Liz Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro was recently asked by designboom about how her firm approached the design of Fifteen Hudson Yards (the first residential tower in New York’s Hudson Yards). The firm had never designed a high-rise before. So while their typical approach would… Read More
Monthly archives of “January 2019”
A mapping of development potential in Toronto
I first met Monika Jaroszonek in 2017, right before she started RATIO.CITY. Since then she has developed some pretty incredible tools for the city building space. Yesterday the company published this interactive visualization looking at development potential across the City of Toronto. The mapping looks… Read More
Unusual ski-spots around the world
“Like so many sports that humans do,” he [Kari Medig] says, “skiing can seem absurd: sliding over the miracle of frozen water, slipping down steep mountains wearing layers of crazy clothes—it really is a strange thing to do.” I love skiing (well snowboarding to be… Read More
Laneway house on the market for $2,845,000
I was looking at this laneway house for sale in Toronto today. It’s located near Queen and Bathurst. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and is about 2,331 square feet (that looks to include a basement). The lot appears to be just over 13′ wide.… Read More
Tallest buildings completed in 2018
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) recently published their annual study looking at all of the 200+ meter tall buildings completed over the last year. 143 were completed around the world. The all-time record was 147, which was in 2017. Last year,… Read More
Real estate startup Knock raises $400 million
I have been writing about the real estate startup Opendoor for many years here on the blog. Another promising startup in this space is Knock, and today it was announced that they just raised a $400 million Series B round (led by Foundry Group). They share… Read More
Are you happy with where you live?
This past weekend I saw a few people reacting on Twitter to this article by Wendell Cox talking about how Canadian families are being denied their preferred housing choice: the detached single family home. The fact that the article is by Wendell Cox should tell… Read More
The disappearing urban advantage
The New York Times has a recent article up talking about the disappearing “urban advantage” for low-skilled workers. It is based on the work of MIT economist David Autor. Here is a chart from the article plotting wages against population density from 1950 to 2015: The… Read More
Dendrochronology of U.S. immigration
I can’t remember where I found it, but I recently stumbled upon this video simulating the dendrochronology of U.S. immigration from 1830 to 2015. It is part of an ongoing project by Pedro Cruz, John Wihbey, Avni Ghael, and Felipe Shibuya, and is supported by… Read More
The geography of gyms
Richard Florida and Patrick Adler recently looked at the geography of gyms across the United States. They analyzed 17 different fitness chains, over 10,000 gyms, and nearly 5,000 zip codes. Full article over here at CityLab. The findings probably won’t surprise you, but it’s still… Read More