Almost every example photo provided in the article are a) reasonably good looking buildings and b) distinct looking in some ways. Not every building needs to be a landmark icon. Most properties, like most homes, are just a part of a much larger fabric, and the 4-6 story 'stick and concrete' structures are extremely effective. I am building one of these now, and it is an absolute sweet spot for most of America for construction cost, building codes, density, and schedule. Any taller and we get into high rise building codes and costs sky rocket. Lower density is hard to make a real estate play due to land costs in areas you want to place apartments. Wood is super cheap, renewable, and easy as a building material. Most urbanizing US cities could use another 10,000 apartment units like this to support revitalization of the urban cores across America.
> A four-story Texas doughnut can get 50 or 60 apartments onto an acre of land, while the most aggressively engineered West Coast stick-and-concrete hybrid (two-story podiums are allowed now, along with other variations) can get almost 200.<p>Sounds like we should be building more of these in our cities to increase the housing supply.
Sure, many have similar look and feel and interior appointment, but I fail to see how this is worse than apartment and condo buildings in Japan, SKorea, China, Taiwan, etc with their penchant for exterior decorative tiles of different kinds but generally quite interchangeable. Also they look better than the low to mid rise abominations from the 60s and 70s.
Looking at the photos, it appears that Texas is well represented (and not in a good way). My fear is that in 20 years, these buildings will be a stain on the landscape, as many owners will not spend a dime on aesthetic upgrades.