Some of you may want to debate the “center of the world” title (New York may be more deserving), but Laura Parker of National Geographic recently published a great essay describing the tremendous growth that London has seen over the last 30 years thanks to in part the deregulation of the financial services industry. Here is an excerpt:

As the manufacturing industry splintered, the docks of what was once the world’s largest port fell victim to shipping modernization and closed. The death in 1965 of Winston Churchill, the great prime minister, marked “the last time that London would be the capital of the world,” the Observer noted. Population continued a downward slide, bottoming out at 6.7 million in 1988. By then London’s fortunes had changed with deregulation of the financial services industry, known as the Big Bang, along with the shift to electronic trading, which enabled London to rival Tokyo and New York. A new financial district rose on the ruins of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, a marshy nub that juts into the Thames. Canary Wharf, as the district is called, became London’s first modern large-scale regeneration project.

According to National Geographic, London’s population grew by about 1.2 million between 2006 and 2016. That’s a pretty incredible number and is why the city estimates that they need about 66,000 new housing units a year just to keep up the growth. Like many supply constrained big cities, they’re not meeting that target.

For the full essay, click here. It comes packaged with some incredible photographs by Luca Locatelli.

I really like what has been put forward for Block 8 in the newly developing West Don Lands neighborhood of Toronto. Here is a rendering looking east from the Distillery District toward the proposed westernmost tower:

It feels like an extension of the Distillery District, which was clearly the intent. The materiality also reminds me of Junction House. Red brick at the base to fit within its context, and a more modern material palette on the upper floors. 

I also like how, in this instance, the building steps out on its south side, as opposed to in. It’s something different. Not every building has to look like a wedding cake, right?

The architecture is by COBE Architects and architectsAlliance. The developers are Dream, Kilmer Group, and Tricon. And the plan is for 756 rental apartments, of which 225 will be affordable and integrated throughout the 3 towers. 

For more information, check out Urban Toronto.

Each year, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are tasked with designing and then physically building a new single-family house in an economically depressed neighborhood. Sometimes, like this year, the house may have multiple dwelling units.

I have always thought that this is a great exercise both from a pedagogical standpoint and from a positive impact standpoint. Young architecture students get to experience designing and building something from scratch, and lower-income families get a new house. I toured one of the completed houses in New Haven back in, I think, 2005. 

This building project, which was started in 1967, is fairly unique among architecture schools, though others have replicated the model. When I was living in the US, I spent a few weekends working on homes for Rebuilding Together Philadelphia. But the scope was fairly limited. It was nothing like this.

I think more schools should do this. And I also wonder if there aren’t permutations of this model that could live outside of the university context.

Image: Yale