MicroPAD (pre-fab) – Workforce Housing

Trachtenberg Architects is collaborating with San Francisco Developer Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests on, MicroPAD (Pre-fab Affordable Dwelling), a prototype project to provide housing for the homeless. At the most fundamental level homelessness is solved when people have a home. It’s that simple — and that complicated. There is no such thing as “low-cost housing” given the high cost of land and labor in urban areas like the Bay Area. Our innovative approach seeks to provide relatively inexpensive dwelling units by making the units extremely compact (ie 160 sf), stacking them up to eight stories high, fabricating them entirely in China, and employing innovative Public/Private financing whereby a for-profit developer (Panoramic Interests) builds the project and leases it back to a City. Panoramic Interests estimates that this approach will deliver dwelling units in the Bay Area in about half the time and at ±60% of the cost of publicly built projects. The MicroPAD team is currently analyzing sites in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Berkeley and San Diego.