I recently heard someone say, in a pejorative way, that all real estate developers think of what they build as “products.” I imagine this is in contrast to thinking in terms of buildings as spaces for people to live, raise a family, do their life’s work, and so on.
When I heard this I immediately thought to myself, yeah, we (or at least I) do think of our spaces as products. But I also didn’t see it as a negative thing.
In my view, there’s no reason that classifying something as a “product” has to make it any less beautiful, functional, and/or filled with design intent. My iPhone is a product. The wine on my shelf that somebody labored over is a product. The chair I’m sitting on right now is a product. All of these items were produced by people and then I consumed them because I liked what those people had made.
When I was completing my first master’s in architecture and real estate, I used to walk back and forth across campus between the design school and the business school. And in these two places, we talked about bricks-and-mortar in very different ways.
In the business school, buildings were the proverbial widget. How much does this widget cost to produce? How much can I sell or rent this widget for in the market? And how do I scale up my business so that I can sell/rent more widgets?
On the other hand, in the design school we weren’t all that concerned with the cost of the widget or even what people would pay for it. Instead we were concerned with making it something so much more than just a plain old widget. These weren’t buildings. This was capital “A”, Architecture.
I recently heard someone say, in a pejorative way, that all real estate developers think of what they build as “products.” I imagine this is in contrast to thinking in terms of buildings as spaces for people to live, raise a family, do their life’s work, and so on.
When I heard this I immediately thought to myself, yeah, we (or at least I) do think of our spaces as products. But I also didn’t see it as a negative thing.
In my view, there’s no reason that classifying something as a “product” has to make it any less beautiful, functional, and/or filled with design intent. My iPhone is a product. The wine on my shelf that somebody labored over is a product. The chair I’m sitting on right now is a product. All of these items were produced by people and then I consumed them because I liked what those people had made.
When I was completing my first master’s in architecture and real estate, I used to walk back and forth across campus between the design school and the business school. And in these two places, we talked about bricks-and-mortar in very different ways.
In the business school, buildings were the proverbial widget. How much does this widget cost to produce? How much can I sell or rent this widget for in the market? And how do I scale up my business so that I can sell/rent more widgets?
On the other hand, in the design school we weren’t all that concerned with the cost of the widget or even what people would pay for it. Instead we were concerned with making it something so much more than just a plain old widget. These weren’t buildings. This was capital “A”, Architecture.
Architecture School - Brandon Donnelly - Page 7
I don’t think either school was wrong in their thinking. I just think they were missing each other.
Business is business. If you don’t make a profit then you’re not going to be around for very long. And while many companies can survive by making shitty products, those aren’t great businesses. The best businesses also deliver products that people absolutely love.
So whether we call it architecture, a product, or even a widget, the goal should be to delight people. (Am I allowed to say “customer”?) Make people so happy that they have to tell their friends about it. If we’re doing that, then frankly I don’t care what we call it.
When I was very young I went a Montessori school here in Toronto. If you’re not familiar with Montessori education, it’s basically a very open ended and independent form of learning. Students choose what they want to do.
When I was there (< grade 4), my absolute favorite thing to do was draw maps. I remember them having these large scale maps of the world where you could physically remove each country so that you could then trace it and create your own maps. I spent a lot of time doing exactly that.
To this day, I still really love maps. And I remember many of my friends in architecture school being the same way. So perhaps it comes with the territory.
In any case, I recently started playing around with a product called cartoDB. And one of the things you can easily do with it is connect it to Mailchimp (the service that manages the ATC email newsletter) and anonymously map the location of each subscriber. I couldn’t resist giving it a try.
Below is what that looks like. Not surprisingly, the highest concentrations of subscribers to this blog are in Canada and the US.
I don’t think either school was wrong in their thinking. I just think they were missing each other.
Business is business. If you don’t make a profit then you’re not going to be around for very long. And while many companies can survive by making shitty products, those aren’t great businesses. The best businesses also deliver products that people absolutely love.
So whether we call it architecture, a product, or even a widget, the goal should be to delight people. (Am I allowed to say “customer”?) Make people so happy that they have to tell their friends about it. If we’re doing that, then frankly I don’t care what we call it.
When I was very young I went a Montessori school here in Toronto. If you’re not familiar with Montessori education, it’s basically a very open ended and independent form of learning. Students choose what they want to do.
When I was there (< grade 4), my absolute favorite thing to do was draw maps. I remember them having these large scale maps of the world where you could physically remove each country so that you could then trace it and create your own maps. I spent a lot of time doing exactly that.
To this day, I still really love maps. And I remember many of my friends in architecture school being the same way. So perhaps it comes with the territory.
In any case, I recently started playing around with a product called cartoDB. And one of the things you can easily do with it is connect it to Mailchimp (the service that manages the ATC email newsletter) and anonymously map the location of each subscriber. I couldn’t resist giving it a try.
Below is what that looks like. Not surprisingly, the highest concentrations of subscribers to this blog are in Canada and the US.
I’ve been trying to branch out from talking about Toronto all the time. And that seems to be working somewhat. But I could still do a better job of creating more global content. I’ll try harder.
Completed in 1952, the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, France (more specifically known as the Cité radieuse) is one of the most famous buildings by Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier. Every architecture student learns about it at one point or another.
It’s famous because it was a model for a new way to live and build cities. Le Corbusier envisioned the apartment building as a kind of vertical city. The corridors weren’t thought of or referred to as corridors, they were instead called streets and lined with shops and businesses.
Of course, Le Corbusier later became famous for inspiring an entire generation of buildings that many people now hate. Some believe he was completely misguided and others believe we simply bastardized his intents. But whatever the case may be, he certainly had a profound impact on cities.
So if you happen to be in Marseille between July 4 to 19 (2015), you should check out an installation at the Unité d’habitation called Apartment N°50.
It’s an installation put on by Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart. They are the owners of Apartment N°50 and, since 2008, they have invited a designer or studio to come in and renovate it on an annual basis. They then open it up to the public during the summer. I think that’s a really neat idea and would love to visit sometime.
Click here for the official Apartment N°50 website (it’s in French). The image at the top of this post is from Curbed.
So here’s a zoomed in version:
I’ve been trying to branch out from talking about Toronto all the time. And that seems to be working somewhat. But I could still do a better job of creating more global content. I’ll try harder.
Completed in 1952, the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, France (more specifically known as the Cité radieuse) is one of the most famous buildings by Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier. Every architecture student learns about it at one point or another.
It’s famous because it was a model for a new way to live and build cities. Le Corbusier envisioned the apartment building as a kind of vertical city. The corridors weren’t thought of or referred to as corridors, they were instead called streets and lined with shops and businesses.
Of course, Le Corbusier later became famous for inspiring an entire generation of buildings that many people now hate. Some believe he was completely misguided and others believe we simply bastardized his intents. But whatever the case may be, he certainly had a profound impact on cities.
So if you happen to be in Marseille between July 4 to 19 (2015), you should check out an installation at the Unité d’habitation called Apartment N°50.
It’s an installation put on by Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart. They are the owners of Apartment N°50 and, since 2008, they have invited a designer or studio to come in and renovate it on an annual basis. They then open it up to the public during the summer. I think that’s a really neat idea and would love to visit sometime.
Click here for the official Apartment N°50 website (it’s in French). The image at the top of this post is from Curbed.
