I recently started reading the blog of Michael Mortensen. Michael is a real estate developer and urban planner based in the UK. And if you like my blog, I think you’ll also like his.

Last week he published a post talking about a UK development company called Pocket and a recent design competition that they organized called “Pocket two bedroom.”

Historically the firm has been focused on well-designed and compact one bedroom apartments (38 square meters) that they deliver at a minimum 20% discount relative to typical market rate housing in London.

But over time, they found that they had to turn people away because they were looking for larger – yet still affordable – two bedroom apartments. So the firm decided to figure out how to scale their model to larger units.

To do this, they went out and asked 19 architects to come up with ideas for a two bedroom Pocket apartment. They then published all of the ideas online.

Firstly, I applaud them for making their competition results public. Most real estate companies wouldn’t do this.

Secondly, it’s interesting to take note of the recurring design themes, as they have on page 24-25 of their competition book. 

Some of the themes include “deep thresholds” that blur private and communal spaces; “thick walls” that allow for storage and servicing; flexible spaces and fewer dedicated spaces; and dual entry apartments.

This last item was particularly interesting to me. It’s a simple idea – two separate doors leading into one apartment – but it can allow for a number of flexible sharing scenarios. I am already imagining somebody creating an Airbnb rental out of their second bedroom.

Housing is certainly undergoing a transformation.

Today my friends and I spent the day at Snowbird.

In terms of the skiing and snowboarding, it’s way up there for me alongside Jackson Hole.

But beyond the mountain, two things really stood out for me. Firstly, I really liked the overall brand and identity of the resort. Everything from the napkins in the cafeteria to the ski run signs were decidedly modern. Secondly, I loved the Brutalist architecture. And both of these elements combined to create what felt to me like a truly modern ski resort.

Here are two photos that I took today:

Developed in the mid-1960s by a man named Ted Johnson, the vision had always been to create a new kind of resort. In fact, Ted was insistent that they eschew the typical faux-alpine architecture that had come to characterize ski towns. 

Here’s a brief summary of the parties involved and Ted’s design direction, via Salt Lake Modern:

In 1965, the Snowbird Design Group was founded to create the first master plan. The original group was composed of Robert Bliss, Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Utah, Jim Christopher, principal at Brixen & Christopher Architects, Dan Kiley, renowned landscape architect and site planning consultant based in Vermont, and architect Jack Smith. Johnson was adamant that the new resort not look “alpine lodgey” and based on the steep terrain and available land, the only choice for design would be to make it compact and dense. An aesthetic very unlike Alta, located just above Snowbird.

For me, it’s the contrast between the rugged exposed concrete and the warm wood that I love. I left today thinking to myself that Snowbird is the most architecturally interesting ski resort I’ve ever visited.

But as luck would have it and immediately after we left the resort, I discovered a community group called, “Save our Canyons.” And they don’t appear to be as smitten as I am with the Brutalist architecture. Here’s an excerpt from one of their articles talking about a new construction project at Snowbird:

“Alas, more Snowbird droppings are fouling our Wasatch nest. Snowbird, already renowned for the hideous concrete bunkers at its base, has plopped another wad of architectural guano on top of Hidden Peak.”

Of course, it is well known that Brutalist architecture isn’t often a crowd favorite. But when done well, it can be quite beautiful. Hopefully there are others who see what my friends and I saw today.

When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Toronto, I never played in the backyard. I played in the streets. That’s where all the kids came together.

We would play baseball in somebody’s driveway, using one of the garage door “squares” as the strike zone. We would play football on corner lots, where it was tackle on the grass and “two-hand touch” on the street. And we would wax our curbs so that we could skateboard them.

None of these spaces were ever really intended for baseball, football, or skateboarding, but we kids repurposed them.

As people, including families, continue to move into urban centers around the world, I have no doubt that the next generation of children will once again repurpose spaces for play. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have work to do when it comes to properly preparing our communities for people of all shapes and sizes.

One of the most interesting design challenges facing us today has to do with our towers.

Architects have long been obsessed with the idea of vertical villages. Le Corbusier’s Unité d'habitation in Marseille had two shopping streets embedded within the tower that were intended to act as public spines. I don’t know how well they did, but it was a highly progressive idea for the time.

Following on this idea, I was recently watching a TED talk with architect Ole Scheeren (thanks Mariane) and I was fascinated by his obsession with breaking down the raw verticality of towers.

His belief was that, yes, cities are and will continue to become more dense through tall buildings, but that most towers isolate rather than connect people. His work strives to do the opposite.

And this one of the big trends that I think we will see more of in our cites. We will see new forms of urban connectedness and a blurring of private, public, and semi-public spaces. Screw Euclidean zoning.

On that note, I am reminded that I owe the ATC community a post on my predictions for 2016. I hope to get that out shortly.

Diagram via Büro Ole Scheeren