Category: Art

• In support of simplicity

  

  “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” I’m not exactly sure who this quote is attributed to — maybe Einstein — but regardless, I love it. I’m a big fan of simplicity.

  I have a cookbook in my kitchen by Jamie Oliver where each recipe contains no more than 5 main ingredients. There’s a picture of the 5 ingredients, a picture of the final product, and a short explanation about how to make it. It’s my favorite cookbook (and also my only cookbook).

  When I go to a restaurant I prefer to see a short menu rather than a long menu. Not only because it’s easier to make decisions that way, but because I have little confidence that a restaurant with an interminable menu can make that many terrific dishes all at once.

  And in architecture school, I remember being taught that every design project should really only have one principal idea. If you have two ideas, that’s probably one too many. Distill it down. Clarify the idea that you’re trying to communicate.

  Because here’s the thing about simplicity: it’s usually more work to make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. It takes effort. It takes iterations. Whether that be in cooking, design, or in writing.

  But once you’ve got it, simplicity is a beautiful thing. And it also greatly increases the chance that somebody will actually remember the message that you’re trying to get across. Five ingredients. A short menu. And one architectural idea. That’s all it might take.

  Photo by Jakub Dziubak on Unsplash

  2020.10.13

• Ikea launches new digital influencer campaign in Tokyo

  Social media, as we all know, isn’t all that real. Photos are cropped, edited, and distorted all the time. But that’s kind of how things work these days and it’s not just on social media. Back in 2014, it was revealed that about 75% of Ikea’s catalogues were made up of computer generated images. It’s simply a lot faster to do that than stage a bunch of spaces for photoshoots. Fast forward six years and Ikea is now taking it a step further by integrating “digital influencers” into their ads. Here’s what that looks like:

  This particular campaign was done to promote a new store in Tokyo’s Harajuku district. And it features a popular digital influencer known as Imma. This is my first foray into the world of digital influencers, but Imma is apparently popular enough to have some 265,000 followers on Instagram. What I have just learned is that a real human is first photographed and filmed for all of this content. Imma’s digital head is then transplanted onto said content. That’s how these digital influencers are created.

  It all feels very Japanese to me. It also feels a bit like the starting premise of a great Black Mirror episode. But on the other hand, is it really all that different from the highly doctored content that already graces the internet?

  2020.09.29

• Latest artist collaboration: Juanita Lee-Garcia x Slate Asset Management x Junction House

  

  Today I’m excited to announce the latest artist collaboration at Junction House. (For a background on the others, click here.) Bogota-born, Toronto-based Juanita Lee-Garcia has created a series of hand-cut collage panels for the construction hoarding at Junction House (the background color is the project’s signature electric blue color).

  In this installation, Lee-Garcia uses repetition and image repurposing to investigate the limits and the potential of decor in consumer culture. Her work uses simple gestures such as slicing, inserting, folding, and layering to build these new and abstract forms. They are intended to feel both fresh and unfamiliar, as well as comforting — perhaps because of some of their cultural associations.

  We love these sorts of collaborations because we want every single one of our development projects to be more than just a new building. We want it to be a catalyst for positive city building change. So the next time you’re in the Junction, I would encourage you to stop by 2720 Dundas Street West and take in Juanita’s work. Limited edition prints of the panels are also available on her website.

  2020.09.27

• Weekly link roundup — laneway housing to SPACs

  

  Here’s a weekly round up of links and articles that you may find interesting. The topics cover the sorts of things that we usually talk about on this blog.

  • The latest Mackay Laneway House update is now live on the Globizen Journal. The ground floor steel is complete, with framing currently underway. The post has some background on the challenges faced in order to get to this stage.
  • Brick comparison. Here’s a recent tweet of mine. I’m curious if any of you can tell the difference between these two brick finishes and if you have a clear preference. One of them is stamped concrete and the other is real brick (precast concrete with brick slips).
  • Pools as art. Apparently this is a trend right now, but it’s not necessarily a new one. Pablo Picasso accidentally created one when he “signed” the bottom of one in Spain back in the early 1960s. A pool would be fun right now. [FT paywall]
  • Alley house in King’s Cross by architect David Adjaye is currently on the market for £6.5 million. Lots of black. I love the mint green room with the exposed concrete ceiling. Oh, and there’s a pool.
  • Nightclubs are, not surprisingly, really struggling. Most have been closed since March. Unlike restaurants, you can’t really hack together a solution with outdoor dining, heat lamps and takeout. They’re predicated on people being proximate to each other. [Sorry, another FT paywall]
  • SPACs are so hot right now, particularly in the world of Chamath Palihapitiya and Social Capital. A good follow-up to this week’s earlier post about $IPOB’s merger with real estate startup Opendoor.
  • Monocle has just published a new book about “gentle living.” It’s a guide to “slowing down, enjoying more and being happy.” I’m trying to do more of this, or at least be more mindful about it. It doesn’t always/usually work. Perhaps I need this book.
  • “Decade of the home.” Opinion piece about the current desire for suburban over urban locations. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I am steadfast in my belief that urban life is going to prove to be incredibly resilient on the other side of this.
  • McKinsey report about the impact that lockdown is having on digital adoption, e-commerce penetration, and the overall customer experience. You’ll need to enter some information in order to download the PDF, but it’s free.

  Photo: Lost House by Adjaye Associates via The Modern House

  2020.09.19

• The grandeur of Montreal

  

  I was in Montreal for the long weekend and I decided to take the time off from writing. I don’t do that very often, but it was the right thing to do this past weekend.

  Montreal is one of my favorite cities. I spent quite a bit of time there when I was in my early 20s and I almost ended up at McGill for my undergraduate degree. So I have a soft spot for the place.

  One of my friends once described Montreal to me (and contrasted it against Toronto) by saying that it has grandeur. And I think that is exactly the right word.

  There are so many moments throughout the city where you just feel its impressiveness. It’s almost as if, from the very beginning, the city knew what it was destined to become.

  In contrast to this, urban planner Joe Berridge has, in the past, referred to Toronto as an accidental metropolis. And I think that is a similarly accurate way of describing our city.

  Sometimes in Toronto (or perhaps oftentimes, depending on who you ask), you have to scratch a little beneath the surface to find what makes Toronto a truly great city.

  It’s as if the city didn’t know what it was destined to become, and built accordingly. Things just happened — accidentally.

  Grandeur isn’t usually something that is discussed today in city planning circles. We instead talk about things like angular planes, context and, of course, building height.

  But maybe it’s time we rethink our list of requirements. Maybe it’s time we ask ourselves: “Are we creating a city with grandeur?”

  Image: Drone photo from the top of Mount Royal

  2020.09.07

• Neon and space

  

  At this point, it is well known that I am a big fan of neon. It is something that we have obviously worked to incorporate into our Junction House project through things like our rooftop placemaking sign (it’s actually LED), our collaboration with local artist Thrush Holmes (his work incorporates neon), and the neon popup gallery that we hosted last year in collaboration with the Downtown Yonge BIA and Neon Demon Studio. So it was no surprise that a friend of mine sent me an ArchDaily article this morning talking about how neon lighting shapes architecture.

  What I like about the piece, and the pictures it includes, is that it emphasize the spatial qualities and potential of neon. For a lot of us, neon has come to represent brash advertising. Neon is bright. That was and is great for advertising. But that association has been changing. Even cities like Hong Kong, which have for so long been synonymous with neon, are starting to lose that form of advertising. I’m not saying that loss is a good thing. But I do think that we are now seeing neon being used in completely different ways. It has become more creative. It has become architectural.

  Below is an excerpt from the ArchDaily article that speaks to this same idea. But what you really want to do is shoot over and look at all of the photos.

  Yet because neon is so fundamentally associated with signage, which can feel limiting or kitschy for some architects, it is often neglected. Rudi Stern writes further that “Unfortunately for many architects, neon is the last shoddy pink ‘pizza’ sign they have seen, and they summarily reject a medium that offers great promise as a spatial and environmental element.” Thus, despite its historical and commercial associations, neon has the potential to be even more than retro symbols or cosmopolitan phrases. Abstract designs, atmospheric colors, and the kinetic properties of light combined can completely alter a space even without references to a historical aesthetic or explicit messages. In the images of the With.It Home below, BodinChapa Architects have used neon in a non-representational way to create a stunningly memorable James Turrell-esque room that is simultaneously tranquil and radiant. Neon light has the power to completely transform a room even if used in as simple a way as lining the corners of the ceiling, due to the unique properties of light in conversation with the sense of space itself. If architects can move past its commercial associations and investigate its relationship to architectural space, neon can become an even more powerful atmospheric element than it is already.

  Photo by Yuiizaa September on Unsplash

  2020.06.01

• Shadow Stalker

  The Shed in Hudson Yards has an exhibition on right now called Manual Override. It features the work of five artists. One of those artists is Lynn Hershman Leeson, who is known for exploring the relationship between humans and technology (naturally, she lives in the Bay Area). Her piece at the exhibition is called Shadow Stalker.

  The way Shadow Stalker works is that you enter your email address — a single data point. The installation then pulls up all of the publicly accessible information associated with your email address. Things like your name, age, address, phone numbers, where you were last seen, and more.

  She refers to this information as your “digital shadow.” It is all of the personal information that is publicly accessible because of the internet. And it is the kind of the information that is already used for things like “predictive policing.” Software that predicts where crime is likely to occur.

  I am fairly public as a result of this blog. Already this year I have written over 75,000 words. So I can only imagine what the internet knows about me. Probably a lot. But of course, I am volunteering a lot of this information. What does the internet know about us that we didn’t explicitly tell it?

  If you’re interested in learning more about Shadow Stalker, here’s a video.

  2019.11.15

• The new Rubell Museum

  

  This December 4 (2019) — the day before Art Basel starts — the Rubell family will open a new 100,000 square foot museum in Miami’s Allapattah district. (For years people have been calling Allapattah the new Wynwood.)

  A former industrial space on a 2.5 acre lot, the building was renovated by New York-based Selldorf Architects. Just over half of the building has been allocated to exhibition space and about 65% of this will be for permanent/longer-term collections.

  The Rubell family started collecting contemporary art in 1965. At the time, they were living in New York City. In 1990 they moved to Miami and in 1993 they opened up the “Rubell Family Collection” in Wynwood, which was a depressed neighborhood up until probably the early 2000s.

  With over 7,200 works, it is now one of the largest privately owned and publicly accessible contemporary art collections in the world. If you live in Miami or you happen to find yourself there this winter, you may want to check out the new Rubell Museum.

  Rendering: Selldorf Architects

  2019.11.10

• Google exhibit demonstrates commitment to STEAM

  As part of this year’s DESIGNART festival in Tokyo, Google Hardware’s Design Studio (led by Ivy Ross) partnered up with Li Edelkoort to create an exhibition that placed Google’s latest hardware products alongside contemporary design objects. Objects that you might find around a home, such as ceramics and furniture. The exhibit is/was called COMMA (it closes this weekend).

  Here is a photo from the exhibition (there’s a Google Pixel 4 XL in this arrangement):

  

  The point of the exhibition was to make you pause (hence the “comma” part) and consider the ongoing conflation of design and tech. It’s about humanizing technology, but also showing you how this is now integral to the way in which Google develops products. All of this is noteworthy because, as many of you know, I am firm believer in the value of art and design.

  A few years ago I wrote about a movement being championed by the Rhode Island School of Design (as well as many others) to transform STEM into STEAM. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math subjects have long been the focus of education agendas. What the STEAM movement aims to do is insert the arts and humanities into this focus.

  What you are seeing above — from one of the largest companies in the world — is recognition that, yes, there’s tremendous value in that one additional letter.

  Photo: Hiroto Miura via Google

  2019.10.26