Here is Google’s front page:
The building that is featured is the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. It’s an extraordinary piece of architecture. And in case you aren’t familiar with it, below is a Red Bull video of Maksim Kruglov skateboarding the building and its grounds. The building is just screaming to be skated. (Click here if you can’t see it below.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7lEGbAIU6M&w=560&h=315]
I’m not exactly sure why Google chose today to feature Hadid. Initially I thought it might be the anniversary of her death, but she died in March. Whatever the case may be, a quick search revealed that her Miami condo was just listed for $10,000,000. That’s probably not what they are celebrating.
It’s located at 2201 Collins Avenue (Unit 730) in the W Hotel Miami Beach. It’s 2,299 sf and features a totally separate guest apartment, which itself has one bedroom. The main suite was initially 2 units, but Zaha had them combined into a generous one bedroom.
Only $4,350 per square foot.
Below is a quick video prepared by the broker. You don’t need the sound on for this one. (Click here if you can’t see it below.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CD_xwYPbf8&w=560&h=315]
Some of you told me that yesterday’s post on careers was actually quite sad. That it came across as if I were advocating for people, not to do what they love, but to instead do what makes them the most money. But that was not my intention.
There were a lot of reasons why I got into real estate development, and perhaps I oversimplified yesterday. But a lot of it actually came down to the fact that I’m passionate about building great cities (hence this blog).
And I thought it was ultimately unfair that some investment-banker-turned-developer, who doesn’t really care about cities, might end up having more say over the built environment than me, the architect.
So I decided to sacrifice designing individual buildings in the hope that I’d one day be able to give back to cities on a much larger scale. And I still hope to be able to do that.
In any case, to end the week on a more fun note, I thought I would do a post called Fun Friday and link to 2 city tours: one of Brisbane, Australia, and one of Porto Alegre, Brazil.
But these aren’t just any city tours. They are by local skateboarders showing you their city. I posted one for Toronto about 8 months ago, so some of you might be familiar with the series.
I love how differently skateboarders look at the urban environment. I hope you can appreciate it as well.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEFQLjnhKT4?rel=0]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taF71igPZY0?rel=0]
Here is Google’s front page:
The building that is featured is the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. It’s an extraordinary piece of architecture. And in case you aren’t familiar with it, below is a Red Bull video of Maksim Kruglov skateboarding the building and its grounds. The building is just screaming to be skated. (Click here if you can’t see it below.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7lEGbAIU6M&w=560&h=315]
I’m not exactly sure why Google chose today to feature Hadid. Initially I thought it might be the anniversary of her death, but she died in March. Whatever the case may be, a quick search revealed that her Miami condo was just listed for $10,000,000. That’s probably not what they are celebrating.
It’s located at 2201 Collins Avenue (Unit 730) in the W Hotel Miami Beach. It’s 2,299 sf and features a totally separate guest apartment, which itself has one bedroom. The main suite was initially 2 units, but Zaha had them combined into a generous one bedroom.
Only $4,350 per square foot.
Below is a quick video prepared by the broker. You don’t need the sound on for this one. (Click here if you can’t see it below.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CD_xwYPbf8&w=560&h=315]
Some of you told me that yesterday’s post on careers was actually quite sad. That it came across as if I were advocating for people, not to do what they love, but to instead do what makes them the most money. But that was not my intention.
There were a lot of reasons why I got into real estate development, and perhaps I oversimplified yesterday. But a lot of it actually came down to the fact that I’m passionate about building great cities (hence this blog).
And I thought it was ultimately unfair that some investment-banker-turned-developer, who doesn’t really care about cities, might end up having more say over the built environment than me, the architect.
So I decided to sacrifice designing individual buildings in the hope that I’d one day be able to give back to cities on a much larger scale. And I still hope to be able to do that.
In any case, to end the week on a more fun note, I thought I would do a post called Fun Friday and link to 2 city tours: one of Brisbane, Australia, and one of Porto Alegre, Brazil.
But these aren’t just any city tours. They are by local skateboarders showing you their city. I posted one for Toronto about 8 months ago, so some of you might be familiar with the series.
I love how differently skateboarders look at the urban environment. I hope you can appreciate it as well.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEFQLjnhKT4?rel=0]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taF71igPZY0?rel=0]
I am writing this post on a Porter flight from New York back to Toronto.
For my last day in New York, my close friend and I rented scooters and rode all around Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was a great way to cover a lot of ground, but also a great way to still absorb the city. It’s harder to do the latter in a car and I never have any desire to drive in New York.
Because the great thing about New York is that as a pedestrian you feel like you control the streets. When you’re waiting at a crosswalk, you’re never actually waiting. You walk off the sidewalk and onto the street so that you can assert yourself in front of the cars and wait for an opening. This serves to narrow the portion of road that the cars can actually drive on and reminds the drivers who is boss.
At the same time, there are many instances throughout the city where New York has purposefully reallocated the space dedicated to pedestrians (and cyclists) and the space dedicated to cars. They’ve created new public spaces, widened the areas where people can walk, and seemingly blanketed the city with bike lanes. And that makes a lot of sense given that in many (most?) areas of the city, pedestrians greatly outnumber cars.
So does that mean New York is at war with the car? (I’d be curious to know – in the comment section below – if those kinds of discussions take place in the city.)
I suppose you could spin it that way. But New York also does things for cars. While riding around on the scooter today, I was so impressed by how well timed the streetlights were along the avenues. It made it incredibly easy to go downtown or uptown. In Toronto, I often feel like we time our lights to make driving as slow as possible.
But make no mistake; New York is not a driving city.
New York is about walking, biking, taking transit, and hailing cabs. There is a reason they have the highest transit ridership in the US. The city is built for it. And unless driverless cars and ride sharing completely changes the equation, I will continue to believe that transit is the most efficient backbone for any big city.
I am writing this post on a Porter flight from New York back to Toronto.
For my last day in New York, my close friend and I rented scooters and rode all around Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was a great way to cover a lot of ground, but also a great way to still absorb the city. It’s harder to do the latter in a car and I never have any desire to drive in New York.
Because the great thing about New York is that as a pedestrian you feel like you control the streets. When you’re waiting at a crosswalk, you’re never actually waiting. You walk off the sidewalk and onto the street so that you can assert yourself in front of the cars and wait for an opening. This serves to narrow the portion of road that the cars can actually drive on and reminds the drivers who is boss.
At the same time, there are many instances throughout the city where New York has purposefully reallocated the space dedicated to pedestrians (and cyclists) and the space dedicated to cars. They’ve created new public spaces, widened the areas where people can walk, and seemingly blanketed the city with bike lanes. And that makes a lot of sense given that in many (most?) areas of the city, pedestrians greatly outnumber cars.
So does that mean New York is at war with the car? (I’d be curious to know – in the comment section below – if those kinds of discussions take place in the city.)
I suppose you could spin it that way. But New York also does things for cars. While riding around on the scooter today, I was so impressed by how well timed the streetlights were along the avenues. It made it incredibly easy to go downtown or uptown. In Toronto, I often feel like we time our lights to make driving as slow as possible.
But make no mistake; New York is not a driving city.
New York is about walking, biking, taking transit, and hailing cabs. There is a reason they have the highest transit ridership in the US. The city is built for it. And unless driverless cars and ride sharing completely changes the equation, I will continue to believe that transit is the most efficient backbone for any big city.
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