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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Tag: amsterdam

  • Visual architecture guides by ÅVONTUURA

    “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”

    –Anthony Bourdain

    My general recipe for travel is as follows: I want to see cool architecture, I want to eat good food, and I want to get a local sense for the place. Meaning, I’d ideally like to hang out with locals and learn from them. What’s it really like, here?

    Because of this, I’ve never been one to over schedule on trips. There will be things I absolutely want to see and do, but I always want to make sure that there’s time for the unknown.

    I think you want to walk into places that you don’t have on your list, sit at the bar, and have a conversation with the person behind it. You will learn things, and maybe it’ll set you on a travel journey that you couldn’t have possibly planned back home.

    That said, guides are still helpful for things like architecture and food. But I have never found general purpose guides — like the ones from Frommer’s — to be of any use. They have too much information that isn’t curated.

    When I was in my early 20s, I used to use the Wallpaper* City Guides. They were small. I would mark them up as I went. And they gave me the list of must-see architecture. More recently, I’ve been relying on Monocle’s Travel Guides. They’re great too.

    But I am now also a fan of Toronto-based ÅVONTUURA and the architecture guides that they produce. They are simple and beautiful pamphlets that give you a map of each city; a breakdown of contemporary, modern, and historic architecture; a recommended route through the city; and a full list of the important buildings, including their architects.

    The founder of Avontuura, Karl van Es, was kind enough to send me their entire set, which as of this month includes new guides for Amsterdam, Berlin, Singapore, and Toronto. Thank you, Karl.

    I’m now looking forward to trying one of these out on a future trip. I’m going to use it to decide what architecture I want to visit and, for the rest, I’ll just do what I normally like to do — wing it.

    P.S. It took me multiple attempts of tossing these guides onto my kitchen counter in order to arrive at the above photo. I hope you like it.

  • From unfashionable, dirty, and full of prostitutes, to too many tourists

    Cities are complicated. And we have spoken before about how it can sometimes feel like they never really reach homeostasis. In extreme cases, it might seem like they’re either decaying and losing people, or they’re too successful.

    I was reminded of this again this morning while reading an article about how Rome’s historic city center is being overrun with Airbnbs and tourists, and how it is pushing out the locals. It has, arguably, become too successful as a tourist destination.

    Of course, this problem isn’t unique to Rome. Venice has the same thing going on, though probably to a greater extent. And Amsterdam is currently working to attract more highbrow tourists and to move their red light district out of the city center.

    But the question I have is: What’s the right amount of tourism? If 25,000 listings is too many for Rome, what’s the right number? And do cities ever really achieve homeostasis, where, you know, things feel just right? Here’s an excerpt from the above article that describes what parts of Rome were like before the tourism boom:

    Ms. Rapaccini remembers when Monti was a quiet, authentic haven for arty types and locals. She and her late partner, the film director Mario Monicelli, who received six Oscar nominations, moved to Monti in 1988. The area was unfashionable, dirty and full of prostitutes, but beautiful in its gritty way, “like a little village” even though it was in the heart of a big, bustling city, she recalls. The apartments were cheap and the area began to attract film types, journalists and artisans – none of them rich – who mixed easily with local workers and shop owners.

    It’s a romantic description of what sounds like a pretty gritty area. Unfashionable, dirty, and full of prostitutes is apparently better than full of annoying American tourists. And perhaps it is. But then what was the area like before it was unfashionable, dirty, and full of prostitutes? Was that also better?

    I have no idea. But cities are constantly changing and evolving, and they were doing it long before any of us arrived, especially in the case of an ancient city like Rome. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult to hang onto that exact moment in time when everything was just right.

    Chart: Globe and Mail

  • Amsterdam wants fewer drunk and annoying people

    Back in 2014, Amsterdam became the first city to have what is referred to as a “night mayor.” And at the time, including here on this blog, this was generally viewed as a pretty progressive thing to do. It recognized that there is an important nighttime economy and that, with the right leadership, it be harnessed for broader economic development purposes. As a result, many cities followed suit and appointed their own night mayors. (Toronto did not, despite my repeated posts.)

    But fast forward to today and things feel different. Night mayors aren’t talked about as much in city building circles. And Amsterdam is actually trying to limit overall tourism growth. It is working to relocate its Red Light District to outside of the city center and it hopes to reduce the amount of people who come to the city just to misbehave. To be clear, it still wants tourists; it just wants more people who do things like go to museums:

    The Netherlands’ capital plans to launch a deterrence campaign later this month aimed at tourists who go wild during their visits. In addition to new ads, the city has proposed rules in its infamous Red Light District, such as a ban on smoking marijuana in the street, earlier weekend closing times for bars, clubs and sex-work establishments and reduced alcohol sales. 

    Amsterdam’s liberal rules for drugs and prostitution have long attracted travelers looking to let loose, but officials say they are taking it too far and harming the quality of life for residents. 

    This is an interesting situation because usually the problem is, “how do we get more tourists to come and visit our city? Should we maybe build a casino or a Ferris wheel or something else equally as big?” Instead, the problem here is, “we have way too many drunk and annoying tourists. How do we swap them for more cultured visitors?” Of course, one solution is to just tell people that they are annoying and that they should stop coming. And that’s generally what the ad campaigns plan to do.

    An alternative approach might be to celebrate all of the other things that one can do in Amsterdam.

  • Interview with the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema

    Back in 2014, Amsterdam became the first city to have what is called a “night mayor.” The role of a night mayor is what the name suggests. They are intended to be the chief executive officer of a city’s nighttime economy. And so it was and it continues to be recognition that the night can be an important economic development tool.

    This seemed to work out well for Amsterdam, which is why many other cities quickly followed suit with their own night mayor elections. During this time, a number of us here in Toronto also started advocating for our own nighttime CEO. (FYI, here is a link to the current night mayor of Amsterdam.)

    But fast forward to today and the tone seems to have changed in Amsterdam. The city’s daytime mayor, Femke Halsema, is now actively concerned about over-tourism and, in particular, the way that some tourists behave when they check-in to Amsterdam.

    Here’s an excerpt from a recent interview that she did with Bloomberg:

    We have to tackle two problems. The first problem is what I’d call the London problem: Our city is becoming too expensive. That is also part of being an international city and having many expats living here. But it has consequences for the middle classes. It’s very difficult to find a house in Amsterdam except for the highest incomes, so our middle class — teachers, police officers, people working in health care — are leaving the city. We’re very alert about it. For a city to survive in the long run you need social stability and people from middle or lower classes to also feel at home.

    Our second problem is the Venice problem: The people who live here become estranged especially in the city center, because it’s no longer part of their city. We have to find a new balance, in being a home for people from Amsterdam and at the same time welcoming international visitors and tourists.

    More specifically, the Venice problem seems to be a problem of behavior:

    It’s not a form of tourism we welcome or don’t welcome — it’s a form of behavior. What we do not welcome is people who come here on a vacation from morals. They express a form of behavior they would not express at home. People coming here to lose their morals is a problem for us.

    It is for this reason that the city is hoping to relocate its red light district to outside of the city center. The intention is not to get rid of it, or for the city to turn its back on its long history of tolerance, but it does want to move it somewhere else in the hopes that Amsterdam will become more associated with culture than hedonism.

    But does moving it actually change any behaviors? If one were to develop a purpose-built “erotic center” from the ground up, is it even possible to make it more integrated with the broader city (minimize the Venice problem) and, to use the mayor’s words, make it more chic than what currently exists?

    These are all exceedingly tough city building questions that can’t really be untangled from questions of morality.

    For the full Bloomberg interview with mayor Halsema, click here.

    Photo by Azhar J on Unsplash

  • Sick day

    I somehow managed to get food poisoning in Amsterdam. I feel awful and I’m not in the headspace to write anything remotely thoughtful today. So regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow — hopefully.

    P.S. It looks like Toronto will be getting its first Michelin restaurants guide. Good timing given this recent post.

  • Studio Gang in Amsterdam

    Slate Asset Management, RAD Marketing, and the top producing brokers for One Delisle were fortunate enough to be able to tour a Studio Gang-designed project in Amsterdam today called the Q Residences. A huge thanks to the developers — Kroonenberg Groep and Neoo — for their time and hospitality this afternoon.

    Here are two photos of the exterior:

    The building, which is a mixed-income rental apartment, is still under construction, and occupancy is expected sometime this fall. The structure is poured-in-place concrete, but the balconies were all pre-fabricated and installed on site. You can tell this by looking near the top of the above photo.

    Here are a few other interesting takeaways from the tour:

    – 40% of the complex is social housing (which is housed in an entirely separate but similarly impressive building); this is a mandatory requirement

    – The land is owned by the city and is being leased to the developers; the lease rate was discounted to account for the social housing requirement

    – The entire building uses in-floor heating and cooling, so there are no ducts or bulkheads in any of the suites (slabs are all about 300mm to accommodate this)

    – The balconies all have a rainwater collection system, which is mounted and concealed on the exterior of the building (it rarely goes below freezing here I am told)

    – The parking ratio for cars is very roughly about 0.5 per unit and the bicycle parking ratio is very roughly 3 per unit (remember this is the bicycle capital of the world)

    – Structural system is mostly shear walls; they also have some post-tensioning in the slabs

    – Less reliance on metal wall studs; instead they use a more expensive block-like system that offers more rigidity and better sound attenuation (I will look for the exact specification)

    – There is also this odd/interesting requirement that all of the suites have an operable window that can provide both natural ventilation and sound attenuation; in other words, it needs to let air in and block sound at the same time

    Here’s what that looks like at Q Residences:

    We don’t have a requirement like this in Toronto and so that’s why I used the word odd. We have ventilation and sound requirements, but they don’t need to be solved simultaneously in this same way.

    Why I also think this is interesting is because I think it speaks to a greater reliance on natural ventilation over active mechanical systems. In Toronto, the underlying thinking is that if it’s too hot and noisy, it’s just a matter of shutting your windows and turning on the AC.

    Of course, we obviously we have to manage around a very different climate, so I don’t mean this as a criticism of Toronto codes. It’s just an observation.

    If you aren’t familiar with the Q Residences, or the work of Neoo and Kroonenberg, I would encourage you to search around online. The project is gorgeous and so is the rest of their work.

  • Toilet seat heights in Amsterdam

    I am in Amsterdam right now for the very first time. And after I took in all the bicycles, the beautifully tilting buildings, and its iconic canals, the first thing that struck me was — get this — the height of its toilet seats.

    Now don’t get me wrong, I am a reasonably tall guy. So it’s not that the bowl in my hotel room isn’t comfortable or anything like that. It actually feels quite luxurious. I just know that this thing has got to be taller than your average bowl.

    A typical toilet seat height can be anywhere from 15 to 19” when measuring from the floor to the top of the seat. But I think 17-19” is the most typical range. So how much taller is my Dutch bowl?

    Sadly, I forgot to pack my tape measure on this trip. So I instead used the tallest book I could find in the room as a measuring stick. It happenend to be the above book by Hollywood photographer Matthew Rolston.

    Matthew’s book is 36cm tall and so, by using everything I ever learned in architecture school, I am now fairly confident that my seat is currently sitting at around 21-22” off the ground.

    Dutch people are tall. And so too are the bowls, it would seem.

  • Are all red light districts bad and undesirable?

    Times Square in New York has, as we all know, a checkered past. For much of its history, it has served as an important civic gathering space for New Yorkers. But it has also alternated between being a place for New Year’s Eve countdowns and being a place for salacious entertainment. This was the case as far as back as the late 19th century when prostitution from New York’s entertainment and red light district (then known as the Tenderloin) started moving northward.

    But it was also the case during the economic fallout of the Great Depression and again the case from the 1960s to 1990s when the area become a symbol for a more broadly decaying New York City. The area was seedy, dangerous, and according to tax records, fairly vacant, notwithstanding all the sex shops. Most would probably agree that this was not a high point for the area. As a rule, cities are generally better off when their buildings aren’t vacant and decaying.

    But are all red light districts bad and undesirable?

    Last year, Amsterdam voted in favor of closing down its famed city center red light district and moving it to some kind of new “erotic center” on the outskirts of the city, in a location that is yet to be determined. Not surprisingly, this decision hasn’t been without some controversy. Local sex workers seem to be generally against the idea and petitions are now circulating, such as this one here from Failed Architecture, asking the building industry not to participate in the build out of this new center.

    In some ways Amsterdam has the opposite problem compared to what Times Square experienced between the 1960s and the early 1990s. Amsterdam is too popular. Back in 2019, prior to COVID, the city saw some 22 million unique annual visitors. And I am guessing that more than a few of these visitors probably got drunk, wandered through the narrow streets of De Wallen, and peed on the side of a few buildings. Is it unsafe? I don’t know. I’ve never been. Is it immoral? Depends on who you ask. Is it annoying for locals? Probably.

    The city has been clear in that it views this as over-tourism, and also the wrong kind of tourism. Rather than rely on sleaze, Amsterdam wants to “reset” its tourism approach and focus more on highbrow things like art and culture. This is an understandable objective. Because presumably the tourists who actively seek out art and culture attractions are, you know, a bit less reckless and a bit less likely to pee on the side of buildings. Of course, you never know.

    But is this really the right city planning approach? Is there any cultural value to these historic uses? And what does this say about the city’s famously liberal attitudes? More specifically, does wanting to move your red light district from the middle of the city to some less conspicuous location — in an effort to dissociate your city brand — a reflection that you’re becoming maybe a little less tolerant towards the activities that take place in said district? It certainly seems like it.

    But I don’t know, maybe that isn’t entirely the case. Maybe there’s a tenuous argument that the city is just as liberal and permissive. After all, the city is still generally okay with this kind of debauchery. It just wants this debauchery to take place in a different area outside of the overcrowded city center. In other words, the activities themselves aren’t the problem. It is arguably the negative externalities that come along with them that need to be managed. And a suburban “erotic center” is simply better for that.

    What are your thoughts? And what would you do if you were the mayor of Amsterdam?

    Photo by Joan Oger on Unsplash

  • How past pandemics affected the urban housing markets of Amsterdam and Paris

    Past performance, we are often told, is not necessarily indicative of future results. At the same time, history has a funny way of repeating itself. I recently stumbled upon this research paper by Marc Francke (University of Amsterdam) and Matthijs Korevaar (Erasmus School of Economics) looking at the impact of pandemics on housing markets. More specifically, it looks at the impacts of the bubonic plague on 17th-century Amsterdam and of cholera on 19th-century Paris. Here’s an excerpt that summarizes what they found:

    Our analyses for both cities point to substantial impacts of pandemics on property prices. We find that sales prices respond negatively to outbreaks, in particular in heavily affected areas, and that responses are short-lived, with the effects on sale prices being particularly significant in the first six months of an epidemic. Evidence from aggregate house and rent price indices suggests a smaller negative impact on rent prices. Amsterdam and Paris were very resilient to these outbreaks, with population and house price growth quickly reverting to prior trends.

    This paper was first published at the beginning of 2021. A lot has changed since then and, in some ways, their findings now seem obvious. There was still a great deal of uncertainty in the market 12 months ago. While it seems like eons ago, I remember our team having discussions around when would be the right time to launch sales for One Delisle. Of course, 2021 turned out to be a record-setting year for housing and that includes the core/urban housing that the media was quick to write off at the onset of COVID.

    This is not to say that certain things haven’t changed or that there won’t be further changes — both positive and negative — that come out of this. To give one just example, we all continue to hear anecdotal evidence that a lot of tech talent would now prefer to be in cities like Miami over San Francisco. (I’m not tech talent, but this would be my strong preference.) Did the pandemic help fuel this? Probably. It opened a door for the people who no longer wanted to live in a city with such a supply-constrained housing market. (I’m sure there were other reasons, too.)

    These things, of course, happen. Cities are powerfully resilient, but they still need to compete. The bigger point is that cities continue to be our greatest centers of opportunity. And here we have centuries of data and housing records to support the fact that opportunity is both a powerful motivator and a centralizing force for urbanization. This is true even in the face of things like pestilence.

    Happy new year, everyone. I think there’s a lot to look forward to in 2022, including far less talk about pandemics and hopefully far more talk of places like Miami.

    Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash

  • New 3D-printed bridge erected in Amsterdam

    This 12-meter 3D-printed stainless steel bridge was recently erected in Amsterdam. As is par for the course, some people hate it and some people love it. I’m in the latter camp.

    Designed by Joris Laarman Lab in collaboration with MX3D and Arup (engineering), the bridge was printed off-site over a 6 month period and then craned into place.

    3D printing stuff isn’t new; but it is interesting to see the technology being used for this real world application. Supposedly it’s the first 3D-printed stainless steel bridge. There are claims out there for other materials.

    What is also interesting is that the entire bridge has been outfitted with sensors so that things like pedestrian usage, corrosion, and load changes can be measured going forward.

    Construction is generally a messy process. And it’s kind of amazing how little it has changed over the years. I don’t think that there’s any question that this represents the future of building.

    Images: Thea van den Heuvel via Dezeen