I had coffee this morning with an engineer who is going back to business school in order to segue into real estate development. This is a fairly typical journey. Lots of people come into development from a related discipline. In my case, it was architecture… Read More
Construction is generally considered to be the world’s largest industry, and yet, it is well known that its productivity levels suck. Over the last half century, the industry has experienced something in between meager and negative productivity growth. It is for this reason that, for… Read More
Montreal is, in many ways, a city of winding exterior stairs. If you’ve been there, then you know. The city is overwhelmingly a city of low-rise apartments (less than five storeys). And with these, comes lots of exterior circulation. But this tradition doesn’t just apply… Read More
There is an ongoing architecture/development joke that the way you design a building is by first starting with the parking. Once you’ve figured out how the parking will work, you can then move on to, you know, the secondary stuff, like figuring out how actual… Read More
This is the sort of housing project that you’d fully expect to find in Tokyo. Seven homes built on a small urban lot measuring only 11 feet wide by 93 feet deep. But in this case, it’s not Tokyo; it’s Chinatown, Philadelphia, where a residual… Read More
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s… Read More
The late fashion designer, Virgil Abloh, had a design rule for himself called the “3% approach.” Above is a slide from a presentation that he gave at Harvard back in 2013 where he listed it as item 3 of his “personal design language.” The idea… Read More
Today, let’s take a look at the Iconik Apartments in Prague. Completed in 2023 and designed by edit!, this mid-rise project is split into two distinct volumes — a 9-story one and an 8-story one. This was done to respond to both the surrounding context… Read More
Today on the blog, I thought we’d feature a new fourplex being developed here in Toronto at 2343 Gerrard Street East called The Walk-Up. Designed by Studio JCI and presented by Paul Johnston of Unique Urban Homes, this is the first in a series of… Read More
Pat Hanson of gh3* is absolutely right with her comment, here, about why we are seeing more windowless bedrooms being built in Toronto: In much the same way, some of Toronto’s development policies encourage windowless bedrooms. “I don’t think it’s driven by cost,” says architect Pat… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 