Join us to celebrate everyone that has given us the energy and inspiration to take flight!
Thursday, February 16th
4 - 8 pm
2555 Walnut Street - Denver, CO 80205
No RSVP necessary
We look forward to seeing you!
I heard yesterday about a new app for the i-Phone. It is called “Wheels” and connects NYC taxi cab users. If you are looking to travel to a destination, willing to share a cab, and to reap the benefits of a less expensive fare – this app is for you. Apparently, it will connect you with other users within a few blocks of your location, so you can join up, and travel together to the desired destination.
Benefits: The cab ride is cheaper. The existing taxicab infrastructure gets more use, and there is a more efficient use of energy. The system becomes a more sustainable mechanism.
Hearing about this app got me thinking about how to apply this ingenuity to community planning and architecture. Two concepts come to mind.
One is to build into a community a shared infrastructure that gains more utility from its residents. What could these be?
· A Zip (shared) Car – owned or rented by the community, for the occasional use by the resident who doesn’t need a full time second car, or even the initial first car.
Benefits: Less demand for parking spaces for the cars the zip
car replaces.
· A designated common area that is designated to fuel the community. Lo-tech version would be the community garden. Hi-tech version could be the geo-thermal power system, a solar collector station, or a windmill farm.
Benefits: What one resident may not be able to afford, individually, can be afforded by the community at large, creating new opportunities for creating and
sharing resources.
Another idea is to look at an oversized home and converting it into a multi-generational home. We’ve all been in subdivisions with those large 4,000 plus square foot homes, which serve a family of four. With some thought and planning, that same home could comfortably serve an extended family of eight or ten.
Benefits: More efficient use of space. Better use of energy
through shared use of utilities (conditioning one large space
versus three or four individual residences). Possible built-in
day care, reducing car trips. Possible independent living for
aging parents, also reducting car trips. Shared household
expenses and some immeasurable social benefits.
I’m keeping my ears on and eyes open looking for some more clever apps that we can use, making everyday life easier and more sustainable. How about you?
It looks like there might be light at the end of the tunnel. Last week I was at Hanley Wood’s Housing Leadership Summit in Chicago, and I had the pleasure of hearing Mark Zandi, a Chief Economist at Moody’s, share his outlook on the economy and the housing industry. Zandi, who has historically been quite accurate with his forecasting, is predicting that in 2012 there will be 1.7 million new housing units. This is excellent news considering his data that the housing market bottomed out in 2009 with only 550,000 new housing units.
I have to say that it was quite thrilling to be part of the crowd hearing Mark Zandi speak, because it was the first time since the economic downturn struck, that I’ve heard a room full of homebuilders get excited about an economic forecast. If you would like to learn more, BUILDER magazine has posted an article on their website that summarizes Mark Zandi’s forecast, and I’ve posted a link to it below.
Moody’s Zandi Offers Optimistic Forecast For Builders
If you have a minute, I would encourage you to read the article. My hope in sharing this information is that it will go viral, and we will continue to read, hear and experience more positive energy around our industry.
—Doug Van Lerberghe
I just finished an article for the Colorado Real Estate Journal about mixed use communities. As more and more people seek to live in “walkable” communities, finding a solution to successfully integrate housing and retail becomes critical. For an apartment community, the idea of leasing units off paper is common and happens with a high degree of certainty. In the retail world, if your location isn’t fire hot, no one will sign a lease until the space is finished. So, how do you mend this disconnect? Click on the line below to learn more about Mixed Use Horizontally Integrated (MUHI) communities, which is my take on how to resolve this issue.
—Paul Campbell
As part of our “Art of the Small House” event, our goal was to design simple sustainable housing with factory produced living components. While modular components are not a new building concept, we believe that there is a missing link to help make them more affordable and a potential learning tool for people wanting to gain knowledge of new trades through the assembly line process. This type of production has the capacity to empower the community through vocational experience and volunteerism. We feel the use of modular components could be helpful in times of a disaster where there is a need for quick housing. Modular components, like SIP panels, lend themselves to green construction practices their standard sizes, and they cut down significantly on job site waste because of the factory’s ability to store and re-use material. They also reduce transportation emissions by delivering an almost completed home to a site once, versus all the materials being delivered to the site at different times. For more information on our idea, click on the link below.
—Janet Woodall
We continue to see more and more of our clients talk about HUD’s 221(d)(4) Mortgage Insurance Program. Financing and operational issues aside, the delivery of documentation seems to be a topic that causes a lot of confusion. I refer back to our April 2009 article for Colorado Builder Forum Magazine describing the basic steps of this process from the design team’s point of view.
Today, Rodger Hara, the Principal of Community Builder Realty Services, agreed to be a guinea pig for our first webinar, and gave an excellent presentation in our office regarding FHA/HUD financing, tax credits, and private activity bonds. Rodger is an expert on the topic and shared some great information with our team, as well as several of our clients. This was such an important presentation, because due to the current lending situation, many of our clients that never considered pursuing FHA/HUD financing are now looking into it. Rodger did an excellent job explaining the nuances of FHA/HUD financing and providing a great overview of the subject. If you missed the webinar and are interested in learning more about this topic, please click on the links below to access a variety of resources. If you would like view and listen to a recording of the webinar, please send me an e-mail (info@kephart.com) or give me a call at 303-832-4474.
Click here to view and print handout
On Steve’s and my trip through Cincinnati/Cleveland last week, we stopped in on Riverpointe – a condominium community we had designed 5 years ago. We wanted to see how it was aging and to get feedback from our client.
Riverpointe is a cluster of two-story buildings and a clubhouse – perched high on a hill above the Ohio River, looking at views of Cincinnati.
We sited the clubhouse very well. Walking up to the front doors, you get a hint of the tremendous view beyond. We created the strong axis so you can see through the building, framing the view nicely. 
And there goes Steve walking in. We really did pull off the Prairie-Style architecture, and Town Properties did well in executing the details. The wide overhang, ledgestone, heavy wood lintels, Hardie siding, and metal grille accents all come together. Okay – perhaps the roof brackets could be amped up some. 
The club basically serves two functions – a main gathering room and the fitness center. They each have an outside entry (the fitness I believe is 24/7) and are connected inside. I could spend some time on that treadmill – particularly with the great view. You are seeing the tarp on the pool which is covered in the wintertime.
The Prairie/Mission style theme carries into the inside. I like it when the outside architecture reveals itself indoors. The warmth of the exposed wood and stone makes for a comfortable seating area.
Speaking of bringing the outside in, the reverse works as well. Here we take a seating area and move it outdoors with an exterior fireplace. A cozy way to enjoy the views.
So we asked our client Ron: “What would you do differently at the club?” His response: “Not a thing. The lock off at the club is particularly convenient, allowing residents to rent the great room and veranda for events – which they do frequently.”
I’d say, all in all – a job well done!
They say that “there is no business like show business,” but after working with a team in the office to create a video to win a Ford Fiesta…I’m not so sure. We just submitted our video entry to win a 2011 Ford Fiesta in response to Ford’s Fiesta Movement contest. Ford is on a national search for 100 “agents” to be the first people given the opportunity to experience the new and very sporty Ford Fiesta. If KEPHART ends up being one of the select few chosen to be agents, we will receive full access to a Ford Fiesta for six months. During that time, we will be assigned monthly missions that we have to complete while using the vehicle that will take us on new and glorious adventures full of fun and excitement! My hands are quivering just typing about it!
So, by now, you’re probably wondering why an architecture firm would enter a contest to win a car. At KEPHART, one of our core values is “responsibility to the communities we serve.” One of the many great things KEPHART does to embody that core value is paying for, and encouraging employees to use public transportation. Being an employee that often has to leave the office during the day for meetings, the idea of riding the bus to work every day poses a big challenge.
To ease the fear of us public transportation Neophyte’s getting around town, the company came up with the brilliant idea of creating what we lovingly call the “KEPHART bike fleet.” (At least that’s what we call it in public). Anyway, several employees were kind enough to donate their unused or unwanted bikes to the cause, so we now have a motley crew of cycles to use, which is great…unless you have a meeting more than a couple of blocks away.
That’s why we entered the Ford Fiesta Movement. What better way is there, for the bus riding mavericks of the office, to get around to client meetings than in a Ford Fiesta!?! It has to beat the experience of balancing rolls of drawings, architectural scales, and bum wad on the handle bars of a bike that is three sizes too small. To experience what life has been like at KEPHART, for those of us who ride public transportation, and don’t have access to a smooth Ford Fiesta, please click here to view our video. I promise that you won’t be disappointed!
After my cameo appearance in the video, I have made the decision not to quit my day job (once you watch the video, you’ll see why!). I think that decision will prove to be a wise one, because soon we’ll have a sporty new Ford Fiesta sitting in our parking lot, and I don’t want to miss the chance to sit behind the wheel. I can smell the new car scent already!
Stay tuned to KEPHART ideas for more updates on this exciting adventure…and other thrilling information! And even if we don’t win the car, I feel like we won already. Creating this video was a great team building experience, and I’ll always have great memories of all the blunders the ensued during filming!
This year’s Pillars Conference was rather well attended. Opening sessions tackled what the next 12 to 18 months may bring. What I heard was that capital preservation is the common theme linking all the various companies. Once the multifamily development scene turns around again, the goal is to have as few problems to deal with as possible. As a designer, it’s interesting to hear the experts talk about negotiating on distressed property situations….what is NOT distressed today?!? We are often on the sidelines with the rest of the design team wondering why things aren’t moving faster…the deal has closed and the carry has started. Well, having insights as to pending conversations about how a deal may need restructuring, or timing delivery with a better window for projected rent growth makes it easier to understand how we best partner with our clients. This is one more item for our checklist of project start-up questions.
There are lots of factors that people smarter than me will be following in order to make the best decisions for their companies in the coming days. We are seeing a trend towards smaller, simpler developments that are able to execute faster…pretty much the garden apartment formula. A number of clients we are working with are valuing the trade-off between fewer floor plans and the economy of production, versus designing to capture every possible renter profile and dealing with the construction complexity that goes along with that decision. This is an observation was shared by a couple of us that spoke together on the Design Trends panel at the conference. Other design trends we discussed included: Gen Y influence, maxing out wood construction, and sustainability. Anything that you can do to educate yourself about Gen Y will be time well spent. For older guys like me, it is hard to innately know what matters to Gen Y. It’s really about taking the time to find out. We have learned plenty about what Gen Y values…or doesn’t value when it comes to clubhouse design. I would have never been able to predict 5 years ago that the Nintendo games my children were playing would evolve into ”Wii Rooms”…it really is about learning to continually be relevant, which is a perfect segue to the closing session at Pillars.
Gary Hamel was the closing speaker, and the information and observations I took away from him were well worth the trip to San Diego. We all know things are different now, and we need to adjust. How will you adjust? Hunkering down and waiting for things to blow over is not a preferred strategy…that observation was made throughout the conference. Take action now that positions you for the future. Tap into the human capital in your company.
I’m coming away from the conference reminded that I have a wealth of talent back in Denver and allowing that resource to make things happen is what leadership is really about.
For more information about the NAHB Multifamily Pillars Conference or Gary Hamel, please click on the links below.
