From the 2006 Gold Nugget Awards
THE BEST HOUSES ARE DESIGNED WITH their site in mind, but when it comes to a site as glorious as a 10,000-square-foot lot in a primo Hawaiian resort, that connection is doubly important. Given the fantastic weather there, homes often extend to the far reaches of the great outdoors.
THE SITE CONSTRAINTS ON THIS ACRE of turf would have prompted most developers to call it a day, but not Capital Pacific Homes. In the steeply graded parcel, its scouts saw a chance to meet present-day housing needs without sacrificing historic architecture.
RESTRAINT BECOMES THIS GEM OF A house on .18 acre in Silicon Valley. The clients wanted to use every square inch of available space, all the while reinforcing the dwelling's connection to the outdoors.
CITIES ARE MERCURIAL PLACES where the character of a street can change dramatically from one block to the next. Case in point: This tricky infill project in Pasadena, Calif., which presents two entirely different façades from different vantage points.
CLASSIC ARCHITECTURAL STYLES have one thing in common: Most of them travel well. At first glance, this 2,195-square-foot jewel, designed by South Coast Architects and built by R.A. Wasseman Construction, looks like the kind of Spanish-colonial revival homes that were all the rage in 1920s Santa...
IT'S HARD TO GO WRONG WITH PROPERTY in Portland's Pearl District, the erstwhile industrial zone now revered by city planners nationwide as a model for urban redevelopment. Lexis on the Park, a 139-unit condo project in the heart of said district, had the killer location from the get-go.
ATTACHED TOWNHOMES WOULD HAVE been the easy route to satisfying density requirements at Peregrine, a picturesque community outside Colorado Springs. Scheurer Architects and Keller Homes opted instead for the road less traveled—a site plan that groups three-packs of tight-knit, detached homes around...
TALK ABOUT A PROJECT THAT COVERS all the bases. Denny Park Apartments, a 50-unit, rent-restricted building in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood, is not only affordable, it's also one of the first projects to receive funding under the Enterprise Foundation's Green Communities initiative.
TYPICALLY, THE PHRASE “VINTAGE architecture” sparks visions of gabled Victorians or quaint colonials with cramped interiors. Unless you're in Palm Springs, Calif., where it's code for midcentury modern.
GOOD ARCHITECTURE IS CONTEXTUAL. So with the balmy climates of most of the West a consistent factor in the Gold Nugget Awards, there were plenty of stunning outdoor living spaces inciting floor plan envy in this, the competition's 43rd year.
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Every year for the past decade, Marlton, N.J.–based contractor Lipinski Landscape Irrigation has hired 75 to 150 temporary workers from Mexico and Eastern Europe through the Department of Homeland Security's H-2B program, which allows 66,000 foreign workers to enter the United States for up to 10...
DENNIS ALLEN HAS BEEN A BUILDER FOR WELL OVER 20 years. His custom building company, Allen Associates in Santa Barbara, Calif., has about 90 employees and does about $20 million a year in business. Eight years ago, this home building veteran had an eye-opening experience on what was really...
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Construction is an inherently dangerous industry: Workers use sharp, powerful tools and caustic chemicals, lift heavy weights, and work at sometimes dizzying heights. Jobsite safety issues are magnified for immigrant workers, who are particularly susceptible to getting hurt on the job.
BRIAN PATRICK, A BUILDER BASED IN NORTHERN California, remembers that when he was growing up in Southern California in the 1960s, his uncle was a mason and always had Mexicans working for his company. The workers would be on hand during the height of the building season and then go back to Mexico...
TEN TIMES,ADRIAN CALDERON SWAM THE RIO GRANDE in the dark trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States, carrying nothing more than an extra pair of jeans in a duffel bag. Ten times, he was turned back by border patrol officers. Finally, he had had enough.
MERITAGE HOMES RECENTLY GOT A GLIMPSE OF WHAT THE future of home building might be like if stringent homeland security and immigration reforms that are pending ever become law. In the fourth quarter of last year, the federal border patrol relocated one of its checkpoints in Arizona to within a...
This in-depth report by BUILDER attempts to lay out the scope of this complex and far-reaching problem, for builders big and small. It also attempts to provide helpful measures that can be taken—good-faith efforts to protect yourself, your trade partners, and the men and women you work with every...
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JOHN LAING HOMES, THE INDUSTRY'S 34TH-largest builder, plans to expand into several Western and Southern states and could soon be exporting its construction and operational disciplines to other countries, as part of Emaar Properties, the Dubai-based real estate developer/builder, which on June 2...
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DEVELOPABLE RESIDENTIAL land in the Las Vegas Valley now costs in excess of $750,000 an acre, so it certainly turned a few heads earlier this year when Pulte released that it paid roughly $40,000 an acre for land in Mesquite, Nev., about 80 miles north of Las Vegas.
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PUBLIC HOME BUILDERS' earnings announcements this spring—largely a show of how far the sector has fallen since early 2005—were often followed by downgrades of the companies' stock ratings by industry analysts.
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BUILDING AFFORDABLE HOMES IN A HOT REAL estate market seems difficult enough, but building them to withstand a Category 3 hurricane seems nutty and impossible. “It's a challenge,” says Mount Dora, Fla.–based builder Kristin Beall. But she says it is possible.
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- Residential foreclosure filings rise by 72 percent through the first three months of 2006.
- Residents of Clarksburg Town Center, a suburban Washington community, have negotiated millions of dollars in concessions from the developer for height and setback violations.
- Banking giant Wachovia...
AMERICANS ARE MOVING FROM THE NORTHEAST and the Midwest to the South, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report. That's not news to home builders operating in those areas, but the data reveal trends that may represent future opportunities for builders, particularly when combined with...