2023 BALA Winners: The Best of the Best
You'll find plenty of inspiration in these four award-winning projects from the Best in American Living Awards
What Gen-Z Buyers Really Want in a Home
The fervor of planning for Millennials in the home building industry has now pivoted to Gen Z. So, what does this new generation want?
The New American Home 2024: Modern Features, Timeless Comfort
Explore the design elements and unique, luxe details that combine to create a sense of comfort and relaxed indoor/outdoor living in The New American Home 2024
4 Inspiring Adaptive Reuse Projects With Real Impact
From former schools to warehouses, these adaptive reuse projects—winners in the 2023 Best in American Living Awards—succeed in creating new housing and revitalizing their neighborhoods
Kid-Friendly Home Design Four Ways
Do your ‘family’ homes really deliver great design for parents and their children? Here are four clever home design ideas that consider kids and adults alike
4 Single-Family Build-to-Rent Home Designs Offering Comfort and Construction Efficiency
Single-family rentals are popular. Take a look at these detached-home design ideas for the single-family build-to-rent market, one of the fastest-growing segments of single-family construction
Desert Beauty
West of the Agua Fria River, in part of Phoenix's West Valley, Vistancia stands quietly, respecting the land and natural history of the desert around it. In Terracina, a gated T.W. Lewis community, and one of the 11 neighborhoods in Vistancia, lies Triana. Triana became the best-selling model for Tempe, Ariz.
Top 50 Builders to Work For / 2004
Whoever said charity begins at home was one-upped last October 3 when millions of Americans watched crews from Shea Homes donate thousands of dollars in time, resources and labor to build a new house for the Garay family of Los Angeles on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. When HomeAid America and ABC offered Shea CEO Bert Selva the opportunity, he says he "couldn't say no" to helping this n...
Landing an Award
The influx of baby boomers into retirement age is making senior housing one of the biggest market segments in the industry. In January, the Seniors Housing Council of the National Association of Home Builders presented the "Best of Seniors Housing Design" awards in Orlando, Fla. This award program honors communities across the country that best meet the needs of senior homeowners.
Fun with designing a door
Architectural Traditions — designers and manufacturers of crafted doors, windows and hardware — created a program on its website where builders and consumers alike can design doors specific to the house being built. Visitors to the site first select an interior or exterior door. The process then guides visitors through a series of options, allowing them to choose the door type, door...
Reinventing Tradition
Accustomed to building a handful of homes each year topping out at about $350,000, David DeBord was ready for a new challenge that would become his first New Urbanist outing, his first plan drawn by an architect rather than a designer and his first attempt at a significantly more upscale home. President of DeBord Custom Homes, based in Virginia Beach, Va.
Agenda Journalism
We media types tend to be news junkies. CNN, the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, we devour them all, all the time. We become especially attentive when the breaking story is about the business of the news. The story of the last few weeks made all of us in business-to-business media and certainly the general news outlets stop and pay still closer attention.
Hidden Within the Valley
Because of its tight housing market, finding available land in Ventura County is a rarity. However, builder/developer Vintage Communities purchased 290 acres of land as an improved tentative tract map in 1999, now known as Hidden Valley Estates. Vintage swept up this available land because it's close to Thousand Oaks, CA, yet rural in its feel.
Beautiful Density
The builder is New Urban Communities, a niche specialist in both density and infill. Principals Kevin Rickard and Tim Hernandez are well acquainted with both profit and peril in their specialty. Dedicated New Urbanists, they loathe front-loading garages, but Old Palm Grove is half front-loaded because, they say, flexibility is the first prerequisite to high-density success.
The Factory Factor
"Factory-built" usually conjures up images of industrial construction, but how does building a home that looks exactly like other homes, performs better, and can be finished in 20 days grab you? That is the vision of the PATH Concept Home, which proposes the use of factory-built components to expedite the construction process from the typical six months.
Fabulous Faux
At first glance, it looks like a meticulously detailed 19th-century rehab. Upon closer inspection, Brian Pennings' home reveals a new custom home clad in vinyl, composites and seemingly every engineered building innovation. Only the beveled-glass mahogany front door and stone veneer of the exposed foundation is real.
