News Archives - larch lab

Larch Lab to curate, moderate Passive House Network Conference Session on Ecodistricts

Larch Lab's Michael Eliason is curating and moderating a session for Passive House Network's 2023 conference.

In a world where climate change makes the simple act of staying home more dangerous, where excess heat leads to excess death, where storms can knock out life-saving power for days on end, and where polluted air and smoke leaks into homes in worrying quantities, Passive House stabilizes temperatures and protects indoor air quality, all while reducing and decarbonizing the energy we depend on. Passive House is an active solution to the health challenges communities are facing.

- The Passive House Network

On 28 September, Eliason will be moderating the panel for, ‘The US & Sustainable Density: A Look at European Climate Adaptive Districts’ for the online component of the conference. The event will include presentations on car-light and climate adaptive ecodistricts from Verena Brehm of CITYFÖRSTER (Hannover), Yunshih Chen at BURA Urbanism (Amsterdam), and Lukas Vallentin of Architekturwerkstatt Vallentin (Muenchen).

At Larch Lab, we believe that Passivhaus is the most comprehensive means of mitigating the effects of climate change: protection from extreme heat and cold snaps, mitigation of air pollution and wildfire smoke, and a buoy against energy poverty. The 2023 Passive House Network Conference is a hybrid event. On 28 September, there will be a full day of presentations online. On 4 – 5 October, the conference will be meeting in person at Denver’s McNichols Civic Center. Registration for the conference can be found here. If you are interested in discussing how we can collaborate on climate adaptive buildings and districts, please reach out!

Eliason presented at NAHRO Summer Symposium

Larch Lab's founder Michael Eliason was invited to prsent on climate adaptive ecodistricts at NAHRO's 2023 Summer Symposium.

The way we plan Transit Oriented Development in this country is a not conducive to making high quality and affordable places to live. There is way too little social housing. Too much parking, with auto-centric buildings centered on wide arterials. Insufficient open space, shade, and blue-green infrastructure. Little attention to quality of life, and virtually no attempt to mitigate air or noise pollution through urban planning.

It doesn’t have to be this way!

Last month, Eliason presented on the topic, ‘Envisioning Resilient Urban Futures‘ at National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO)’s first Summer Symposium. The presentation focused on positive public health outcomes derived from car-light ecodistricts with abundant affordable homes – as well as the co-benefits of climate resilience. Michael also discussed the rules and regulations that prevent these very sorts of neighborhoods in the U.S. – including an anomalous building code preventing tall point access blocks.

if you are interest in collaborating on family-friendly multifamily housing or decarbonized buildings – or discussing housing, livability, and qualities of urbanity that are severely lacking in North American multifamily buildings, please contact us.

Eliason heads to Edmonton to Elucidate on Ecodistricts

This week, Larch Lab's Michael Eliason heads to Edmonton, for a series of presentations and meetings on building more family-friendly and climate adaptive housing with Point Access Blocks and ecodistricts.

Better housing. More affordable housing. Better noise protection. More blue/green infrastructure. Space for trees. Larger courtyards. Until we start tackling those things - and layering additional aspects (hello passivhaus! hello active solar protection! hello homes that can cross ventilate! hello blocks with a diversity of housing types and tenures!) - we're just going to see same poorly planned status quo. Part of why Larch Lab was founded was to change that paradigm. We can't keep going on like this: Inadequate affordable housing. Expensive market rate housing that is sooo poorly planned. Neighborhoods that are not walkable. Zero climate adaptation in our planning processes. In the end it's mostly geometry. But allows for *significantly* more density, better urban environment, and much better public health outcomes as well.

- Michael Eliason

Eliason joins Edmonton Councillor Michael Janz for a public presentation to be held on 29 June at 6 PM at the Telus International Centre, University of Alberta. Michael’s talk will be on how building codes shape circulation, affordability, livability, community, and how we can build better, more affordable, and more climate adaptive places with low-carbon ecodistricts. Go to Janz’s website for additional information and event registration.

f you are interest in collaborating on family-friendly multifamily housing or decarbonized buildings – or discussing housing, livability, and qualities of urbanity that are severely lacking in North American multifamily buildings, please contact us.

Larch Lab’s Eliason to sit on SPUR panel for better housing

Larch Lab founder Michael Eliason will join SPUR for an online panel presentation on better multifamily buildings through the incorporation of Point Access Blocks (single stair buildings).

The panel will take place online, at 12.30 pm PDT on Wednesday, 14 June. Eliason will be joining Stephen Smith (the Center for Building in North America), and Ed Mendoza (Livable Communities Initiative) for ‘Stairway to Affordability: How We Can Diversify Multifamily Housing.’ Frances Anderton will be moderating, and the panel will be discussing how building codes shape circulation, affordability, livability, community, and the quality of multifamily housing. Go to SPUR’s website for additional information and event registration.

SPUR is the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association – a nonprofit public policy organization, focusing on urban issues in the Bay Area. This is Eliason’s second event with SPUR – he previously presented on Baugruppen for ‘Living Better, Together‘ on innovative housing strategies in 2017.

Larch Lab’s Eliason appointed to Social Housing Development board

Larch Lab's Michael Eliason was appointed to serve on the board of Seattle's new Passivhaus Social Housing Developer Public Development Authority.

This board represents a broad array of experience and knowledge, from lived experience of housing instability, homelessness, and accessing services in our current ecosystem, to public finance, labor representation, public policy, non-profit affordable housing development, social housing and regional planning experience

- Seattle Councilmember Tammy Morales

After the successful passage of Initiative I-135 authorizing the PDA, the formation of the board serves as the next step towards acquiring and developing social housing in Seattle. it will oversee and govern the affairs of the Seattle Social Housing Developer PDA. Eliason will be serving as the City of Seattle’s Green New Deal Oversight board appointee, bringing his experience and advocacy around climate adaptive buildings, mass timber, the passivhaus standard, and community-oriented housing.

If you are interested in collaborating with us in the planning of decarbonized, climate adaptive buildings and ecodistricts, please contact us.

Eliason to present at xChats: The Single Stair Case

Larch Lab’s founder Michael Eliason will be co-presenting at xChats – a webinar hosted by Housing Forward VA.

On 11 May at 1 pm EST, Eliason will be joining Ed Mendoza of Los Angeles-based Livable Communities Initiative for xChats: The Single Stair Case – Rethinking Building Codes to Legalize Affordability.

Michael and Ed will be presenting on the benefits of taller Point Access Blocks/single-stair buildings—and why they’re illegal in nearly all of the U.S.

This is an online webinar hosted by Housing Forward VA – a Virginia-based non-profit focused on increasing access to affordable housing. Registration for the event can be found here.

We are looking forward to the robust discussions about housing, livability, and qualities of urbanity that are severely lacking in North American multifamily buildings. If you’re interested in discussing the planning and design of Point Access Blocks, or other issues around decarbonized and family-friendly housing, please contact us.

The Architect’s Newspaper picks up Point Access Blocks

The Architect’s Newspaper invited Larch Lab’s Michael Eliason to submit an op-ed on Point Access Blocks

This piece presented an opportunity to get the concept of Point Access Blocks – single stair buildings – in front of a larger audience. To discuss the benefits and how building access and exiting significantly affects issues like livability and climate adaptation – issues foundational to our work. At Larch Lab, we believe they offer more flexible, livable, compact, and climate resilient housing options than the way multifamily housing is designed and built in the U.S. today. We’ve also been working with several legislators and their staff at both federal and state levels. The status quo of development is fundamentally broken. We look at Point Access Blocks as a means of ‘tunneling through’ towards significantly better housing.

Point Access Blocks aren’t a silver bullet for housing, but they do offer a path towards something I believe to be significantly better over this bland and exceedingly poorly planned status quo. It’s the same way I felt when first introduced to mass timber while working in Freiburg, Germany, in 2003, and it took another 15 years for that technology to really take hold in the U.S. My ambition is that we start to see movement towards better housing and better buildings, and perhaps even a path towards climate-adaptive, family friendly, mass timber, Passivhaus, midrise Point Access Blocks. I also hope it doesn’t take another decade to get there.

-Michael Eliason

Catch Michael’s piece, ‘Why does American multifamily architecture look so banal? Here’s one reason‘ over on The Architect’s Newspaper.

We are looking forward to the robust discussions about housing, livability, and qualities of urbanity that are severely lacking in North American multifamily buildings. If you’re interested in discussing this issue, or other issues around decarbonized and family-friendly housing, please contact us.

Larch Lab’s Eliason to speak on car-light ecodistricts in Auckland

On 7 March, Larch Lab's founder Mike Eliason heads to New Zealand (virtually!) for a webinar on climate adaptive, car-light ecodistricts.

Aotearoa New Zealand was one of the first countries to enact dramatic planning reforms around zoning and parking. These reforms are already affecting change – but there are even greater opportunities for new forms of urban development responding to climate adaptation, affordability, and quality of life. MRCagney, with the support of the Urban Design Forum and the Transportation Group, are hosting a webinar to highlight what some of these opportunities could look like. Eliason will be presenting on car-light ecodistricts, and climate adaptive development – including various models of housing and tenure, across a variety of scales. MRCagney’s Kent Lundberg and Marita Hunt will also be presenting. The presentation will be followed with a moderated Q&A.

The webinar is set to begin on March 7, at 12:00 pm Auckland time (GMT+13).

This is Michael’s second talk in NZ on car-light ecodistricts and creating better places, the previous for New Zealand Social Housing provider Kāinga Ora last November. Webinar registration can be found here. For inquiries into having Michael speak at your event, please contact us.

Point Access Block Policy Brief

Over the last few months, we've been working with several policymakers, advocacy groups, and jurisdictions on Point Access Block legislation. To facilitate those conversations and educate policymakers, developers, and planners - we've developed a policy brief highlighting their benefits, and what Seattle's Building Code allows.

Larch Lab Policy Brief: Unlocking Development with Point Access Blocks: a path towards more livable, climate adaptive, and family friendly homes

Problem: After decades of underbuilding, an extensive shortage of housing exists in the United States – not just in large cities, but in suburban and rural areas as well. Building code requirements and the economics of construction have made small to medium-sized multifamily housing increasingly difficult to develop. Over the last twenty years, multifamily development has trended towards larger and significantly denser buildings, with a poor mix of unit sizes. In 2000, buildings of 50+ units made up just 13% of all multifamily completions. Today, over 55% of all new multifamily homes are in 50+ unit buildings. The majority of these are double loaded corridors, hotel-like buildings with a hall running down the middle and single aspect dwellings on either side. These homes tend to get little daylight, and have no opportunity to cross ventilate or mitigate urban noise.

We believe that the solution lies with allowing more diversity in building access. Specifically, by employing Point Access Blocks – compact single stair buildings with dwellings centered around a stairway and elevator core. They are the fundamental building block of cities around the world, in buildings up to six or more stories. However, for most of the U.S. they are restricted to just three stories. Seattle and New York City are the only jurisdictions where taller Point Access Blocks are allowed, with conditions allowing up to six stories.

This policy brief touches on how Point Access Blocks can lead to more livable, climate adaptive, and family friendly housing versus the way multifamily housing is designed and built in the U.S. today. They are incredibly compact, which makes them ideal for cost-optimized Passivhaus buildings. They also play well with Mass Timber.

We are looking forward to the robust discussions about housing, livability, and qualities of urbanity that are severely lacking in North American multifamily development. If you’re interested in discussing this issue, or other issues around decarbonized and family-friendly housing, please contact us.

Larch Lab’s Eliason to present at AIA Virginia’s Annual Symposium

Larch Lab's Michael Eliason will be presenting at the AIA Virginia's 2022 annual symposium, Architecture Exchange East.

Michael will be co–presenting with City of Charlottesville planner Lyle Solla-Yates, for the track titled, ‘Unlocking Better Design through Regulatory Reform.’

ArchEx’s description for the presentation, ‘After some background in zoning history, particularly in Virginia, engage in a discussion on comprehensive planning, zoning, and building code reform.

Using Charlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan and pending zoning rewrite as a case study, discover examples of creative infill designs to unlock historically R1 and other areas.

Learn why point access blocks/single stair multifamily buildings are uncommon in the U.S. but could present a solution to help address the climate crisis and create access to more affordable, equitable housing.’

The talk will be on 4 November, 2022. More information via ArchEx.