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| 1. | Brandon Donnelly | 14M |
| 2. | 0xdb8f...bcfd | 4.5M |
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| 6. | Ev Tchebotarev | 170.5K |
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| 9. | William Mougayar's Blog | 28.4K |
| 10. | Empress Trash | 19.8K |
Yesterday, we spoke about a slender single-stair apartment building on a small 60-square-meter site in Tokyo. Today, let's talk about a different kind of proposal. Earlier this month, the Park City Planning Commission heard a redevelopment proposal from the Kensington Investment Company for a site near Old Town at 1500 Kearns Boulevard. The site is 2.71 acres, and the existing building houses 48,000 sf of office and retail space.
The proposal is for a new mixed-use development including:
117 residential apartments (97 market-rate and 20 affordable)
Over 9,400 sf of commercial/retail space
Over 20,000 sf of amenity space (including a rooftop terrace and patios)
210 underground parking spaces
Some of the key development approvals being asked for include:
Master Planned Development approval & Conditional Use Permit
A reduction of the north setback from 25 feet to 10 feet
A building height exception to 49.5 feet (from the 35 feet currently allowed)
A formal vote has yet to take place, though apparently, the project is somewhat controversial. The developer is asking to increase the maximum height from three storeys to four. Ordinarily, the Planning Commission would want to see an increased setback accompany this ask, as opposed to a reduction.
But here we have a classic development trade-off. The developer could, in theory, build more density under the existing permissions, but the ground plane and the overall development wouldn't be as pleasant. So, the request is to build incrementally higher, but then open up the site more.
Here's a comparison between the developer's proposal and what is permissible by-right:
It'll be very interesting to see how Park City votes on this one.
Images via Building Salt Lake
It's fun to examine projects that I could never underwrite or build in Toronto. Here's another one from Tokyo — a 10-storey, single-stair apartment building on a busy street, next to a metro station.
I sometimes joke that one of my part-time jobs is charging devices, and so I love that the world has shifted to USB-C as the standard for wired charging. It's trendy to criticize the EU for over-regulating things, but this is one area where I'm glad they stepped in and forced everyone, including Apple, to get on board.
Phones, tablets, and laptops basically have 100% adoption at this point, and adoption is similarly high for other small appliances, electronics, and even airplane seats. All of this means having to carry around fewer cables, which is especially helpful when traveling.
At Parkview Mountain House, we equipped the main workspace area and kitchen with USB-C outlets, though we also included USB-A for legacy reasons. It's good for that electric toothbrush. But I know we're going to need many more USB-C outlets in the coming years.
Yesterday, we spoke about a slender single-stair apartment building on a small 60-square-meter site in Tokyo. Today, let's talk about a different kind of proposal. Earlier this month, the Park City Planning Commission heard a redevelopment proposal from the Kensington Investment Company for a site near Old Town at 1500 Kearns Boulevard. The site is 2.71 acres, and the existing building houses 48,000 sf of office and retail space.
The proposal is for a new mixed-use development including:
117 residential apartments (97 market-rate and 20 affordable)
Over 9,400 sf of commercial/retail space
Over 20,000 sf of amenity space (including a rooftop terrace and patios)
210 underground parking spaces
Some of the key development approvals being asked for include:
Master Planned Development approval & Conditional Use Permit
A reduction of the north setback from 25 feet to 10 feet
A building height exception to 49.5 feet (from the 35 feet currently allowed)
A formal vote has yet to take place, though apparently, the project is somewhat controversial. The developer is asking to increase the maximum height from three storeys to four. Ordinarily, the Planning Commission would want to see an increased setback accompany this ask, as opposed to a reduction.
But here we have a classic development trade-off. The developer could, in theory, build more density under the existing permissions, but the ground plane and the overall development wouldn't be as pleasant. So, the request is to build incrementally higher, but then open up the site more.
Here's a comparison between the developer's proposal and what is permissible by-right:
It'll be very interesting to see how Park City votes on this one.
Images via Building Salt Lake
It's fun to examine projects that I could never underwrite or build in Toronto. Here's another one from Tokyo — a 10-storey, single-stair apartment building on a busy street, next to a metro station.
I sometimes joke that one of my part-time jobs is charging devices, and so I love that the world has shifted to USB-C as the standard for wired charging. It's trendy to criticize the EU for over-regulating things, but this is one area where I'm glad they stepped in and forced everyone, including Apple, to get on board.
Phones, tablets, and laptops basically have 100% adoption at this point, and adoption is similarly high for other small appliances, electronics, and even airplane seats. All of this means having to carry around fewer cables, which is especially helpful when traveling.
At Parkview Mountain House, we equipped the main workspace area and kitchen with USB-C outlets, though we also included USB-A for legacy reasons. It's good for that electric toothbrush. But I know we're going to need many more USB-C outlets in the coming years.
The site itself is only 59.49 m2 (~640 ft2), and the building footprint is 47.97 m2 (~516 sf), for a total of 388.28 m2 (~4,179 ft2). There's retail on the first and second floors, one home per floor on levels 3 through 8, and then a two-storey home on levels 9 and 10. All of this is serviced by a single elevator, and a single open-air egress stair off the back.
The building itself uses a simple structural system involving 6 columns (which you can see evenly placed on the plans). According to the architect's notes, they started with a simple 4-column design, but apparently the columns were too large and compromised the suite layouts.
Tokyo is a unique city and this kind of housing wouldn't work everywhere. But there's a universal lesson here: removing barriers and allowing small infill projects is a good thing for cities. Until these projects are feasible, we won't know exactly what the market actually wants and could support.
Photos from Hiroyuki Ito Architects
On that note, I just discovered a cool Swedish company called Cords that makes beautiful, high-quality cables, chargers, and extenders. They also have a partnership program for architects, interior designers, and retailers if any of you are interested.
Sadly, though, they're a Swedish company and I think all of their devices use a Type C European wall plug. Otherwise, I'd be getting one of the cylindrical chargers shown above.
There are about 15 electrical plug types currently in use around the world. I can't see these being standardized anytime soon, but I do think that we'll see household outlets reach something close to a 50/50 split between standard and USB-C outlets. Already, I feel we should have installed more at PMH.
USB-C doesn't allow for enough power for bigger appliances, so it's not going to be for everything. But for any device that could run off a USB-C port, I don't know why it wouldn't eventually switch. If you aren't already thinking about this in your new-build projects, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start planning for it.
That is, until we've figured out a viable wireless charging solution. This is why USB-C is sometimes referred to as the "final connector." It's probably the last wired connector before we get rid of wired altogether.
Photos from Cords
The site itself is only 59.49 m2 (~640 ft2), and the building footprint is 47.97 m2 (~516 sf), for a total of 388.28 m2 (~4,179 ft2). There's retail on the first and second floors, one home per floor on levels 3 through 8, and then a two-storey home on levels 9 and 10. All of this is serviced by a single elevator, and a single open-air egress stair off the back.
The building itself uses a simple structural system involving 6 columns (which you can see evenly placed on the plans). According to the architect's notes, they started with a simple 4-column design, but apparently the columns were too large and compromised the suite layouts.
Tokyo is a unique city and this kind of housing wouldn't work everywhere. But there's a universal lesson here: removing barriers and allowing small infill projects is a good thing for cities. Until these projects are feasible, we won't know exactly what the market actually wants and could support.
Photos from Hiroyuki Ito Architects
On that note, I just discovered a cool Swedish company called Cords that makes beautiful, high-quality cables, chargers, and extenders. They also have a partnership program for architects, interior designers, and retailers if any of you are interested.
Sadly, though, they're a Swedish company and I think all of their devices use a Type C European wall plug. Otherwise, I'd be getting one of the cylindrical chargers shown above.
There are about 15 electrical plug types currently in use around the world. I can't see these being standardized anytime soon, but I do think that we'll see household outlets reach something close to a 50/50 split between standard and USB-C outlets. Already, I feel we should have installed more at PMH.
USB-C doesn't allow for enough power for bigger appliances, so it's not going to be for everything. But for any device that could run off a USB-C port, I don't know why it wouldn't eventually switch. If you aren't already thinking about this in your new-build projects, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start planning for it.
That is, until we've figured out a viable wireless charging solution. This is why USB-C is sometimes referred to as the "final connector." It's probably the last wired connector before we get rid of wired altogether.
Photos from Cords
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