Tag: construction

• BIG’s IQON in Quito

  

  BIG just announced its first project in South America. It is a 33 storey residential building in Quito, Ecuador. When completed, it will be the tallest building in the city. The developer is Uribe and Schwarzkopf. 

  Here are a couple of other images:

  

  The building is made up of “concrete boxes” that, when rotated, create terraces for the apartments. On one corner of the building the apartments are “through-units”, meaning they have two exposures. In this case, it is north and south.

  While different, we are starting to see some similarities across BIG’s projects, which isn’t meant as a criticism. I am thinking of Telus Sky, Vancouver House, and even KING Toronto. 

  They are, at least partially, about expressing the individual apartments and creating opportunities for outdoor spaces. This also serves to break down the overall scale of the building.

  What do you think of the project?

  Images: BIG

  2018.10.19

• First-year building project

  

  Each year, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are tasked with designing and then physically building a new single-family house in an economically depressed neighborhood. Sometimes, like this year, the house may have multiple dwelling units.

  I have always thought that this is a great exercise both from a pedagogical standpoint and from a positive impact standpoint. Young architecture students get to experience designing and building something from scratch, and lower-income families get a new house. I toured one of the completed houses in New Haven back in, I think, 2005. 

  This building project, which was started in 1967, is fairly unique among architecture schools, though others have replicated the model. When I was living in the US, I spent a few weekends working on homes for Rebuilding Together Philadelphia. But the scope was fairly limited. It was nothing like this.

  I think more schools should do this. And I also wonder if there aren’t permutations of this model that could live outside of the university context.

  Image: Yale

  2018.10.18

• Canadian minimalism

  I have one more note to share this week about Junction House and then I promise we’ll be back to regular scheduled programming. Below is a copy of the press release that went out yesterday afternoon. It includes a few more renderings for the project.

  ————————————

  

  October 11, 2018 (TORONTO) – After unveiling plans for a Studio Gang-designed tower at Yonge and St. Clair earlier in the summer, Slate Asset Management enters the fall market with a new mid-rise condo offering in the Junction. Designed by acclaimed Canadian architects, superkül, and emerging local interior design firm, Dialogue 38, Junction House further solidifies Slate’s approach of leading with design and city building when it comes to residential development.

  “We invest in designers because we believe in design innovation,” says Brandon Donnelly, VP of Development for Slate Asset Management. “For us, good design moves beyond aesthetics and actually solves problems and creates value for people. We want to empower each of our collaborators to come up with bold ideas, as well as think beyond our individual projects and consider the broader community.“

  Sited at 2720 Dundas St W, just as the road begins to bend, Junction House is conceived as a new gateway into one of Toronto’s most vibrant neighbourhoods. The ambitious design brief challenged superkül and Dialogue 38 to define a Canadian brand of minimalism that at the same time reflects the historic material palette and creative energy of the Junction community.

  “One of our inspirations was picking up on Scandinavian and Japanese approaches to minimalism, but through the lens of the Junction. What would that look like? How could we make sure our homegrown brand of minimalism is seen as approachable and in keeping with the neighbourhood?” says Donnelly. “We also really wanted to look at multi-storey suites – which eventually became The House Collection – and explore how we could replicate the single-family experience in a boutique mid-rise format,” he adds, citing the influx of families into the Junction and the need for new residential options in the city more broadly.

  

  “The building was designed from the inside out,” says Andre D’Elia, Principal at superkül. “We focused on the suites because, ultimately, that is where people are going to live and spend most of their time. We didn’t just design a nine-storey building, we designed 144 homes that occupy the same built form.”

  When it came to the exterior cladding, D’Elia says the focus was on reflecting the immediate context, while elaborating on the details. “We immediately thought of red brick, which is prevalent in the neighbourhood, and ended up cladding the first five storeys of the building with it. In order to add a sense of movement we staggered and angled the brick columns to play with light and shadow. We’re also introducing some old-world brick-coursing to add visual interest and mirror the local context.”

  Dialogue 38 was tapped for the interiors after Donnelly visited a café designed by the firm in the east end of downtown. “Their work is what motivated us to reach out, because it seemed to get the Canadian minimalist sensibility we were after,” explains Donnelly.

  Bennett Lo, Founder of Dialogue 38, says his approach was to focus on delivering design that would last. “We’re all influenced by trends and lifestyle, but our designs need to stand up against time. How do you produce something that is going to have immediate appeal and provide its own kind of interest, without feeling dated in a few years? The idea was to strip the design back and focus on the essentials, while at the same time incorporating aspects of the area. The suites and common areas will have smooth concrete ceilings and warm touches of wood throughout – and the lines are clean and open.”

  

  The nine-storey building will also feature an expansive lobby that doubles as a co-working space, as well as a gym that draws on the warm materials of the suites and common areas. Lo says the design of the amenity space is optimized to encourage active use. “We focused on the amenities that we know people use, and spent our energy crafting spaces that embody the spirit of the building. The benefit of a boutique mid-rise is the opportunity to extend your living space in to the amenity spaces, and provide moments of social engagement in the building.”

  “We’re a short walk to the UP Express station at Bloor, which can take you downtown in less than 10 minutes. That proximity gives us an opportunity to have a dialogue between the Junction and the rest of the city. The proposed sign marks the Junction’s location and lets you know where you’re going, but also, where you should be,” says Donnelly.

  Junction House offers 1, 2, and 3-bedroom suites, as well as its signature House Collection, ranging from 500 sq. ft. to over 1,500 sq. ft. and starting from the $400s. To register visit: JunctionHouse.ca

  Press Contact:

  Vakis Boutsalis, kg&a

  Vakis@kga-inc.com / 416 537 0954 / 416 578 1741

  About Slate Asset Management L.P.

  Slate Asset Management L.P. is a leading real estate investment platform with over $6.0 billion in assets under management. Slate is a value-oriented manager and a significant sponsor of all of its private and publicly-traded investment vehicles, which are tailored to the unique goals and objectives of its investors. The firm’s careful and selective investment approach creates long-term value with an emphasis on capital preservation and outsized returns. Slate is supported by exceptional people, flexible capital and a proven ability to originate and execute on a wide range of compelling investment opportunities. Visit slateam.com to learn more.

  2018.10.12

• Battle of the Bungehuis

  

  This past July, Soho House Amsterdam opened up in the storied Bungehuis building. Not really news, other than the fact that FT just published this article talking about the building’s history and some of the project’s hurdles, which I of course found interesting.

  Completed in 1934, the Bungehuis originally served as the offices for a prominent trading company. The architect was ADN van Gendt. When he died during the building’s construction, Willem Jacob Klok took over.

  Also noteworthy about the building’s construction is that, according to Wikipedia, twenty houses had to be demolished in order for it to be constructed.

  This underscores a point that I have made before on the blog. Cities are not static. Most of us probably look at the Bungehuis and consider it to be quite a handsome piece of architecture. Some of us may even go so far as to say that we don’t make buildings like they used to.

  Soho House is on record saying that they were “not very budget-conscious” during the renovation because of the sense of responsibility that they felt around the building and its history.

  

  But I think it’s important to note that this building was initially built for a for-profit company and things had to be demolished in order for it to come to fruition. 

  I can’t say for sure whether this development was opposed in the 1930s, but it may have been. Cities and buildings have a way of ingratiating themselves over time.

  In any event, starting in the 1970s, the building became home to the arts faculty at the University of Amsterdam. And as recent as 2015, it became home to the Bungehuis occupations – a protest occupation started by students and staff of the University who were opposed to a slew of academic cuts.

  

  Then in a state of poor repair, the building was ultimately sold to Aedes Real Estate, who now leases it to the Soho House Group for their private club and 79 room hotel. Above is a picture of the club’s rooftop pool and lounge.

  The big hurdle, or at least one of them, was the fact that Amsterdam currently has a moratorium on new hotels – as a way to try and mitigate “overtourism” – unless it can be demonstrated that it will represent “an extraordinary addition to the existing stock.”

  Since Soho House Amsterdam opened in July, I guess we know the answer to that test. But it sounds like it may have been a battle. That wouldn’t be a first for this building.

  Images: Soho House Group

  2018.10.09

• Housing supply and displacement in San Francisco

  

  Joe Cortright recently wrote about a study by Kate Pennington (UC Berkeley), which looked at the impact of housing production on legal eviction in San Francisco. The goal was to figure out if new housing supply actually causes displacement.

  To do this, Pennington went block-by-block and looked at new housing projects, as well as over a decades’ worth of eviction notices. 

  The relationship between the two was found to be “statistically indistinguishable from zero.” In other words, the “monthly probability of an eviction notice” does not change when new housing supply is completed nearby.

  Some have been critical of her findings and some have questioned whether legal eviction notices are, in fact, the right proxy for displacement.

  But I agree with Joe Cortright in that this still feels like a meaningful relationship to understand, especially when we’re talking about a tight housing market like San Francisco’s.

  Photo by Matthew Cabret on Unsplash

  2018.09.15

• Tridel unveils smart condominium in South Core

  

  A few weeks ago, Canadian developer Tridel unveiled its first “smart condominium” at Ten York – a recently completed 69 storey building in the South Core neighborhood of Toronto. Above is an archive photo of the building under construction. I chose this one because its siting between the Gardiner Expressway (left) and Harbour Street (right) is also noteworthy.

  Smart anything is one of those tech buzzwords that is, I know, starting to feel vapid. But Tridel has done some interesting things here with their Tridel Connect platform (a collaboration with SmartONE Solutions). And if you happen to also be in the business of designing and constructing multi-family buildings, I think you’ll find it to be a useful case study.

  At Ten York, you can now use your phone as a key fob. People buzzing up are shown to you on your wall pad so you can confirm identity. The suite entry doors use digital locks, which means you use an access code instead of a key. Additional codes can be created for family and friends or for service providers like dog walkers and cleaners. You’re also given a log of who has come and gone. And of course there’s an automated parcel delivery system.

  If you’d like to see all of the features in the live, I suggest you take a look at the “b-roll video” that was included as part of their press release. Tridel is excellent at implementing new technologies and I know that they frequently reserve test suites in their projects to try some of them out. This is a great thing for the industry and for consumers.

  Image: Tridel

  2018.09.09

• Limits of housing affordability

  

  The San Francisco Chronicle recently published an article called, “SF residential projects languish as rising costs force developers to cash out.” It talks about the impact that rising costs (both construction and other) are having on new housing supply. Some developers aren’t building even though may have entitled sites. And that’s because the math doesn’t work, even though we’re in a market with a severe housing shortage.

  Here is an excerpt from the article that talks about the kind of pricing that is needed in order to make a project work:

  Chris Foley, a real estate investor and partner in brokerage firm Polaris Pacific, said that in the current construction environment a condominium developer needs to sell units for at least $1,400 a square foot for a wood-frame building and $1,800 a square for a taller, steel-frame midrise or high-rise. Even in a city where more than 80 percent of the population is priced out of the market, those numbers are a stretch, Foley said.

  San Francisco also has inclusionary zoning, which requires a certain percentage of units in any new development to be priced below market. According to the article, it is 18% for new rental projects and 20% for new condo projects. That’s a cost that needs to be absorbed by the remaining market rate units – so price accordingly. 

  The MIRA tower designed by Studio Gang is currently under construction and has 156 affordable units and 393 market rate units. The market rate pricing looks something like this:

  That’s the case with three buildings rising near the new Transbay Transit Center: Mira, the Avery at 400 Folsom St., and One Steuart Lane, which overlooks the Embarcadero at the foot of Howard Street. Unless there is a remarkable drop in the market, units in all three of those buildings will probably have an average sales price of more than $2,000 a square foot and penthouses could fetch $3,000 or even $4,000 a square foot. A 3,326-square-foot penthouse at 181 Fremont St., which opened last spring, recently sold for $15 million, or $4,500 a square foot.

  Projects being squeezed by rising costs is something that we are also seeing here in Toronto. And I don’t believe that the general public fully appreciates that there are limits to the costs that can be shouldered by new development. And the reason for that is because there are limits to what people can afford to pay for new housing.

  Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

  2018.09.07

• The real reason people oppose new development

  

  A good friend of mine just sent me this fascinating research paper called: Opposition to Development or Opposition to Developers? Survey Evidence from Los Angeles County on Attitudes towards New Housing. It is a study out of UCLA that was published earlier this year by Paavo Monkkonen and Michael Manville.

  For the paper, they conducted a survey-framing experiment with over 1,300 people in Los Angeles County to test how strongly they felt about a number of common anti-housing sentiments; arguments such as traffic congestion, neighborhood character, and strain on local services. 

  However, they also introduced another argument: large developer profits. And interestingly enough, they discovered that respondents were 20 percentage points more likely to oppose a new hypothetical housing development when the survey was framed around the developer making a lot of money.

  Here is a table from the paper showing the various frames, as well as the percentage of people who supported, had no opinion, and who opposed. Note that under the “developer” frame, the opposition number is 48%.

  

  So their “takeaway for practice” is as follows: “Housing opposition is often framed as a form of risk aversion. Our findings, however, suggest that at least some opposition to housing might be motivated not by residents’ fears of their own losses, but resentment of others’ gains.”

  Photo by Cameron Stow on Unsplash
  

  2018.08.29

• Preliminary design ideas for Toronto’s Quayside

  Last week Sidewalk Toronto held a roundtable discussion here in the city and released some preliminary design ideas and strategies for Quayside. (That’s why Dan Doctoroff was talking on BNN Bloomberg.) 

  I went through the full presentation this morning and below are a bunch of slides that I thought you all might find interesting.

  Here is the extent of “Quayside” along the waterfront. The current land use permissions allow for about 3 million square feet of space and towers as tall as 50 storeys.

  

  Here is a paving system being explored for the area. It is modular. It may melt snow. And perhaps most interestingly, it would allow for dynamic changes in road use throughout the day. This sort of thing already happens to a lesser degree on streets like Jarvis. This technology could take that much further.

  

  One of their primary goals is to double Toronto’s usable outdoor hours. To do that, they are proposing simple weather shields (pictured below) and weather-responsive systems.

  

  They are spending a lot of time thinking about the ground floor of buildings, which they are calling Stoa. The idea is to create flexible and porous spaces that respond quickly to changing needs and that integrate more seamlessly with the surrounding public realm.

  

  There’s a lot on the potential hierarchy of the street network and how each will function for transit, conventional cars, AVs, cyclists, pedestrians, and so on. I was happy to see “laneways” as a core part of the pedestrian network. They are designed for walking speeds. Access would be restricted for things that move too quickly.

  

  This image ties in the street grid and Stoa.

  

  Finally, the goal is to build the neighborhood entirely out of timber, and more specifically, Canadian timber. If they follow through on this, I think it would really push adoption of this material forward in the city.

  

  I would encourage you to check out the full package, which you can do here. I can’t wait for these projects to get underway along Toronto’s waterfront.

  2018.08.18

• North American cities with the most construction cranes

  Rider Levett Bucknall recently released its RLB Crane Index for Q3-2018. Here are the top 10 cities in North America (table via the New York Times):

  

  For the third consecutive reporting period, Toronto has taken the number one spot at 97 cranes – 85 of which are being used on residential projects. 

  I’m not at all sure how the study defines “mixed-use” projects. But given that Toronto only has 2 of them, it must not include projects with grade-related retail.

  Across North America, residential and mixed-use projects (whatever they are) make up approximately 70% of the total crane count. 

  I am surprised that Miami didn’t make the list.

  2018.08.17