Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
This afternoon my friend Gabriel, of Gabriel Fain Architects, sent me the work of APOLLO Architects & Associates. They are based in Japan and South Korea. Here is a preview of some of their “private houses”:
There is a lot that I love about these homes.
I love their simplicity. Look at this handrail detail. Nothing more than what is absolutely necessary.
I love their modesty. Many of the above homes hover around 150 square meters and many of them are much much smaller.
I love that each project’s description starts by talking about the owners and the site conditions, signaling that each home represents an individual response tailored to both the occupants and the context.
And I love that many of these homes have been built on unthinkably small parcels of land in dense urban settings; parcels that would be dismissed as entirely useless in other parts of the world.
The site area for this home is 46.53 square meters and the building’s footprint is 36.93 square meters.
Of course the Japanese housing market is a unique place. It’s worth pointing that out.
But as I browsed through what are effectively custom single family homes, I couldn’t help but be reminded that there’s a fine line between need and want.
Small can be very beautiful. But small is also subjective.
This afternoon my friend Gabriel, of Gabriel Fain Architects, sent me the work of APOLLO Architects & Associates. They are based in Japan and South Korea. Here is a preview of some of their “private houses”:
There is a lot that I love about these homes.
I love their simplicity. Look at this handrail detail. Nothing more than what is absolutely necessary.
I love their modesty. Many of the above homes hover around 150 square meters and many of them are much much smaller.
I love that each project’s description starts by talking about the owners and the site conditions, signaling that each home represents an individual response tailored to both the occupants and the context.
And I love that many of these homes have been built on unthinkably small parcels of land in dense urban settings; parcels that would be dismissed as entirely useless in other parts of the world.
The site area for this home is 46.53 square meters and the building’s footprint is 36.93 square meters.
Of course the Japanese housing market is a unique place. It’s worth pointing that out.
But as I browsed through what are effectively custom single family homes, I couldn’t help but be reminded that there’s a fine line between need and want.
Small can be very beautiful. But small is also subjective.
I just ordered a copy of Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day by Katy Chey. I figured this was a book that we should have hanging around our office. I also like to support the Daniels Faculty.
The book covers the following multi-unit housing typologies:
Back-to-backs in Birmingham
Tenements in London
Haussmann apartments in Paris
Tenements in New York
Tong lau in Hong Kong
Perimeter block, linear block and block-edge in Berlin
Perimeter block and solitaire in Amsterdam
Space-enclosing structures in Beijing
Kyosho jutaku in Tokyo
High-rises in Toronto
In addition to each typology, the book analyzes the connection between the housing type and the city. Why did certain typologies flourish where they did and how have they helped to define their city?
It reminds me of what I was trying to do with some of my recent posts about Hong Kong’s typical tower plan, albeit with far less rigor than what I am sure has been applied to this book.
I am also curious to read what has been written about high-rises in Toronto. It goes to show you just how defining the current real estate cycle has been for this city. That’s our multi-unit housing typology.
Image: Daniels Faculty. My multi-unit home made the book.
Last summer, photographer Parker Woods spent two weeks walking over 100 miles in Tokyo with a peach-colored (”momo” in Japanese) backdrop and a metal c-stand. He used this accessory to “contextualize his first encounter with Japanese culture.”
In some cases, it functions as you would expect: as a backdrop for the new people that he encountered along his walking journey.
But in other cases, the backdrop is simply inserted into the urban environment. Sometimes rolled up amongst a pile of metal tubes. And sometimes fully erected in the middle of a busy road.
This is an interesting photography project based in one of my favorite cities in the world, and so I wanted to share it on the blog. All of his photos were shot on Kodak film. It’s also giving me some ideas for my own photos.
If you’d like to buy a copy of the book ($40), you can do that here. There’s a limited run of only 250 copies. If you’d like to read a bit more about the project (and see a few additional photos), you can do that here on VSCO.
Image: Parker Woods
I just ordered a copy of Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day by Katy Chey. I figured this was a book that we should have hanging around our office. I also like to support the Daniels Faculty.
The book covers the following multi-unit housing typologies:
Back-to-backs in Birmingham
Tenements in London
Haussmann apartments in Paris
Tenements in New York
Tong lau in Hong Kong
Perimeter block, linear block and block-edge in Berlin
Perimeter block and solitaire in Amsterdam
Space-enclosing structures in Beijing
Kyosho jutaku in Tokyo
High-rises in Toronto
In addition to each typology, the book analyzes the connection between the housing type and the city. Why did certain typologies flourish where they did and how have they helped to define their city?
It reminds me of what I was trying to do with some of my recent posts about Hong Kong’s typical tower plan, albeit with far less rigor than what I am sure has been applied to this book.
I am also curious to read what has been written about high-rises in Toronto. It goes to show you just how defining the current real estate cycle has been for this city. That’s our multi-unit housing typology.
Image: Daniels Faculty. My multi-unit home made the book.
Last summer, photographer Parker Woods spent two weeks walking over 100 miles in Tokyo with a peach-colored (”momo” in Japanese) backdrop and a metal c-stand. He used this accessory to “contextualize his first encounter with Japanese culture.”
In some cases, it functions as you would expect: as a backdrop for the new people that he encountered along his walking journey.
But in other cases, the backdrop is simply inserted into the urban environment. Sometimes rolled up amongst a pile of metal tubes. And sometimes fully erected in the middle of a busy road.
This is an interesting photography project based in one of my favorite cities in the world, and so I wanted to share it on the blog. All of his photos were shot on Kodak film. It’s also giving me some ideas for my own photos.
If you’d like to buy a copy of the book ($40), you can do that here. There’s a limited run of only 250 copies. If you’d like to read a bit more about the project (and see a few additional photos), you can do that here on VSCO.
Image: Parker Woods
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