39. Seeking the Superfruit of Urbanism

Michael Eliason is an architect and founder of Larch Lab, a studio focused on prefabricated, decarbonized, climate-adaptive, low-energy buildings and livable ecodistricts. Eliason, based in Seattle, had a transformative experience while living in Germany – the American residential model could be greatly improved by adopting some of the principles of Baugruppen – self-developed co-housing, without the granola trappings. Hear the Unfrozen interview – and then listen to his podcast, Livable Low-Carbon City.

Intro/Outro: “Spacelab” by Kraftwerk

Discussed:

• Black Sheep Development Co., Larch Lab’s baugruppen partner, headed by Aaron Yankauskas
• Ascent, Milwaukee
• Jeremy McCloud, Nightingale, Melbourne
• California development legislative changes
• First Passivhaus in the US: Smith House, Urbana, IL
• Minneapolis’ single-family housing zoning rollback experiment
• St. Paul’s rent control battle
• Product recommendation: Corsi-Rosenthal Box
• The north star of Baugruppen: Gleiss 21, Vienna