Since I’ve talked a lot before about the profession of architecture and the future of it, I thought I would share this recent interview with Mark Wigley from Surface Magazine (May 2014). Since 2004, Wigley was the Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture,… Read More
Most people would agree that branding is a powerful and important exercise in the world of business. We recognize that brand equity is something that pays dividends in the future. When you walk around a city with a Starbucks, Tim Hortons, or some other coffee… Read More
Yesterday a colleague at the office sent around this Globe and Mail article talking about a Vancouver family of 4 (plus one cat) who live in a 1,000 square foot loft near downtown that they purchased in 2003 for $269,900. There weren’t really any photos of… Read More
After yesterday’s post about Toronto, I had a friend ask me on Facebook what it is exactly that I think happened to make this city so much cooler. Was it because of one iconic building like Toronto’s new City Hall? Was it because of our… Read More
“Toronto is a city that has long struggled to make any sort of impression on the imagination.” That is how Monocle correspondent Christopher Frey started his recent architectural feature on Toronto’s iconic City Hall. To watch the video click here. It’s about 5 minutes long.… Read More
I’ve been following Airbnb pretty much since the beginning. The company has always fascinated me because I saw it as being less about technology and more about travel, hospitality, community and, in my view, real estate. An office building is just a set of spaces that get… Read More
One of the reasons I’m so fascinated by cities is that it’s becoming increasingly more important to get them right. From about 1831 to 1925, London was the largest city in the world. Its population went from somewhere around 1.5 to 2 million people to… Read More
Last week Toronto City Council voted to support planning staff’s recommendation to approve the landmark Mirvish + Gehry development on King Street West in the Theatre District. The revised design now includes 2 towers (as opposed to 3) at 82 and 92 storeys tall. As… Read More
The New York Times published an interesting and popular article last Friday called The Post-Post-Apocalyptic Detroit. It of course talks all about the efforts of billionaire Dan Gilbert, but it also talks about the initiatives of many small and local entrepreneurs who are doing their… Read More
Last night my father and I were walking to dinner and he commented to me that he thinks my generation will be a lot healthier than his–at least on average–given how much more my generation walks. I responded by reaffirming to him how little I… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 