Landlord Tech Watch

Is your building management moving online? Have new cameras been installed in your home or neighborhood? Is your landlord using new payment, notification, or screening systems? Has access to your building changed? For instance, you no longer have a standard key? If so, then you might have Landlord Tech in your building!

Landlord Tech, what the real estate industry describes as residential property technology, is leading to new forms of housing injustice. Property technology, or “proptech,” has grown dramatically since 2008, and applies to residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, effectively merging the real estate, technology, and finance industries.

By employing digital surveillance, data collection, data accumulation, artificial intelligence, dashboards, and platform real estate in tenant housing and neighborhoods, Landlord Tech increases the power of landlords while disempowering tenants and those seeking shelter.

By Landlord Tech, we mean technical products and platforms that have facilitated the merging of the technology and real estate industries in novel ways, particularly as they impact tenant housing. Our research has led to two major categories of what we are calling Landlord Tech: surveillance and speculation, both of which are tied up in gentrification.

Read more: Landlord Tech.

Image: Erik Henningsen’s painting Eviction held by the National Gallery of Denmark, 1892.

August 18, 2020 by kris de decker Filed Under: Buildings, Random

Amish Hand-Demolish Building in Tennessee

Who to call when you need your building “hand-demolished”? To the general public, “Amish” often equates to handcrafted – meaning hand-milked cows, handmade quilts, hand-built furniture, and the like (whether that perception is always accurate is another question).

And in that spirit, one Tennessee city found that an Amish hands-on approach was exactly what they needed to remove a historic structure. The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle reports that an Amish crew of workers has been deconstructing the city’s 140-year-old Hodgson/Dabbs building, brick-by-brick.

Read more: Amish Hand-Demolish Building in Tennessee, Amish America, June 27, 2019. Image by Henry Taylor for the Leaf Chronicle.

July 15, 2019 by kris de decker Filed Under: Amish, Buildings, Human power, Random, Reuse

Thermal Insulation of Solid-Walls is Underestimated

Oula Lehtinen – CC BY-SA 3.0

Approximately 5.7 million solid-walled houses exist in England, comprising 25% of the housing stock. Most were built between 1750 and 1914. Research shows that their energy efficiency has been underestimated for decades. [Read more…]

February 21, 2018 by kris de decker Filed Under: Architecture, Buildings, Ceramics, Construction, Insulation, Random

African Vernacular Architecture Database

Malawi home built with rammed earth and thatch roof in Chizogwe village. Picture: Jon (Twingi) Sojkowski

I am a registered architect and I have a passion for African vernacular architecture. I recently (Sept. 2014) traveled to Malawi to document the vernacular architecture in the entire country. 4,700 pictures are on the web page.http://www.malawiarchitecture.com/

I also wanted to share with you my latest project… a data base on African vernacular architecture. This project was started because of the lack of information available on line. The data base includes images from every African country. Here is the link to the site:

http://www.africavernaculararchitecture.com/

The goal of the project is to have people, who live or work in an Africa country, submit pictures of vernacular structures to the data base to share with the world. Full credit is given for every picture submitted. For too long, African vernacular architecture has been a topic that has been both under-documented and, unfortunately, ignored. People say there needs to be documentation but yet nothing is done. Whether this is due to difficulties in obtaining funding or just apathy, the fact remains that very little data can be found online.

malawi house with porch

House with porch in Malawi. Picture: Jon (Twingi) Sojkowski

Architecture is as much of a part of a countries culture as is language, music or art. African vernacular architecture is disappearing. I witnessed that fact in Malawi. There are many reasons why vernacular materials and construction techniques are being abandoned in favor of western ones. One main reason is the lack of documentation, especially finding information on line.

I am hoping you could share the project with your readers, the more awareness, the better the chance to convince people to submit pictures to the data base. There is no other resource for African vernacular architecture like the data base: there is no organization gathering information, there is no active research, there is no voice for it. I will gladly answer any questions that you might have about the project.

Cheers,

Jon (Twingi) Sojkowski

September 6, 2015 by kris de decker Filed Under: Africa, Architecture, Buildings, Random

Older Buildings Increase Urban Vitality

older smaller better buildings“All across America, blocks of older, smaller buildings are quietly contributing to robust local economies and distinctive livable communities. This groundbreaking study demonstrates the unique and valuable role that older, smaller buildings play in the development of sustainable cities.

Building on statistical analysis of the built fabric of three major American cities [San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.], the research demonstrates that established neighborhoods with a mix of older, smaller buildings perform better than districts with larger, newer structures when tested against a range of economic, social, and environmental outcome measures.”

“Older, Smaller, Better. Measuring how the character of buildings and blocks influences urban vitality“, National Trust for Historic Preservation, May 2014. Via Lloyd Alter.

May 22, 2014 by kris de decker Filed Under: Architecture, Buildings, Cities, Economy

Abandoned Flour Mill in Spain

Abandoned factories in spainLugares Abandonados is a fascinating blog documenting abandoned buildings in Spain.

There are quite some photo reportages about factories, and this one in particular is noteworthy: a forgotten flour mill with part of the machinery still in excellent condition.

The author does not reveal any location for any of the buildings on the blog.

 

January 17, 2013 by kris de decker Filed Under: Buildings, Factories, History