Lloyd Alter of Treehugger recently wrote about this infill housing project in Paris. Designed by Mobile Architectural Office (MAO), it is a 6-storey building with 6 residential suites (two of which are 3-storey triplex suites) and 1 ground floor non-residential space.
Building section:
But here’s where things get really remarkable: the area of this corner site is less than 100 m2 (~1,000 sf), the construction budget was €940,000 (excluding VAT), and almost the entire structure was built out of cross-laminated timber. So overall, this is an incredibly sustainable build: it uses land and services efficiently and it uses low-carbon materials.
At this point, you should now be wondering, “why can’t we just do this everywhere?” And this would be the right question.
Lloyd correctly points out in his article that one of the things that makes this building feasible is that it only has one exit stair (as well as no elevator). Typically you need two means of egress, which can serve as a real barrier to smaller builds like this one here.
But in this case, and this is part of the argument, the building is small enough that, should a fire or emergency happen, occupants could be rescued through their windows. So technically there are still two ways of getting out.
In this year’s predictions, I mentioned that we would see “supportive building code changes”, which would help to encourage more infill housing. Exiting is one of the changes I had in mind when I wrote the post. So here’s hoping that policy makers are reading this blog, looking to projects like this one in Paris, and recognizing the benefits.
Talking about exit stairs may not be as exciting and seemingly impactful as something like a foreign buyer ban, but I promise you that removing the many barriers to building this scale of housing would ultimately bring more benefit to our cities.
P.S. This project is also social rental housing.
Image: MAO
The central bank tightening and interest rate hikes that we saw last year will come to an end in the first quarter of 2023 as inflation gets under control. This will ultimately lead to a recession but my sense is that it will be more mild than severe. For this reason, I don't think anyone should expect ultra-low rates to return in the short-term.
Much of the real estate sector went on pause in the second half of 2022. But ultimately
I am so tired of sensational headlines:
The Ontario Line will zip across the core and up to Eglinton, easing gridlock and alleviating TTC misery. It will also plow through peaceful Toronto neighbourhoods, displacing homes, businesses and everything in its path.
I know exactly what business model it is serving and why it is done, but I'll ask the question anyway: Why do we need to make everything out to be a problem?
In this case, we're talking about a new and important piece of city building infrastructure. A subway line that will run through the densest parts of this country and alleviate congestion at key interchanges, as well as broadly across the city.
It is something that we, as a city, have been griping about for many decades. And now, it is finally happening! Will it involve constructing things? Yes. Will it actually displace "everything in its path?" No.
But as we all know, this is the way media works today. They set the agenda (i.e. tell us what we should be terrified and/or pissed off about) and then they sell our attention. And an effective way to do that is to make sure that the headlines get us really worked up.
Lloyd Alter of Treehugger recently wrote about this infill housing project in Paris. Designed by Mobile Architectural Office (MAO), it is a 6-storey building with 6 residential suites (two of which are 3-storey triplex suites) and 1 ground floor non-residential space.
Building section:
But here’s where things get really remarkable: the area of this corner site is less than 100 m2 (~1,000 sf), the construction budget was €940,000 (excluding VAT), and almost the entire structure was built out of cross-laminated timber. So overall, this is an incredibly sustainable build: it uses land and services efficiently and it uses low-carbon materials.
At this point, you should now be wondering, “why can’t we just do this everywhere?” And this would be the right question.
Lloyd correctly points out in his article that one of the things that makes this building feasible is that it only has one exit stair (as well as no elevator). Typically you need two means of egress, which can serve as a real barrier to smaller builds like this one here.
But in this case, and this is part of the argument, the building is small enough that, should a fire or emergency happen, occupants could be rescued through their windows. So technically there are still two ways of getting out.
In this year’s predictions, I mentioned that we would see “supportive building code changes”, which would help to encourage more infill housing. Exiting is one of the changes I had in mind when I wrote the post. So here’s hoping that policy makers are reading this blog, looking to projects like this one in Paris, and recognizing the benefits.
Talking about exit stairs may not be as exciting and seemingly impactful as something like a foreign buyer ban, but I promise you that removing the many barriers to building this scale of housing would ultimately bring more benefit to our cities.
P.S. This project is also social rental housing.
Image: MAO
The central bank tightening and interest rate hikes that we saw last year will come to an end in the first quarter of 2023 as inflation gets under control. This will ultimately lead to a recession but my sense is that it will be more mild than severe. For this reason, I don't think anyone should expect ultra-low rates to return in the short-term.
Much of the real estate sector went on pause in the second half of 2022. But ultimately
I am so tired of sensational headlines:
The Ontario Line will zip across the core and up to Eglinton, easing gridlock and alleviating TTC misery. It will also plow through peaceful Toronto neighbourhoods, displacing homes, businesses and everything in its path.
I know exactly what business model it is serving and why it is done, but I'll ask the question anyway: Why do we need to make everything out to be a problem?
In this case, we're talking about a new and important piece of city building infrastructure. A subway line that will run through the densest parts of this country and alleviate congestion at key interchanges, as well as broadly across the city.
It is something that we, as a city, have been griping about for many decades. And now, it is finally happening! Will it involve constructing things? Yes. Will it actually displace "everything in its path?" No.
But as we all know, this is the way media works today. They set the agenda (i.e. tell us what we should be terrified and/or pissed off about) and then they sell our attention. And an effective way to do that is to make sure that the headlines get us really worked up.
Construction costs tempered in the second half of 2022 and started to show some evidence of price softening. I think we will see more of this in 2023, which will be healthy for the market. Cost management over the last few years has been a meat grinder for the development industry.
Pre-construction condominium sales for well-located projects will return in a more fulsome way by the spring. This will be driven by buyers now having clarity around where interest rates will be hanging out in the short-term and, in the case of Canada's largest cities, by record-high immigration levels.
For the tertiary/fringe housing markets that saw big run ups in pricing during the pandemic, I unfortunately think it will take many years for prices to fully rebound. The price increases we saw in these submarkets were of course a result of low rates, but it was also driven by a view on urban decentralization that in my view did not actually materialize.
The desire to add more housing to single-family neighborhoods will continue to pick up steam across North America. How exactly this plays out will be market specific, but in Toronto I expect to see new planning policies put in place, as well as supportive building code changes.
Public transit ridership will remain below pre-pandemic levels throughout 2023. This will continue to exacerbate public finances.
Autonomous taxis will grow rapidly this year. Companies, such as Cruise, will expand into a number of new US markets and, at some point during the year, I will take my very first ride in an autonomous vehicle.
2023 will be a big year for augmented reality and “phygital” goods. Last year I thought Apple would release a new product in this space. That didn't happen, but it will this year. At the same time, we will see more companies releasing products that blur the lines between our online and offline worlds (hence "phygital"). This will include NFTs and other crypto-related things that will start to operate more seamlessly in the background of consumer-facing products/services.
I continue to be bullish on Ethereum and I think it will overtake Bitcoin in terms of market cap in the next 2-3 years. But I was very wrong about Solana last year. And now I am struggling with its value proposition. Today, layer 2 chains such as Polygon feel more likely to win out. Broadly speaking, I suspect 2023 will be a positive year for crypto, but not a record-setting one.
In summary, I think we are going to see more pain at the beginning of 2023, but that on the other side of it will be healthier and more balanced markets. This means that we can look forward to the end of the year feeling much better than it does right now. All of this said, please keep in mind that I'm often wrong and that nothing in this post should be construed as actual advice.
Happy 2023, friends. I'm excited to get going.
Construction costs tempered in the second half of 2022 and started to show some evidence of price softening. I think we will see more of this in 2023, which will be healthy for the market. Cost management over the last few years has been a meat grinder for the development industry.
Pre-construction condominium sales for well-located projects will return in a more fulsome way by the spring. This will be driven by buyers now having clarity around where interest rates will be hanging out in the short-term and, in the case of Canada's largest cities, by record-high immigration levels.
For the tertiary/fringe housing markets that saw big run ups in pricing during the pandemic, I unfortunately think it will take many years for prices to fully rebound. The price increases we saw in these submarkets were of course a result of low rates, but it was also driven by a view on urban decentralization that in my view did not actually materialize.
The desire to add more housing to single-family neighborhoods will continue to pick up steam across North America. How exactly this plays out will be market specific, but in Toronto I expect to see new planning policies put in place, as well as supportive building code changes.
Public transit ridership will remain below pre-pandemic levels throughout 2023. This will continue to exacerbate public finances.
Autonomous taxis will grow rapidly this year. Companies, such as Cruise, will expand into a number of new US markets and, at some point during the year, I will take my very first ride in an autonomous vehicle.
2023 will be a big year for augmented reality and “phygital” goods. Last year I thought Apple would release a new product in this space. That didn't happen, but it will this year. At the same time, we will see more companies releasing products that blur the lines between our online and offline worlds (hence "phygital"). This will include NFTs and other crypto-related things that will start to operate more seamlessly in the background of consumer-facing products/services.
I continue to be bullish on Ethereum and I think it will overtake Bitcoin in terms of market cap in the next 2-3 years. But I was very wrong about Solana last year. And now I am struggling with its value proposition. Today, layer 2 chains such as Polygon feel more likely to win out. Broadly speaking, I suspect 2023 will be a positive year for crypto, but not a record-setting one.
In summary, I think we are going to see more pain at the beginning of 2023, but that on the other side of it will be healthier and more balanced markets. This means that we can look forward to the end of the year feeling much better than it does right now. All of this said, please keep in mind that I'm often wrong and that nothing in this post should be construed as actual advice.
Happy 2023, friends. I'm excited to get going.
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