The New Eames Museum Faces Criticism—and Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week

For the Barend household, the dream of inexpensive homeownership in Bolinas, California, has was a dwelling nightmare. After successful a lottery to buy their newly constructed residence by a challenge developed with Habitat for Humanity, the couple found a sequence of development defects, together with a rest room that had been dumping sewage beneath their home. Residents of two different houses within the four-house improvement have reported comparable issues, and the Barends say they’ve struggled to get satisfactory assist. Right here’s how a dream situation shortly turned a nightmare. (Marin Unbiased Journal) Depart it to Los Angeles to show a housing repair right into a struggle over parking. Below a brand new California legislation encouraging extra ADUs, landlords are changing garages and parking areas into new houses, together with spots tenants say are assured of their leases. Housing advocates argue that town wants houses greater than it wants parking, however older residents and people with disabilities concern shedding their areas may pressure them out. (Los Angeles Occasions) Practically a decade after self-styled visionary developer Scott Gillen got down to create The Case, a hilltop enclave of 5 midcentury-inspired Malibu megamansions priced as excessive as $100 million apiece, just one has bought. Now mired in chapter proceedings and a authorized battle over management of the challenge, his bid to construct “America’s costliest neighborhood” is wanting like a really costly case examine within the perils of believing your individual hype. For all his consideration to element, Gillen, it appears, missed an important one: billionaires don’t wish to dwell in a subdivision. (The Wall Road Journal)

Although 2026 was hailed as a “banner yr” for housing reform, Tuesday’s election outcomes point out voters need extra. Alongside sweeping Democratic victories, Californians authorised an $11.25 billion housing bond and a measure to determine a lower-interest homebuyer mortgage fund, whereas voters in Florida and North Carolina backed constitutional amendments aimed toward easing property-tax burdens. New Democratic majorities in a number of states may additionally pave the way in which for extra renter protections and housing funding. Now comes the laborious half: really making housing extra inexpensive. (Dwell) Charles and Ray Eames believed good design ought to be for everybody. Honoring their philosophy, nonetheless, is proving a little bit sophisticated for the brand new Bay Space web site being renovated of their title. Because the Eames Institute strikes ahead with plans by Herzog & de Meuron to rework the previous Birkenstock campus in Novato, California, right into a museum devoted to the design duo, questions are surfacing in regards to the involvement of early donor and Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, whose ties to the Trump administration and anti-immigrant social media posts have been referred to as out as decidedly un-Eames. Right here’s what the institute needed to say in regards to the controversy. (Quick Firm)

High picture courtesy Herzog & de Meuron