Last week was developer Urban Capital’s 5th annual “Naughty or Nice” party. It’s obviously a holiday tradition of theirs and it has become a tradition of mine to attend. Judging by my vast collection of photo booth photos, there’s a chance I may have been to all of them. It’s easily one of the best holiday parties in the business.

One of the things that Urban Capital does at its annual party is release its annual magazine. And this year I was fortunate enough to be invited to write a piece for it on the highs and lows of mid-rise development. Put differently, it’s about the challenges facing developers who want to build mid-rise, but also why they’re pretty great for cities.

If you’d like to have a read, you can do that online by clicking here. And if you’d like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, I can make that happen as well. Tweet at me. Alternatively, you can also pick up the magazine at any Urban Capital sales office.

I deliberately tried to make it so it wasn’t your typical real estate puff piece: condos are great, yada, yada, you should buy one from us. I tried to make it an intelligent piece on some of the real challenges facing mid-rise developers. And that’s what Urban Capital wanted as well. I hope you enjoy it :)

I recently had a discussion with Ben Stevens about architecture and real estate development for his video blog, The Skyline Forum. I’ve posted about his blog before because I think it’s a great idea and a great forum for the industry. I sure hope he keeps it up.

Here’s what we talked about in Ben’s words:

“In Episode 6, I caught up with Brandon Donnelly of the very popular blog Architect This City. Brandon has degrees in both architecture and real estate development and as such has a unique perspective on the two disciplines. In this episode, I was interested to hear about the rationale behind his decision to pursue development over architecture, his definition of “real estate developer,” and his suggestions for pursuing the kind of work in real estate development which he does (currently in Toronto). It was a great conversation and confirmed for me a lot of things I’d learned through reading his fantastic blog.”

And here’s the video discussion:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-o_gT9czfM&w=560&h=315]

A big thanks to Ben for inviting me to participate – he has chatted with some big names. As a published author himself, I also appreciated him encouraging me to write a book. I’ve been thinking about doing that. Oh, and a big thanks to my mom for providing the Christmas poinsettia that ended up being prominently featured in the background ;)

I haven’t watched the full video yet, but one thing is clear: I’m quite the hand talker.

My friend Nicolas Koff – who I went to architecture school with, twice – recently completed a house near Hamilton, Ontario. I think it’s stunning and so I wanted to share it with you all today. It was also featured in Dezeen Magazine this week. That’s where the photos are from.

Beyond its good looks though, it’s also a great example of sustainable design. The walls were prefabricated and are 40cm thick in order to reduce energy consumption. There are also solar panels on the roof to offset some of the electrical loads. And this is just some of the sustainability strategies employed.

Click here to see the rest of the photos at Dezeen. I hope you like it as much as I do.