I was recently introduced to the work and writing of Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. One concept that he writes about that I really like is the idea of nest vs. cave.
The way Fujimoto describes a cave is that it’s a naturally occurring and pre-existing condition. It is exists independent of humans. So if and when a human decides to occupy a cave, he or she must assimilate their lives to that which is already there. They have to deal with the ambiguity of the spaces because it is not clear how everything should be used.
A nest, on the other hand, is something completely created by and for the benefit of a person or animal. It would not exist without someone creating it and so it is prescriptive and functional in a way that a cave is not.
Fujimoto is interested in exploring architecture that is analogous to caves. Which is why he designs houses like this one (House NA) in Tokyo:
In most countries, a house like this would not meet code and would be illegal. But in Tokyo it’s obviously allowed. And his hope is that the owners will discover new and unintended ways to interact with the unusual pairing of levels and platforms.
However, I think about this juxtaposition differently – likely incorrectly in the mind of Fujimoto.
I’m actually more interested in nests. Because in a way, mass produced housing is like a cave. It exists whether or not we decide to occupy it. And it is generally created to appeal to lots of people, rather than to the idiosyncratic tastes of one person. So when someone does occupy it, they invariably end up trying to shape it.
But not to the extent of a nest. A nest is custom. It is what you would build for yourself given the opportunity to do so. And that thought is really appealing to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the ambiguity of a cave. That could be a possibility.
I could also be thinking about it differently because I tend to think of Japanese homes as being quite individualistic. Since Japanese people generally don’t care about resale value, they don’t have the same fixation with marketability and future value. That means they’re more likely to just build what they want.
I’d love to have my own nest.
Image: Wall Street Journal
When it comes to a real estate market, there are always the typical metrics: sale prices, rents, vacancy and so on. But I’m always interested when somebody looks at the market in a different way and comes up with other kinds of metrics.
That’s why I was intrigued when I stumbled upon this post by Sam Floy, where he looks at the concentration of coffee shops and friend chicken shops across London in order to determine which neighborhoods are in fact “up and coming.”
To give you a taste, here’s his coffee shop map:
His thinking was that if a neighborhood had a high density of coffee shops, a low density of fried chicken shops, and relatively low house prices, then it could probably be thought of as up and coming.
Coffee shops are often considered to be leading indicators of urban change (i.e. gentrification), and, well, friend chicken places I guess speak to a different kind of neighborhood.
These sorts of playful studies aren’t going to tell you exactly which numbers you should be plugging into your development pro forma. But I think unconventional analyses can sometimes tell you a bit more of the story behind the numbers.
The Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University recently published the following chart on their blog:
It’s a look at population growth across a few North American cities, broken down according to natural increases, net internal migration from other parts of the respective country, and net immigration from outside of the respective country.
When you sum up the pluses and minuses shown above, you get to population growth numbers that look like this:
Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta are monsters in terms of population growth. They’re obviously smaller than New York and Los Angeles, and so on a percentage basis they are really adding a lot of people. Much of this has to do with the ease in which housing can be added in those cities and their relative affordability.
Toronto is competitive with New York and Los Angeles in terms of an absolute number, but again our base is smaller so on a percentage basis we are growing faster. The big story with Toronto is our dependence on immigration to grow.
The one city on this list that might surprise some of you is Chicago. Toronto and Chicago share many similarities and are often compared. But when you look at how the Chicago metropolitan area is shedding people, you see that, at least in this regard, it’s in structural decline.