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.
Every now and then a piece of architecture comes along that makes you feel like your city should be more beautiful – or at least very least: bolder. In this case, it’s the new Market Hall in Rotterdam, which has been making the rounds on the internet since it opened last week. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I find it really exciting.
Designed by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV, the Market Hall is a 1.1 million square foot mixed-use building consisting of residences (102 rental apartments and 126 for sale apartments), a food market, a supermarket, a public space, and a 1,200 stall parking facility. But before I say anymore, here’s the money shot:
And here’s what it looks like from the inside of the market:
In the middle of the building is the food market. At night when it closes up, it then becomes a well-lit public space. The entire central area is enclosed, but well connected visually to the outside through a big and fancy glass facade.
The apartments wrap the central market and were constructed using standardized modules (despite the unique form). The spaces that require natural light face outward and all the spaces that do not require natural light (by Dutch law), such as the kitchens, face inward towards the market.
There’s a grocery store 1 level below grade (to help supplement the market) and all parking and loading is done underground. This means that the building itself has no real backside. Most buildings typically have an ugly loading and “back of house” area – the building’s ass if you will. In this case, the entire perimeter of the building is urban and accessible.
Finally, on the ceiling of the market is a massive mega-mural designed by Dutch artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam. Click here for a 360 degree panorama. It’s wild.
So what do you think of this building? Would you like to have it in your city? And would you consider living in one of its apartments? I would.
Below was the scene at the DUKE Condos site in The Junction last Saturday morning at 7:00AM. Michael Bros. mobilized their equipment to begin site preparation so that shoring and excavation can begin. The plan is to be at the bottom of the hole by the beginning of next year.
We’re all very excited in the office and so I half jokingly told our VP Construction that I would meet him on-site at 7:15AM with beers. He responded with a one word email saying: champagne. In the end, I decided to go swimming instead (probably a better decision), but I am sure we’ll have a drink soon.
There are still some killer suites available at DUKE, so feel free to drop into the sales office at 2800 Dundas Street West, give the sales team a call at 416-800-7738, or tweet the TAS team with any questions.
The area that stretches between the property line on one side of a street and the property line on the other side of a street is called a public right-of-way here in Toronto. It may be called something different in other cities and countries.
In the example below (taken from Toronto’s Avenues & Mid-Rise Buildings Study), it includes the sidewalks, the car lanes, and the streetcar lanes. But it could also include other public elements. In this instance, the buildings on either side of the street are assumed to be built right up against their property lines.
ROWs obviously serve an important public function. But their size also has important urban design implications. As a pedestrian, it feels different to walk on a narrow street than it does on a broad street.
The width of a ROW can also be used to inform what the preferred height of the buildings along it should be. In the example above, they’re talking about a 1:1 relationship between the width of the ROW and the preferred height of the buildings.
Given their importance, I thought it would be interesting to share this map of Toronto (dated 2010) showing ROW sizing throughout the city. The mustard colored lines in the core of the city represent 20 metres, the red lines 36 metres, and the purple lines 45 metres or more. The rest of the colors fall somewhere in-between. For the most part, the purple lines represent highways, although there are a few other instances of purple.
What’s interesting – but not surprising – to see is how we basically kept expanding the size of our ROWs as Toronto grew outwards. This was obviously to make more room for cars on the road.
But the other, perhaps more interesting thing about this map, is that it could also serve as a guide to pedestrian happiness. The mustard/yellow lines are where it’s most enjoyable to walk. And the red and purple lines are where it’s least enjoyable to walk.
If you’re from Toronto, give this framework a try and see if it holds true.
Some of you told me that yesterday’s post on careers was actually quite sad. That it came across as if I were advocating for people, not to do what they love, but to instead do what makes them the most money. But that was not my intention.
There were a lot of reasons why I got into real estate development, and perhaps I oversimplified yesterday. But a lot of it actually came down to the fact that I’m passionate about building great cities (hence this blog).
And I thought it was ultimately unfair that some investment-banker-turned-developer, who doesn’t really care about cities, might end up having more say over the built environment than me, the architect.
So I decided to sacrifice designing individual buildings in the hope that I’d one day be able to give back to cities on a much larger scale. And I still hope to be able to do that.
In any case, to end the week on a more fun note, I thought I would do a post called Fun Friday and link to 2 city tours: one of Brisbane, Australia, and one of Porto Alegre, Brazil.
But these aren’t just any city tours. They are by local skateboarders showing you their city. I posted one for Toronto about 8 months ago, so some of you might be familiar with the series.
I love how differently skateboarders look at the urban environment. I hope you can appreciate it as well.
As a result of writing Architect This City, I’m fortunate enough to receive a lot of emails from random people. But I’m always open to meeting new people, and so I enjoy this very much.
One of the most common questions I get is from architects, and students of architecture, who want to know about transitioning over to real estate development. (Posts related to this topic also happen to be some of my most popular.)
So today I thought I would share a story with all of you about the one decision that ultimately lead me into real estate development.
When I started graduate architecture school, I already had inklings that I was going to get into development. That’s one of the main reasons why I went to Penn. I knew that I could concentrate in real estate and I knew that I could take courses over at the business school. And that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
But during my first year, I still wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to reconcile this dual interest. In fact, I remember feeling really conflicted. I loved architecture and design, but I also really enjoyed business and entrepreneurship. I was also interested in making money, and architecture isn’t often the best place to do that.
So for my first summer internship, I decided to apply to both architecture firms and to real estate developers. I was fortunate enough to be offered jobs in both. And on the architecture side, I actually got my top choice, which was the Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen. To this day, Bjarke remains one of my favorite practicing architects.
But when I looked at the numbers, I quickly realized that real estate developers were prepared to pay me about 3x more than any architect would and that, if I were going to take an architecture job, I was going to end up going more in debt just to live throughout the summer.
While internships are often career loss leaders, I took this as a sign of things to come. This was a 10 or 20 year decision in my mind. And even though I loved architecture, I figured I would quickly fall out of love with it if I couldn’t pay my bills or live the lifestyle that I wanted.
So I accepted a real estate job and I moved to Dublin, Ireland for the summer to work for a small consultancy called Urban Capital (no relationship to the Toronto firm of the same name). And I haven’t looked back since.
This may not have been the right decision for some of you, but it was for me. So if you’re at a crossroads, my advice is always to think about where you’d ideally like to be in 10 or 20 years. Because once you establish that, it’ll become much easier to make that decision today.
This week on Architect This City is turning out to have a big focus on technology. And it’s not going to stop today, because this evening I had the chance to try the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset for the first time (many thanks to Dave Payne of Invent Dev for the demo). As a reminder, Oculus is the company that Facebook recently acquired for $2 billion.
Now virtual reality certainly isn’t a new idea and lots of people have been promising – for a long time – that it was going to revolutionize the world. Which may be why I had somewhat low expectations going into this. But I have to say that I was blown away. Despite being a bit choppy (to get good visuals it ran at around 15 frames per second), I was shocked at how immersive the experience was.
Here’s a picture of Rick exploring the (virtual) space behind him:
It was actually really strange watching somebody move around as they explored another world. The demo that Dave showed us was of an apartment suite. You could walk around the living room. Turn around and see the front door. Walk up to the window and admire the view outside. It was incredible, but somewhat scary at the same time.
Obviously there are ton of potential use cases for this. I’m imagining a buyer touring a condo suite and picking their finishes before it’s even built. I’m imagining an architect designing a building in 1:1 scale by waving their hands around in a virtual world. I’m imagining “traveling” to a beach to treat seasonal affective disorder. And the list goes on.
This isn’t going to happen overnight. I actually got a bit nauseous because of how choppy the video got at times. But I can certainly see the potential. Virtual reality is coming. It’s clearly the future of gaming. And I’m sure it’ll get applied to many other areas of the economy. I guess that’s why Facebook bought these guys for $2 billion.
If you have an interest or need in the 3D visualization space, I would encourage you to reach out to Dave at Invent Dev. He’s super passionate about the work that he’s doing and is looking to collaborate with more people in the design and real estate spaces. Thanks again Dave.
A good friend of mine recently launched a new project called DSCRBD (pronounced ‘described’). The goal is to “curate interesting minds” through short social video clips. Think Humans of New York but only creative types and only short videos.
I think it’s a great idea. And I was fortunate enough to be one of the first test subjects. It was conducted as an interview between he and I, and we spoke for probably about 45 minutes on the sun deck of my building.
He then took that entire interview and distilled it down to only a few seconds, extracting what he found most interesting. Perfect for social media consumption.
Click the image above for my video. What I’m talking about is my approach to architecture, and how I ended up not becoming an architect, but instead becoming a real estate developer.
I think he’s on to something here and I would love to see it develop further. He’s using the right mediums and format to get the message out in today’s noisy social world. But there’s also no reason that it couldn’t grow to include more content or simply feed to other content, such as what he did with Architect This City.
If you’re somebody that you think he should profile or know of someone that would be a good fit, drop him a line at hello@dscrbd.com.
“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”
-Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1846-1912)
I’m a big fan of Chicago. Having now visited the city, I can say that everyone was right when they told me that I was going to love it. It has great art and architecture, great food (with some of the largest portions I’ve ever seen), great nightlife, and great people.
But I don’t want to talk about any of these things today. Instead, I want to talk about something much more specific that stood out to me last weekend: Chicago’s relationship to both the water and the street.
While Chicago and my hometown of Toronto share many similarities– including being situated on a Great Lake and having rivers flow through the middle of them–the relationship to these bodies of water is remarkably different. Here is a photo of people kayaking in the Chicago River on a Friday afternoon:
What impressed me about Chicago is how intimate and urban the relationship is with the lake and its rivers. If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that many of the buildings are built right up against the river, but that there’s space allocated for riverwalks, patios, and so on. It’s all about engaging and connecting with the water.
Toronto on the other hand, is only recently starting to reacquaint itself with its bodies of water. We spent much of the second half of the 20th century with our back turned to the lake and without a strong urban connection to the Don River. And if I had to guess why it’s because we built highways along them.
We built the Gardiner Expressway adjacent to Lake Ontario and we built the Don Valley Parkway adjacent to the Don River. This fundamentally changed our orientation and largely precluded us, I think, from creating the same kind of waterside urbanity offered in Chicago.
As an example, consider that in the first half of the 20th century, Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood – which today still has a questionable reputation – was actually an affluent and desirable waterfront community filled with beautiful Victorian mansions. It was well connected to the waterfront, and so the area flourished. Here’s what Sunnyside Pavilion used to look like:
But then in the 1950s we built the Gardiner Expressway, disconnecting Parkdale from the lakefront and destroying many of its amenities, such as the Sunnyside Amusement Park. In turn, the rich people left and their large Victorian mansions got chopped up into rooming houses and other rental housing stock. And in my view, Parkdale still hasn’t fully recovered from this.
Highways are divisive. There’s no question.
So unless you can afford to bury them, it comes down to trade offs: Do you want to make it easier for people to drive in from the suburbs or do you want a truly spectacular water or riverfront? In the 1950s we chose the former. But even still today, the thought of tearing down–even a portion of the Gardiner Expressway–is fraught with opposition. I guess not much has changed.
The second way that Chicago impressed me is through the relationship that many of its buildings hold to the street. They come down to ground level with authority and with great retail presence, and often make no amends about their mass and impressiveness. This frames the street and creates a level of urbanity that isn’t always found in Toronto – particularly outside of the downtown core.
In Toronto, the trend today is towards street level podiums, significant setbacks, and delicate point towers that minimize the impact of their height and allow for natural light to reach street level. It’s well-intentioned and perfectly appropriate in many urban settings. But sometimes you need a little urban assertiveness. Sometimes you want to impress and impose. And Chicago does that.
What I’m getting at is that Chicago architect Daniel Burnham was on to something. He famously advocated for man (that was the era) to think big. Make no little plans, he said. And it’s admirable advice. Toronto is going through a tremendous transformation right now. We’re North America’s boomtown, which is a title that Chicago would have held at one point.
But as we build for the future, let’s remember that, long after we’re gone, we’re going to be judged based on the plans we are making today. So why not make them big ones.
I’m flying out to Chicago this morning, and so I don’t have a lot of time to write. But I am taking my iPad with me and I plan to continue writing every day that I’m there. As some of you might remember, I’ve never been to Chicago before. This will be my first time. So I’m expecting lots of writing inspiration.
That said, I’m going for a bachelor party and so I may not get the chance to geek out about the city as much as I normally would. There certainly won’t be any any Frank Lloyd Wright pilgrimages taking place. However, I have convinced the group that the architecture boat cruise will be a great way to see the city and a nice way to start off the day following a late night.
If you’re from Chicago (or just know the city well) and have some must-see recommendations, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below. I’m excited to visit Chicago because it’s another Great Lakes city and I’m told it’s somewhat similar to Toronto. It’ll be interesting to see how they compare and differ.
As a recent graduate of Rotman’s Morning MBA program (and presumably because somebody over there reads Architect This City), I was asked to write a guest post for their MBA blog. More specifically, I was asked to share my thoughts on the real estate industry and on my time at Rotman. And since I haven’t really done a post like this before, I thought it would be worthwhile to do.
But before I begin, I think it’s important to explain a bit about my background and my motivations for doing an MBA in the first place. Before going to Rotman, my first master’s degree was in architecture and real estate from the University of Pennsylvania. Basically it was a Master of Architecture combined with their MBA real estate concentration. So it included everything from real estate finance to real estate development.
Having already done this 3-year program, there were a couple of things I wanted out of an MBA program. First of all, I wasn’t prepared to go full-time. Five years out of the workforce was simply too high of an opportunity cost for me and so part-time was all I considered. I also only applied to Rotman because I didn’t want to waste any time traveling outside of the city (or to other parts of the city). I also saw Rotman as a rising star and one of, if not the, best option in Canada.
At the same time, I didn’t give much thought to the real estate curriculum being offered even though I fully planned to stay working in the real estate industry. I felt like I already had that sort of formal training and so, unlike some of my classmates who were looking to switch into real estate, I was after something else. I ended up majoring in Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
What I was trying to do was really round out my skillset and fill in some of the missing holes: accounting, marketing, and so on. But even more importantly, I had drunk the kool-aid around Rotman’s focus on integrative thinking (renamed “business problem solving”) and “design thinking”. And since there will always be a part of me that thinks of itself as a designer, it seemed like the perfect program for me.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not that hard to learn how to create a real estate development pro forma or calculate your expected exit cap rate on some piece of real estate. That stuff is all fairly mechanical. It might seem quite mythical when you don’t know how to do it, but once you do, you quickly realize that a financial model is only as good as the assumptions you put in. As we’re told in school, garbage in = garbage out.
The real value gets created in the assumptions. It’s created in the way you think about the market, your product, and your customers. And a lot of the time, the most value is created when you know or believe something that nobody else believes to be true. If you’re a lemming, you’re going to get lemming like returns and outcomes. So in a lot of ways, I went to Rotman to help me think better and think differently.
In some industries, resting on your laurels can kill you in a relatively short period of time. See Blackberry. Real estate, on the other hand, is generally a bit slower moving. But that doesn’t mean that change doesn’t happen and that there isn’t room for loads of innovation.
Just look at the Toronto of today versus the Toronto of 10-15 years ago. We’ve transformed ourselves into a city of high-rises where more and more people now want to live in the core of the city. This has brought commercial landlords back to the city center so that employers have downtown office space to attract the best human capital (see South Core) and it’s brought suburban retailers into the core to sell to these same urbanites. We’re seeing a complete reversal of the trends experienced with the last generation.
Amidst all of this, I’ve been noticing a growing awareness and passion around cities. My blog Architect This City started as a forum for architects, planners, and developers, but it has grown into a community of thousands of people who simply love cities. They’re passionate about everything from architecture to grade-separated bike lanes (as geeky as that probably sounds).
So I think that it’s not only the real estate market that’s changing, but also the professions involved with it. I’ve written a lot about the future of the architecture profession because I think we’re starting to see the emergence of new business models. Architects are becoming developers and developers are starting to become much more heavily involved in the shaping of the communities in which they build. Which is why in many ways, I think of my self as a city builder more than anything else.
Finally, to make matters even more complicated, technology is starting to have a huge impact on the business. Zillow.com just bought Trulia.com for $3.5 billion to form a portal that will now serve around ¼ of the online US residential market. And Opendoor.com is getting ready to launch a product that seems entirely poised to disrupt the way homes are bought and sold in America.
So what I’m getting at is that there’s absolutely no guarantee that the way we used to do something, is the way we’re going to continue doing it. In fact, I operate under the assumption that everything can and will be changed by somebody at some point. And if this is the way you approach things, then it should become abundantly clear to you that being able think critically is going to be one of your most important assets.
When I was just starting at Rotman, I met for lunch with an upper year classmate who told me that one of the best things he’s taken away from the program is the ability to think about the way he thinks. That may sound silly to some, but in our uncertain world, it’s actually a great skill to have.
