I want to adress the factor of brick quality. Extruded bricks are of way higher quality and dimension in general. Back in the day regular field-burn bricks went into the walls not to be seen and a higher grade was placed on the outside. When I open a wall of mine they are all uniform (Reichsformat) but most of them look like a toddler could do them better. Today they are still graded (mostly depending on their position in the kiln) but even the lowest ones are nicer than the best field-burn bricks where. As why field-burn bricks are cheaper, a quick google search will show you.
Also a huge factor: Despite being energy intensive, bricks are often still made locally. They have imense shipment costs. Therefore the rising labor and energy cost in the last third of 20th century should also go into the equation.
I was involved in an interesting experience in cost of masonry/transport in Brazil. We were building a relatively large industrial plant in a remote location, for a multinational client. The drawings showed a block wall made from a standard module size block. All of the local block fabrication was artisanal, lacking any industrial fabrication facility. The contractor laid up a completely non-uniform wall with local block, and then parged the entire surface, and struck off faux mortar joints in an exact module dimension.to perfectly match the drawings. Apparently this was a common local practice, and the additional labor of the parging/striking was less than the cost to bring in uniform sized block...
Thank you for the deep dive into brick-making. It shows mechanization doesn't work to bring down costs if the pressure is on costs of home as a whole greater than the cost influence of any one component of it.
As far as pre-fabrication not being cost-effective, the problem there seems to be the limited size of roads, and hence, truck-beds. Larger pre-fabricated modules could be made, and even lifted by cranes into place, but the narrow truck-bed limits how big and efficient they can be, losing the advantage of building big, even entire, units, in a factory.
Our project seeks to build on the waterfront, and to use barges to transport pre-fabricated elements, a particular advantage in downtown NYC, where we seek to build, and where large truck traffic would be a nightmare. This bridge-build/multi-use skyscraper method will be unique for what aspires to be the largest building in the world.
Ambitious proposal. I like that a lot. Not quite so convinced about having it located in a coastal city. I’m not convinced that a 20 foot sea wall will be enough to save Manhattan from climate change. Have you ever considered building elsewhere? Austin, TX has relatively little threat from climate change, a river downtown that would offer a similar aesthetic, cheaper building costs, and all the indications that it’s going to be the place to be for the next 50 years.
You're probably aware that NYC is planning the "Big 'U' to protect lower Manhattan - a $10b project for which there is currently no funding. The RiverArch could fit between that and the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan, which begins at Montgomery Street, the northern border of our proposed Manhattan side site, which is city-owned pier 36. Pier 36 is currently 7'-9' above sea level according to Google Earth (not even the slightly lower BFE for the east coast of the U.S.). It got totally swamped during Hurricane Sandy and has long-term stability issues. It would be replaced with the RiverArch's foundation (mirrored on the Brooklyn side where a Con Ed pier is now), going 175'-200' deep, according to two structural engineers at AECOM.
The point is, that doing nothing is not an option, and the 1,024' long seawalls, 20' above BFE, and providing floodgates for a basement passthrough sewer system with rainwells, would provide a long-term solution equal to or better than the current proposals on either side of the building, while helping to defray some of the costs of that, TBD.
To make the project pencil out, it has to be in a dense, urban area. The building is modeled to have 7,630 units, 30% @ 60% AMI, which is basically only possible in downtown NYC, or some similarly dense water-constrained city worldwide (London, Paris, Hong Kong, etc.). I'm not sure Austin has the population - 961,855 (2020) - to support it.
We hope the building will last indefinitely, at least 100 years, a milestone the Empire State Building is just over a decade from, for example.
Fair enough. I think what you're trying to do is great. It seems like ambitious projects aren't attempted in the U.S. all that much anymore. I hope you are eventually successful and I get to see it when I'm there to visit family.
That said, I don't think the political will exists to make the necessary investments in engineering solutions to deal with what's coming from climate change for coastal cities. I hope I'm wrong. But it seems to me that decades of storms like Hurricane Sandy every 5 years or so are ahead of us. Combine that with the obviously lukewarm support you've received from government according to the articles you've shared and I'm inclined to be bearish on the long-term prospects of NYC.
If I'm right, places like Austin, Denver, Chicago, and other inland cities will be population centers 100 years from now. Right now, you are correct that maybe Austin couldn't support a project of this scale. Probably not in 2 or 3 decades either. But 50 years? 100? If the goal is longevity I'm less than convinced NYC is your best bet, as iconic as it may be.
Going overseas is a great idea, although Hong Kong seems dicey these days due to the CCP closing in. Europe would be great but considering how the French are restoring Notre Dame to be historically accurate when they had a chance to do something beautiful (https://www.dezeen.com/2019/05/03/notre-dame-glass-roof-spire-cathedral-miysis-studio/), I'm skeptical of local support there. London seems like a great prospect but I've always gotten the impression that they are generally opposed to messing with their skyline. That's entirely anecdotal.
Personally, I'd make a bet on an inland city in North America or somewhere in Asia. I don't know about major cities in India but 100 years from now I'd bet they will have at least 5 or 6 important cities. Singapore seems like an interesting option. I'd avoid China, but if you can stomach working with the CCP and taking the risk they have some excellent cities that would be wonderful as well and the will to get it done quickly.
I wrote to Carrie Lamb, the equivalent of mayor of Hong Kong, and got a reply from her staff, but then no follow-through. I think she is "busy" at this time.
Real Estate is local and I don't know anyone from Europe, or even Austin, and I have lived in NYC all my life, and have been working with a local developer for 3.25 years on this, though he is too small to finance it alone. At $20.3b @ $824psf build costs, there's probably no developer willing to take it on alone, including Extell, Related, or JDS Development (the Principal developer behind the American Copper Tower saw the presentation and said from the first picture he would "build it tomorrow" but didn't believe I would get permission. He's why I pivoted to approvals, but so far, I've only gotten a letter of how to proceed from the Army Corps. At least they didn't say "No"!). The other developers haven't even answered. I'm trying to raise $5m now, with placements here: https://bit.ly/RiverArch-AIN, https://bit.ly/RiverArch-Hatcher, https://bit.ly/Uplink-RA and others, but the response so far have been mostly for debt-financing, which is useless since there is no collateral. As an investment banker told me yesterday, I need Angel Investors (to be fair, he is looking for Private Equity to do that now).
China used to be open to exciting architecture, but in addition to the problems you cited, President Xi has said he wants "no more funny buildings." Funny. Singapore makes sense, but one still needs connections to get started there.
We need a new and better lawyer. The last one suggested a State override of the zoning text resolution, but then quit because he didn't do state applications (we need federal permission too, including FAA, EPA and Coast Guard and Clean Water Act compliance, etc.).
We need lobbyists since it's just possible there will be neighborhood opposition (OK, highly probable). Hudson Yards has taken 23,000 professionals and workers and the RiverArch will have similar demands, plus specialists in water construction and inverted elevators (see the St. Louis Gateway Arch for an older example).
We need an Environmental Assessment (the full EIS comes later, which I've been told could be 1,000 pages).
All of this will take capital, to form a company, to hire the above professionals, to get a small staff and pay a small stipend to VIP board members (9 in the business plan) with reputation and influence (the developer I'm working with knows incoming mayor Eric Adams well, and we both met his land use director 3 years ago).
You're right, of course. Amazon's HQ2 went down before the site was even surveyed. Industry City's developer gave up when the city council and CBs all went against him. A Large Scale Real Estate Development (LSRD) just 5 blocks from our proposed Manhattan site finally won the right to build...after 2 years and several lawsuits to prevent it.
It's a slog. Know any investors looking for high risk/high ROI projects that will change the world of building and housing?
Thanks, but it seems to be for tech startups only, presumably for the quick ROI on just a few million dollars. That's the problem; the tax code, QE, and general policies have made the FI in the FIRE sector the biggest game in town, with most of the risk wrung out (for now). I'm trying to get my foot in the crypto door with a new startup, RHOVE: https://rhove.com/yimby/river-arch/ but they aren't ready to list any properties yet, even though they've been doing this since 2018, an eternity in the tech startup space. I'd rather have a real company behind the project than crowd-source it, anyway, both for reputation and for expertise and mentoring.
I want to adress the factor of brick quality. Extruded bricks are of way higher quality and dimension in general. Back in the day regular field-burn bricks went into the walls not to be seen and a higher grade was placed on the outside. When I open a wall of mine they are all uniform (Reichsformat) but most of them look like a toddler could do them better. Today they are still graded (mostly depending on their position in the kiln) but even the lowest ones are nicer than the best field-burn bricks where. As why field-burn bricks are cheaper, a quick google search will show you.
Also a huge factor: Despite being energy intensive, bricks are often still made locally. They have imense shipment costs. Therefore the rising labor and energy cost in the last third of 20th century should also go into the equation.
I was involved in an interesting experience in cost of masonry/transport in Brazil. We were building a relatively large industrial plant in a remote location, for a multinational client. The drawings showed a block wall made from a standard module size block. All of the local block fabrication was artisanal, lacking any industrial fabrication facility. The contractor laid up a completely non-uniform wall with local block, and then parged the entire surface, and struck off faux mortar joints in an exact module dimension.to perfectly match the drawings. Apparently this was a common local practice, and the additional labor of the parging/striking was less than the cost to bring in uniform sized block...
Thank you for the deep dive into brick-making. It shows mechanization doesn't work to bring down costs if the pressure is on costs of home as a whole greater than the cost influence of any one component of it.
As far as pre-fabrication not being cost-effective, the problem there seems to be the limited size of roads, and hence, truck-beds. Larger pre-fabricated modules could be made, and even lifted by cranes into place, but the narrow truck-bed limits how big and efficient they can be, losing the advantage of building big, even entire, units, in a factory.
Our project seeks to build on the waterfront, and to use barges to transport pre-fabricated elements, a particular advantage in downtown NYC, where we seek to build, and where large truck traffic would be a nightmare. This bridge-build/multi-use skyscraper method will be unique for what aspires to be the largest building in the world.
More details in this media article: http://bit.ly/BroadsheetRA1 or here: https://bit.ly/RiverArch-Hatcher
Ambitious proposal. I like that a lot. Not quite so convinced about having it located in a coastal city. I’m not convinced that a 20 foot sea wall will be enough to save Manhattan from climate change. Have you ever considered building elsewhere? Austin, TX has relatively little threat from climate change, a river downtown that would offer a similar aesthetic, cheaper building costs, and all the indications that it’s going to be the place to be for the next 50 years.
You're probably aware that NYC is planning the "Big 'U' to protect lower Manhattan - a $10b project for which there is currently no funding. The RiverArch could fit between that and the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan, which begins at Montgomery Street, the northern border of our proposed Manhattan side site, which is city-owned pier 36. Pier 36 is currently 7'-9' above sea level according to Google Earth (not even the slightly lower BFE for the east coast of the U.S.). It got totally swamped during Hurricane Sandy and has long-term stability issues. It would be replaced with the RiverArch's foundation (mirrored on the Brooklyn side where a Con Ed pier is now), going 175'-200' deep, according to two structural engineers at AECOM.
The point is, that doing nothing is not an option, and the 1,024' long seawalls, 20' above BFE, and providing floodgates for a basement passthrough sewer system with rainwells, would provide a long-term solution equal to or better than the current proposals on either side of the building, while helping to defray some of the costs of that, TBD.
To make the project pencil out, it has to be in a dense, urban area. The building is modeled to have 7,630 units, 30% @ 60% AMI, which is basically only possible in downtown NYC, or some similarly dense water-constrained city worldwide (London, Paris, Hong Kong, etc.). I'm not sure Austin has the population - 961,855 (2020) - to support it.
We hope the building will last indefinitely, at least 100 years, a milestone the Empire State Building is just over a decade from, for example.
Fair enough. I think what you're trying to do is great. It seems like ambitious projects aren't attempted in the U.S. all that much anymore. I hope you are eventually successful and I get to see it when I'm there to visit family.
That said, I don't think the political will exists to make the necessary investments in engineering solutions to deal with what's coming from climate change for coastal cities. I hope I'm wrong. But it seems to me that decades of storms like Hurricane Sandy every 5 years or so are ahead of us. Combine that with the obviously lukewarm support you've received from government according to the articles you've shared and I'm inclined to be bearish on the long-term prospects of NYC.
If I'm right, places like Austin, Denver, Chicago, and other inland cities will be population centers 100 years from now. Right now, you are correct that maybe Austin couldn't support a project of this scale. Probably not in 2 or 3 decades either. But 50 years? 100? If the goal is longevity I'm less than convinced NYC is your best bet, as iconic as it may be.
Going overseas is a great idea, although Hong Kong seems dicey these days due to the CCP closing in. Europe would be great but considering how the French are restoring Notre Dame to be historically accurate when they had a chance to do something beautiful (https://www.dezeen.com/2019/05/03/notre-dame-glass-roof-spire-cathedral-miysis-studio/), I'm skeptical of local support there. London seems like a great prospect but I've always gotten the impression that they are generally opposed to messing with their skyline. That's entirely anecdotal.
Personally, I'd make a bet on an inland city in North America or somewhere in Asia. I don't know about major cities in India but 100 years from now I'd bet they will have at least 5 or 6 important cities. Singapore seems like an interesting option. I'd avoid China, but if you can stomach working with the CCP and taking the risk they have some excellent cities that would be wonderful as well and the will to get it done quickly.
I wrote to Carrie Lamb, the equivalent of mayor of Hong Kong, and got a reply from her staff, but then no follow-through. I think she is "busy" at this time.
Real Estate is local and I don't know anyone from Europe, or even Austin, and I have lived in NYC all my life, and have been working with a local developer for 3.25 years on this, though he is too small to finance it alone. At $20.3b @ $824psf build costs, there's probably no developer willing to take it on alone, including Extell, Related, or JDS Development (the Principal developer behind the American Copper Tower saw the presentation and said from the first picture he would "build it tomorrow" but didn't believe I would get permission. He's why I pivoted to approvals, but so far, I've only gotten a letter of how to proceed from the Army Corps. At least they didn't say "No"!). The other developers haven't even answered. I'm trying to raise $5m now, with placements here: https://bit.ly/RiverArch-AIN, https://bit.ly/RiverArch-Hatcher, https://bit.ly/Uplink-RA and others, but the response so far have been mostly for debt-financing, which is useless since there is no collateral. As an investment banker told me yesterday, I need Angel Investors (to be fair, he is looking for Private Equity to do that now).
China used to be open to exciting architecture, but in addition to the problems you cited, President Xi has said he wants "no more funny buildings." Funny. Singapore makes sense, but one still needs connections to get started there.
We need a new and better lawyer. The last one suggested a State override of the zoning text resolution, but then quit because he didn't do state applications (we need federal permission too, including FAA, EPA and Coast Guard and Clean Water Act compliance, etc.).
We need lobbyists since it's just possible there will be neighborhood opposition (OK, highly probable). Hudson Yards has taken 23,000 professionals and workers and the RiverArch will have similar demands, plus specialists in water construction and inverted elevators (see the St. Louis Gateway Arch for an older example).
We need an Environmental Assessment (the full EIS comes later, which I've been told could be 1,000 pages).
All of this will take capital, to form a company, to hire the above professionals, to get a small staff and pay a small stipend to VIP board members (9 in the business plan) with reputation and influence (the developer I'm working with knows incoming mayor Eric Adams well, and we both met his land use director 3 years ago).
You're right, of course. Amazon's HQ2 went down before the site was even surveyed. Industry City's developer gave up when the city council and CBs all went against him. A Large Scale Real Estate Development (LSRD) just 5 blocks from our proposed Manhattan site finally won the right to build...after 2 years and several lawsuits to prevent it.
It's a slog. Know any investors looking for high risk/high ROI projects that will change the world of building and housing?
Have you ever heard of Emergent Ventures?
Thanks, but it seems to be for tech startups only, presumably for the quick ROI on just a few million dollars. That's the problem; the tax code, QE, and general policies have made the FI in the FIRE sector the biggest game in town, with most of the risk wrung out (for now). I'm trying to get my foot in the crypto door with a new startup, RHOVE: https://rhove.com/yimby/river-arch/ but they aren't ready to list any properties yet, even though they've been doing this since 2018, an eternity in the tech startup space. I'd rather have a real company behind the project than crowd-source it, anyway, both for reputation and for expertise and mentoring.
Anyone else?
This is very American, your first paragraph says that brick isnt used anymore. Most new houses in Australia are made with brick
Very nice. Seems to point towards onsite 3D printing being a solution, albeit with its own set of problems you’ve highlighted in the past.
Very interesting and well written essay. Not really sure what to think about this!