Today I stopped by the Exploring KING exhibit that is currently on at 134 Peter Street. It is an exhibition celebrating the design of KING Toronto.

It explains how the design came about. Note all the different unit layouts on the floor.

It includes (foam) study models that go as far back as 2015. That's four years of design iterations.

It has samples of the glass blocks that will be used on the building's facades.

Related article: Glass blocks, that staple of 1980s kitsch, are trendy again. Sorry, it's behind a paywall.

It has a VR setup that allows you to explore the building's inner courtyard. It's going to be a fun space.

And there's even a KING Toronto candle for sale. (Aromatic woods with spicy overtones.)

I thought the overall exhibition was very well done and I am thrilled to see architecture and design so front and center. It is an exciting time to be living in this city.

Barcelona is one of the densest cities in Europe. And Márton Mogyorósy's recent photo series, called Barcelona from above, does an excellent job of demonstrating that. My favorite photo is this one here, showing La Barceloneta neighborhood adjacent to the beach:

None of the buildings are particularly tall (maybe 6 or 7 storeys at the most), but the streets are probably only about 6m wide, including sidewalks. This is one way that you can achieve density without height and it is a good example of what I was getting at in my post, European-style height, but not density.

Fred Wilson made an interesting remark in his recent post about the current "IPO bonanza" that is taking place in the tech space. He is, of course, talking about the recent IPO of Lyft, the recent S-1 filings from Pinterest and others, and the expected filings from Uber, Airbnb, and so on.

After listing the benefits of going public, he went on to say that this bonanza will surely also mean that it is going to become even more unaffordable in the Bay Area. Part of this is perhaps self-serving, since he operates a VC firm out of NYC. (Take your money and move to NYC.)

But the data suggests that there is truth to this.

When Twitter when public in 2013, it was estimated that it created some 1,600 millionaires. This is great for the local startup ecosystem as many of these beneficiaries could go on to found their own companies and create a whole new batch of jobs. The money gets recycled.

But what does it do to the local housing market -- especially a supply-constrained one like that of the Bay Area where it is difficult to build?

In 2018, Barney Hartman-Glaser, Mark Thibodeau, and Jiro Yoshida penned a paper called, Cash to Spend: IPO Wealth and House Prices. In it, they looked at the impact of IPOs on local home prices in California from 1993 through to 2017.

What they found, among other things, was a "positive and significant association between local house price changes and firms going public." The price increases were also found to be the greatest the closer you get to the headquarters of the firm that just went public.

If you'd like to download a copy of the paper, you can do that here.