My good friend Taya Cook (of Urban Capital) and her development partner Sherry Larjani were featured in the New York Times today as a result of their Reina project and their remarkable efforts to gender balance the male-dominated commercial real estate industry. I am thrilled that their work is getting the attention that it deserves.

Here's an excerpt:

That’s because, despite progress in many other professional realms, women remain severely underrepresented in real estate development and investment, particularly in senior roles.

Women held just 4 percent of senior investment roles at major real estate firms, according to a widely circulated 2011 study, and their numbers have improved only “marginally” since, said the study’s author, Nori Gerardo Lietz, who is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and a longtime real estate investor.

Ms. Lietz reviewed the senior ranks of 82 major real estate investment firms for the study, as well as many more private equity and venture capital firms, and found that women were noticeably absent from the most highly paid, “touch the money” jobs.

For the full article, click here. And for more on Reina Condos, click here.

Over a year ago I wrote about a Kickstarter campaign that wanted to make a documentary to celebrate “the golden era of Canadian graphic design.” 

And after I wrote about it, my friend Dave Wex – who, like me, is a lover of all things Canada – backed the project. Yesterday he flipped me the latest update. 

The trailer is out and the world premiere of Design Canada is scheduled for Wednesday, June 13, 2018 at the Hot Docs Cinema here in Toronto. After that, it will move to Montreal and Vancouver. 

If you can’t see the trailer below, click here.

[vimeo 263571655 w=640 h=280]

Tickets available, here.

Yesterday morning I attended a CTBUH (Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat) breakfast event called The Story of Marketing Tall Buildings.

It consisted of a talk by William Murray, who is Group Director of the UK-based creative agency Wordsearch, and then a panel discussion with some of Toronto’s leading developers. (David Wex of Urban Capital was one of the panelists. Many of you will probably remember him from this BARED post.)

Shown above is one of William’s slides. The title is: The roots of the tree. And I thought it was a great metaphor for what tall buildings, well really all buildings, should aspire to do.

The tendency is to think of buildings as objects. Here, look at how beautiful this thing is. That’s obviously important, but what about its roots? What about the way in which it interfaces with its context and hopefully gives back? Is it a catalyst for positive change?

I thought it was a good slide.