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: architecture

  • Easier said than done

    Earlier this week I saw the Chief Planner of Toronto, Jennifer Keesmaat, tweet this out:

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    I responded with the below quote retweet because I figured I should probably devote a blog post to this topic and not just a tweet.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Now, I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing that her tweet was in response to the criticism from architects and developers that Toronto’s design guidelines are creating homogenous architectural outcomes. Some people – and I’ve written about this before on ATC – believe they’re too prescriptive.

    So today I’d like to talk about why playing creatively within the guidelines/zoning envelope, particularly at the mid-rise scale, is a lot easier said than done.

    Generally speaking, the value of land is dependent on what you can do with it or, in this case, what you can build on it.

    If all you could do was plant things on it, then the value of the land would be correlated with crop yields. If on the other hand you could build a building, it would be correlated, at least in theory, with the amount of space you could build and the rents you could charge for that space.

    Of course, this isn’t a perfect science. That’s why I said “in theory.”

    Landowners obviously want to maximize the value of their asset when it comes time to sell. So they, along with their brokers, will naturally try and stretch what is possible with the land. Why else do you think the best neighborhoods seem to magically grow new boundaries?

    When you combine this with the fact that mid-rise buildings are inherently less efficient to build and with the fact that their smaller size creates diseconomies of scale, it can be exceptionally difficult to find development sites where the numbers make any sort of financial sense. That is, even if you “maximize the envelope” and push rents or sale prices.

    So, with all due respect, not maximizing the envelope is almost unthinkable, unless you somehow managed to get a bargain on the land.

    Many of you will likely respond in the comments saying that all of this is simply a result of real estate developers being greedy capitalist pigs. But what we are talking about is no different than in any other competitive business environment. 

    Developers rent and sell products – albeit products that take an incredibly long time to make and bring to market. To make those products, there are a many costs, ranging from the cost of land to the cost of drawings. But hopefully within all of those numbers sits a profit margin that makes sense given the amount of work and risk that the developer has taken on. 

    Put differently, telling developers not to maximize the envelope is like telling a pizza maker to throw out 10-15% of her dough before she makes every pizza – even though she already (over)paid in full for the dough.

    If you’ve ever created a development pro forma, you’ll know that it’s not easy getting the numbers to work when you’re operating in a competitive market. This is not a knock against creative design. Trust me, I am a design snob. This is just business.

  • Boondoggle or architectural icon?

    Today, the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, opened up – at least partially – in New York City. 

    Given that it was originally supposed to open in 2009 and cost about half as much (original budget was $2.2 billion), the critics haven’t been kind.

    Here are a few snippets from Michael Kimmelman’s writeup in the New York Times, called, Santiago Calatrava’s Transit Hub Is a Soaring Symbol of a Boondoggle:

    …at first blush, Mr. Calatrava’s architecture can almost — almost — make you forget what an epic boondoggle the whole thing has been. That virgin view, standing inside the Oculus and gazing up, is a jaw-dropper.

    The project’s cost soared toward a head-slapping, unconscionable $4 billion in public money for what, in effect, is the 18th-busiest subway stop in New York City, tucked inside a shopping mall, down the block from another shopping center.

    And it’s not really a hub. A maze of underground passages connects the site to far-flung subway lines, but there are not free transfers. The place is a glorified PATH station for some 50,000 weekday riders commuting to and from New Jersey.

    I haven’t been following this project, so I can’t really comment on the delays and cost overruns. But I sure wish that main hall (called the Oculus and pictured above) was a part of my regular travel routine.

    Image via Curbed

  • NO TOWER on Commercial Drive

    For the past week or so I’ve been seeing the proposed Kettle Boffo Project in Vancouver make the rounds online. Here’s a rendering of the project, which is located at Commercial Drive and Venables Street:

    image

    The reason it has been making the rounds is that a community group called NO TOWER (written in all caps) has come out in fierce opposition of the 5 to 12-storey building. They have over 3,500 signatures.

    As an outsider looking in, this is surprising. The scale of the project seems appropriate. The height roughly matches the existing building shown above to the right. It may even be lower. And the project will provide somewhere around 30 social housing units, as well as additional space for the Kettle Friendship Society non-profit, who are currently on the site. (Note: An application to the city hasn’t yet been made.)

    What this has me thinking about is the push and pull between bottom-up and top-down planning. 

    When architect Bjarke Ingels talks about his Dryline project in New York, he likes to refer to it as the love child of Robert Moses (top-down planning) and Jane Jacobs (bottom-up planning). In the case of this project, it’s because it’s a large infrastructure project that they are trying to root into the local neighborhoods. Makes sense.

    But this same thinking could also apply to overall city building. Local communities rightly have their own wants. But at the same time, cities need to be thinking about the overall. The challenge is finding that right balance.

    I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the Kettle Boffo Project in the comment section below – especially if you’re from Vancouver.

  • How things could be

    I have about 15 minutes before I need to head out for dinner, so I’m afraid that there won’t be much of an ATC post today. It has been a busy week.

    But given that this week was Bjarke Ingels’ talk in Toronto and many of us are pretty excited about his King West project, I thought I would share a video where he sketches and talks about architecture. Click here if you can’t see it below.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIsIKv1lFZw?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

    I love the idea that architecture is about imagining how things could be. That’s how I feel about both architecture and real estate development.

  • Ziggurats and gondolas

    Yesterday was an exciting day for Toronto city building announcements. 

    Firstly, Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail published an exclusive preview of architect Bjarke Ingel’s plan for King Street West. Here’s a photo of the architectural model (it’s by Landon Speers):

    My favorite quote from the article is this one from Bjarke:

    “It would be sad if the most diverse city in the world had the most homogenous real estate.”

    It’s true.

    For those of you who emailed me about the details of his talk next week (there were a lot of you!), I believe I emailed you all back. But in case I missed some of you, you can click here for the event details. I should have included it in my original post about BIG, but I thought the event was already oversubscribed.

    Secondly, a private company called Bullwheel International Cable Car Corp. has just proposed to build a $20 to $25 million gondola running from Danforth Avenue (near Broadview subway station) to the Evergreen Brickworks. The total length would be almost 1 km and it, allegedly, wouldn’t require any public money. Here is their website.

    The timing of this proposal feels a bit serendipitous to me. When I was in Park City, Utah a few weeks ago, snowboarding right into the town and then taking their “town lifts” back up to traverse the mountain, I remember thinking to myself: what a wonderful form of transportation this is.

    Of course, Park City has giant mountains and Toronto, unfortunately, does not. But we do have spectacular ravines and a spectacular institution known as the Evergreen Brickworks.

    But one of the challenges with our ravines is that they can be a bit hidden – particularly for visitors to the city. Part of this is because we are trying to figure out the right balance between natural preservation and active use. But that’s one of the things that makes this proposal so intriguing. It’s a way to celebrate our ravines and natural landscape, without physically encroaching it.

    Here’s a map of the proposed gondola path:

    What do you think about these announcements?

  • For Sale: Breuer House II

    image

    Breuer House II is currently on the market in New Canaan, Connecticut for $5.85 million. The house has 4 bedrooms, 4 full bathrooms, and 2 half bathrooms. It is 4,777 square feet and sits on 3.11 acres of land.

    Originally built in 1951, the house was designed by the Hungarian-born, Bauhaus-trained, and Harvard-teaching modernist architect, Marcel Breuer. It served as their family home until 1975, after which time it was sold and almost demolished. Thankfully it was instead purchased, restored, and expanded (by another Harvard architect).

    Marcel Breuer was a member of what is known as the Harvard Five. They were a group of five architects who either taught at or went to the Harvard Graduate School of Design and who had moved out to New Canaan to build experimental modern homes starting in the 1940s. Homes like Philip Johnson’s Glass House.

    Seeing the Breuer House II listed for sale this morning reminded me of how cool it must have been at the time for a bunch of radical architects to move out to a sleepy New England town and start building modernist boxes. I’m sure it pissed off more than a few people.

    Does anyone know of anything similar to this happening today? 🙂

    Image from Modern Homes Survey

  • Mr. Robinson — Architect as Developer

    I first learned about the work of Jonathan Segal back when I was in architecture school. And he was somebody I immediately admired. 

    At the time, I was struggling to figure out where I wanted to position myself between architecture and real estate development, and he was somebody who had seemingly figured it all out: he simply merged the two.

    For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jonathan Segal, he has made a name for himself by being a pioneer of the “Architect as Developer” business model. That is, he acts as both the architect and the developer/client.

    This business model isn’t going to suit everyone, but I suspect that we’ll see more of it in the future.

    Of course, it doesn’t just have to be an architect acting as a developer. It could also be an architect and a developer joining forces or some other permutation. Whatever the case may be, design and innovation are central to business today and that’s why I think this model will only become more relevant.

    Below is a short 3 ½ minute video about Segal’s latest project, called Mr. Robinson. It is located in San Diego. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

    [vimeo 155403927 w=500 h=211]

    If you’d like to see the typical floor plans or rent one of the apartments (they start at $2,400/month), click here.

    Now I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. Do you like the project?

  • Hot to cold

    Architect Bjarke Ingels will be in Toronto next week to talk about how architecture can create communities and about a new project that he is working on with developers Westbank and Allied REIT here in the city.

    The last time I heard Bjarke speak was when I was in undergrad and he had recently started a firm called PLOT with Julien De Smedt. That was over 10 years ago. So I am looking forward to this talk. If you’re also going to be attending, tweet me and let’s try and connect at the event.

    In anticipation of that, I thought I would share a book that his firm published about a year ago called, BIG, HOT TO COLD: An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation. 

    What’s interesting about the book is that all of the projects are organized according to climatic location – literally hot to cold. That’s why the pages themselves start as red and end up in dark blue.

    It’s a direct response to the fact that modern architecture and modern building systems largely did away with regional and climatic variations. Buildings were designed, no matter their location, to look exactly the same. 

    To a certain extent, globalization makes this somewhat inevitable. But climate is climate. And I believe that architecture is stronger when it responds to local context.

    If you were in Toronto this past weekend – perhaps for the NBA All Star Game – you’re probably well aware that Toronto sometimes gets cold. So it will be interesting to see what kind of strategies they employ for their upcoming project.

    If you want to hear Bjarke talk about this book and some of their projects, check out this video from the Architectural Association in London.

  • The city as an egg

    This week I have been thinking and reading about monocentric and polycentric cities. In urban real estate economics, the monocentric city model has historically been an important economic model. Developed in the 1960s, it attempts to explain land use in cities with one core, or central business district (CBD).

    In its most simplest terms, the model states that as you move further away from that core, land prices will fall. But since retail and employment need to be at the center of large catchment areas, they will remain in the middle, while the residential will naturally spread out.

    When you begin to factor in transportation costs, there is an argument to be made for why inner cities neighborhoods were often poorer in North American cities (no car; higher transportation costs) and why the suburbs were often wealthier. In this latter case, the rich wanted to consume more home/real estate and their transportation costs weren’t as significant. They had cars and subsidized highways in which to drive them on.

    Of course, there are many ways in which you could argue against the above. Today, urban neighborhoods are some of the most desirable areas in many cities. 

    But perhaps the most obvious thing to question is the idea that cities only have one central business district. I mean, just look at all the employment nodes in Toronto. Yes, downtown Toronto is still the dominant zone, but could we really be considered monocentric?

    From what I remember, the model had mechanisms for dealing with polycentricity. But at the same time, so much has changed since the 1960s. The central business district with its big department store was only just getting introduced to the likes of fully enclosed, climate-controlled suburban malls. And of course today, we are now living in a world of Amazon Prime and independent workers.

    So what does this mean for cities?

    Well, as I was reading up on this topic I stumbled upon this diagram by architect Cedric Price (1934-2003):

    I wish I knew exactly when this diagram was created, but I wasn’t able to find that online. In any event, the diagram uses different kinds of eggs – boiled, fried, and then scrambled – to explain the urban morphology of cities over time.

    In the ancient world, cities had a clearly defined core and a clearly defined perimeter – often a wall for defence (boiled egg). In the 17-19th centuries, cities started to expand outwards through the advent of technologies like rail. This gave them a more irregular shape (fried egg). And then finally, Cedric argues that the modern city had, or would, become all mixed together like scrambled eggs.

    I wouldn’t say that our cities have become completely scrambled. But I would agree that we are moving away from the simple fried egg of a city (or monocentric city model). So I guess the big question is really: How scrambled do you think we’ll get?

  • Pocket two bedroom

    I recently started reading the blog of Michael Mortensen. Michael is a real estate developer and urban planner based in the UK. And if you like my blog, I think you’ll also like his.

    Last week he published a post talking about a UK development company called Pocket and a recent design competition that they organized called “Pocket two bedroom.”

    Historically the firm has been focused on well-designed and compact one bedroom apartments (38 square meters) that they deliver at a minimum 20% discount relative to typical market rate housing in London.

    But over time, they found that they had to turn people away because they were looking for larger – yet still affordable – two bedroom apartments. So the firm decided to figure out how to scale their model to larger units.

    To do this, they went out and asked 19 architects to come up with ideas for a two bedroom Pocket apartment. They then published all of the ideas online.

    Firstly, I applaud them for making their competition results public. Most real estate companies wouldn’t do this.

    Secondly, it’s interesting to take note of the recurring design themes, as they have on page 24-25 of their competition book. 

    Some of the themes include “deep thresholds” that blur private and communal spaces; “thick walls” that allow for storage and servicing; flexible spaces and fewer dedicated spaces; and dual entry apartments.

    This last item was particularly interesting to me. It’s a simple idea – two separate doors leading into one apartment – but it can allow for a number of flexible sharing scenarios. I am already imagining somebody creating an Airbnb rental out of their second bedroom.

    Housing is certainly undergoing a transformation.