Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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  • Building cool things is not as easy as it may seem

    There was a good discussion on Twitter this morning about small-scale commercial uses in residential neighborhoods, like the coffee shop shown above on Shaw Street. In most residential neighborhoods in Toronto, this kind of commercial activity is not permitted if you were to try and initiate it today. The small convenience stores and bodegas that remain are often legal non-conforming uses. And while generally considered desirable in their current confirm, if you were to try and make a change, you could get caught in some municipal red tape where your grandfathered status suddenly no longer applies.

    That is exactly what happened in the case of the above coffee shop and, from the discussions that happened on Twitter this morning, it is a problem that is not unique to Toronto. Alex Bozikovic wrote about this coffee shop and this project in the Globe and Mail over seven years ago. Getting it approved and built was no easy task. And my friend Jeremiah Shamess — who renovated a similar and formerly commercial corner building in the area — ran into the exact same challenges.

    But let’s consider the other side of this argument for a minute. It’s easy to look at a great and well-designed neighborhood coffee shop like this one and say to yourself that it is obviously a desirable use and that we should be encouraging more of them in our residential neighborhoods. But what if it was a noisy late-night bar, a nail salon, or a massage parlor? Would your opinion change? Would it change if you were an immediate neighbor? It is perhaps easy to see why the fear of the things we don’t want has led us to sterilize our neighborhoods to the point where we no longer allow the things that we may in fact want.

    And herein lies the immense frustration that many of us have with our land use policies. There are countless examples of obviously desirable uses and built forms that are exceedingly difficult to execute on because of the barriers that we ourselves have put in place. Whether it’s a cool neighborhood coffee shop or new affordable housing, there are far too many examples of these sorts of projects being stuck in some kind of planning ether — sometimes for decades. We say and know that we want these things, but then it is frequently the case that we can’t get out of the way so that they can actually happen.

  • The 99% Invisible City

    Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt of the 99% Invisible podcast have a recent book out that is all about cities. True to their radio show, it is about the often-overlooked design choices that have shaped and continue to shape our cities. Everything from why jersey barriers are curved the way that they are to how roadway centerlines came to be. The book is called The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design. And in some ways, it is what I try and do on this blog every day; look a little deeper and look at things — often cities — from a slightly different perspective (though I am no Roman Mars). So I think that many of you will appreciate this book. If you’d like to learn a bit more about it, here’s a recent interview that Roman did with StreetsBlog.

  • The roaring twenties

    We’ve all heard stories or know people who have made the decision to leave the city during this pandemic, either temporarily or permanently. Some young people have moved home until things settle down and some people have sold their real estate and bought something outside of the city.

    I don’t know know what the exact numbers are, but you can see this trend being reflected today in downtown rental rates and other indicators. This is happening in many cities around the world.

    But here’s what I think about when I hear these stories:

    1) Are these people assuming that we will never go back to offices and that WFH is our new reality? In this case, the thinking is simple. The world has changed. I need a proper Zoom room and a home gym.

    2) Did these people never really like urban living or have they simply outgrown the city? Pre-pandemic, family formation was still a major pull away from downtowns for many. In this case, a move was going to happen regardless.

    3) Or are these people taking a short-term view of the world and forgetting/ignoring that our global cities are going to rebound and that 2 hour commutes really suck? (Sitting in front of Zoom all day is also no way to live in my opinion.)

    There are both positives and negatives to urban living. There are forces that make people want to centralize and there are forces that make people want to decentralize. And the reality is that many of the benefits and perks of living in a city are temporarily turned off right now.

    Things are not fun right now, but this isn’t going to last. I’m looking forward to the roaring twenties.

  • Sleeping well at night

    I get that real estate developers don’t always have the best of reputations. We build buildings that cast shadows. We invest in (or gentrify) neighborhoods. And yes, like every other for-profit business, the goal is to make a bit of money along the way.

    But believe it or not, there are developers out there who care deeply about the work that they do. They care about their craft. And they want to do the right thing.

    Perhaps the best way for me to start to explain what I’m getting at here is to quote the late Steve Jobs. An obsessive perfectionist, Jobs was known for focusing on every little detail in the projects that he worked on. Here’s an excerpt from an interview he did for Playboy back in 1985:

    “We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.“

    As a developer and a fake architect, this paragraph really resonates with me. But here’s the thing. One of the differences between making a beautiful chest of drawers (or a computer) and making a beautiful building, is that buildings have an inordinate amount of rules that tell you what you can build where and then how you need to build.

    Some of these rules, of course, make a lot of sense. Life safety is no joke. But some of these rules also make no sense. And sometimes these rules — that don’t make sense — prevent you from putting what I would metaphorically consider to be that beautiful piece of wood on the back.

    The beautiful piece of wood isn’t about money. In fact, it’s going to cost you more compared to just using a piece of plywood. It’s about giving a shit and caring about your craft, even if nobody else does. It’s so you can sleep well at night.

    Photo by Michał Kubalczyk on Unsplash

  • Latin American architecture and Miami’s influence

    Art Basel Miami Beach was cancelled this year for obvious reasons. It had originally been scheduled to kick off on December 3rd. But Design Miami is still hosting some physical exhibitions and naturally a lot of online programming. They also partnered up with Dezeen (and others) to host a series of online talks as part of the festival. Here is one about Latin American architecture and its symbiotic relationship with Miami. For some, Miami is known as “the capital of Latin America.” This talk explores that idea, but also how the relationship really runs both ways. It’s with architects Tatiana Bilbao and Carlos Zapata, and developer Joseph Schwarzkopf.

    If you can’t see the video, click here.

  • The rooftops of Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza

    I love the contrast in this villa between the more private spaces, which are housed in a brutalist concrete structure, and the more public spaces, which sit on top and are housed in minimalist glass box that is reminiscent of the Farnsworth House.

    All of this was done in order to maximize views of the surrounding mountains from this upper floor. But it also creates a certain lightness within the next landscape. And I’m sure that the views out are that much better after emerging from such a contrasting space below.

    Located to the southwest of Madrid, the villa was designed by Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza in 2000. It’s called the Casa de Blas and it’s currently on the market for €850,000. Listing information over here.

    But I would also encourage you to check out some of the firm’s other work. It’s absolutely magical. One of my favourites is the House of the Infinite, which was designed in 2014 and, in my mind, shares some similarities with the above villa.

    In both the Blas House and the House of the Infinite, the rooftop spaces feel like everything. In some ways, they have been privileged over almost everything else. And so instead of wanting to be inside the houses, the architecture seems to pull you toward wanting to be on top of them.

    Image: ArchitectenWoning

  • Delivering happiness

    I was both surprised and saddened to learn about the death of Tony Hsieh this weekend. Forty-six years old is far too young.

    Though best known as a pioneer of e-commerce (he was previously CEO of Zappos) and for his brilliant/wacky management ideas, Tony was also a city builder, particularly in Las Vegas.

    Here’s an excerpt from a recent WSJ article:

    In Las Vegas, Mr. Hsieh became beloved locally for investing $350 million into revitalizing part of the city’s downtown including real estate, restaurants, retail and a tech startup fund starting in 2012. His vision included the development Container Park, a quirky shopping and entertainment center where retailers operate in converted shipping containers. Visitors are greeted by a giant sculpture of a praying mantis that shoots fire.

    But perhaps more importantly, everything I have read this weekend about Tony describes him as a good human being with a great sense of humor and a commitment to “delivering happiness.”

    Here’s another excerpt from the same article:

    After Zappos had a rash of late deliveries, he sent an apology note to customers and provided a phone number for use by anyone who suffered “undue hardship.” As for those who were merely annoyed, he said, they were welcome to call Zappos and “ask whoever answers the phone to do something weird and embarrassing, like sing ‘I’m a Little Teacup.’”

    Happiness. I can’t think of anything better to be delivering to people in the world right now.

  • Only about a quarter of Canadians are living the 15-minute city

    This is an excellent article by Alex Bozikovic, Joe Castaldo and Danielle Webb about the 15-minute city. In it, they do a block-by-block analysis of how many Canadians actually live in what they are calling an “amenity dense” neighborhood.

    Their definition of amenity dense:

    • Grocery store, pharmacy, and public transit stop within one kilometer
    • Childcare facility, primary school, and a library within 1.5 kilometers
    • Healthcare facility within three kilometers
    • Place of employment within 10 kilometers

    Once you apply this filter to Canadian cities, it turns out that only about 23.3% of city dwellers live in this kind of amenity dense neighborhood. It’s really only our three largest cities. For the most part, we have built environments that want you to have a car.

    When it comes Toronto, and also Montreal, it is a tale of two almost equally divided cities. If you live in a central neighborhood, you’re probably dense with amenities. But in the inner suburbs, it becomes pretty spotty. And though it can be done, this is not an easy change.

    The full article has many more of these city maps and so I would encourage you to check it out. It’s a great piece of journalism.

    Photo by Chloe Evans on Unsplash

  • Project Profile: Tiam in Hue, Vietnam

    It has been over a month and so it’s probably time for another edition of project profile. In this edition we are going small and looking at yet another cool infill project built on top of an impossibly tight urban site. In this case, it’s a 35 square meter corner lot in Hue, Vietman.

    Designed by Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates (NKAA), the entire project is about 150 square meters and was built to house both a ground floor cafe (run by the owners) and a multi-generational family of 7.

    According to the drawings, the second floor is for mom and dad and their two daughters. The third floor is for the grandparents and an uncle. And the fourth floor is a “sacred space” that includes a large outdoor terrace.

    Of course, in order to house all of these functions and people on such a small site, you have to really think about interior space much differently. The “bedrooms” are probably not what you might be expecting.

    To put the scale of this project into some sort of context, the footprint of this site is smaller than that of the laneway house that we are currently building. And in the case of the laneway house, it has been designed to house 1-2 people, instead of 7.

    Space is, perhaps, all about perspective. I just wonder what would happen if all 7 family members tried to jump on a Zoom call at the same time.

    All photos via NKAA.

  • The Ringelmann Effect and why Zoom meetings suck

    For a lot of us, this is now month eight of constant Zooming. The big question, of course, is whether this new habit is going to stick or if it will wane along with the virus. Because the degree in which it sticks will have an impact on cities, real estate, and how we move about these spaces. Anecdotally, it would seem that a lot of people seem to think that some element of working from home is destined to remain. People like the increased flexibility. And I don’t disagree that flexibility is an attractive feature.

    Personally, I am bullish on cities and on old-fashioned human interaction, because here’s how I am feeling about virtual meetings. One, we all have too many of them right now. The barriers to scheduling a virtual meeting are extremely low (one click in Outlook), and so it’s painfully easy to fill up a calendar with them. Two, it can be difficult to stay focused when jumping from back-to-back virtual meetings all day. And three, because we all have too many of these meetings, everyone is trying to multitask and respond to emails at the same time. This degrades the overall effectiveness of each meeting.

    Sarah Gershman published an article earlier this year in Harvard Business Review where she talked about some of the problems surrounding online meetings. One explanation for why many of us are losing focus is something known as the “Ringelmann Effect.” The theory here is that as group sizes increase, it can be easy for individuals to feel less responsibility for a meeting’s outcome. So they tune out. Max Ringelmann, who was a French engineer, demonstrated this effect by asking both individuals and groups to pull on a rope. What he found was that people generally tried less when they were part of a bigger group. There’s always somebody else who will pick up the slack, right?

    Sarah makes the argument that this phenomenon gets magnified in virtual meetings. We’re all just a little box, sometimes existing on another page, hidden mostly from view. Surely there’s another black box somewhere in this meeting who will pull the rope for me.