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: design competition

  • 3D-printed homes for under $99,000

    ICON, the 3D-printing home company that I wrote about a few months ago, has just launched a new global architecture competition called Initiative 99. As the name starts to suggest, the goal is to generate new ideas for “accessible, beautiful, and dignified 3D-printed homes that can be built for under US$99,000.”

    The competition is open to all: architects, designers, builders, students, and/or people who are just interested in finding new ways to deliver affordable housing. However, the current website does ask for a zip code. So maybe you need to live in the US.

    In any event, if you’re selected, you might get money and you might get to see your design built. The total prize fund for the competition is US$1 million and ICON has also committed to building a selection of the winning designs. Registration begins May 23, 2023, but if you’d like to enter your zip code now and “stay informed,” you can do that here.

  • Waterfront ReConnect Design Competition announces six shortlisted teams

    This past summer, the Bentway (in collaboration with the City of Toronto, the Waterfront BIA, and the Toronto Downtown West BIA) issued a call for expressions of interest to re-imagine two key intersections under downtown Toronto’s elevated Gardiner Expressway. The York Street intersection and the Simcoe Street intersection.

    That process has run its course and the following six teams have now been shortlisted:

    York Street

    • Sans Façon + Zeidler (Calgary/Toronto)
    • LeuWebb Projects + DIALOG + Mulvey & Banani Lighting (Toronto)
    • 5468796 Architecture Inc. (Winnipeg)

    Simcoe Street

    • O2 Planning & Design Inc. + Mulvey & Banani Lighting + ENTUITIVE (Calgary/Toronto)
    • Daily Tous Les Jours + SvN Architects + Planners + Latéral (Montreal/Toronto)
    • SOCA + Tiffany Shaw-Collinge + SHEEEP (Toronto/Edmonton)

    The next step in this process is a nine-week design exercise where the above teams will go away and prepare their design concepts. We work with a number of the companies on this shortlist and I am sure that there will be some fantastic ideas that are put forward. After selecting the two winners, the plan is to then start construction in 2022.

    The Bentway is doing some fantastic work in reimagining the underside of our downtown highway. This is yet another example of that. For more information about the competition, click here.

    Photo by Brian Jones on Unsplash

  • A visit to BMW World

    Today we visited BMW Welt (World) and the BMW Museum in Munich.

    BMW Welt was designed by COOP HIMMELB(L)AU out of Vienna. It is the result of a design competition that the BMW Group held in 2001. Construction of the ~73,000 square meter facility was completed in 2007.

    The project is centered around a great hall and an elevated vehicle delivery area known as Premiere. It was designed — and this includes the HVAC system — to handle 40 car deliveries per hour, or 250 per day. I guess they don’t work a full 8 hours.

    Below are two photos that I took of the delivery area. The circles you see on the floor in the second picture are rotating platforms. This is where you want to pick up your new car.

    And here is a plan of the entire Welt space via COOP HIMMELB(L)AU:

    I also really enjoyed the BMW Museum, which is housed in a separate building adjacent to the BMW Tower (the one that looks like engine cylinders).

    The “art cars” were a lot of fun. I’m sure that many of you will be able to guess the artist behind this one:

    But what I enjoyed most were the classics like this one here:

    The least interesting cars for me were the ones that weren’t old enough to be “classic”, but also weren’t new and shiny. This can happen with architectural styles as well. Designs sometime need time to settle in.

    For more photos of BMW Welt and the BMW Museum, follow me on Instagram.

    Drawings/Isometrics: COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

  • 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.