these future issues together.

5. CoorperatorNews: Any real life or practical examples?

Jonathan: The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has many state chapters as well as a national website that prioritizes a “deep dive” into climate changes, sustainability and resiliency strategies. You can learn more climate action here.