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

  • Some thoughts on how we plan cities

    I came across this discussion on Twitter yesterday about how so many of the spaces we love in cities would not conform to today’s modern city planning practices:

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    This is a topic I’ve been thinking about lately and so it’s a timely discussion. In fact, I’ll often come across spaces in Toronto where I’ll think to myself: This is a really great space. But it’s highly unlikely that it could be built this way today. Naturally the question then becomes: What does this say about modern city planning?

    City planning is obviously important. But at the same time, we are almost certainly making mistakes and doing things that we will later regret. I say this not because I’m particularly critical of planning today, but because cities are enormously complex entities and it’s difficult to believe that we’ve figured everything out at this point.

    One thing I wonder about is if we aren’t over-planning and being too prescriptive about our cities. Some of you will probably argue the exact opposite. But hear me out.

    Vancouver is a city that has long been considered to be the gold standard in modern city planning. We talk about its podium + tower building typology. We talk about its “gentle density.” And we talk about its great public and recreational spaces, among many other things.

    But when I was there last month having dinner with a friend of mine, she said something to me that stood out. She said: “Brandon, Vancouver is a boring city. If it weren’t for my family being here, I would happily move to Toronto, New York, or somewhere else.”

    Cities are amazing places because they unleash human ingenuity. They allow new and unforeseen things to emerge. The challenge, I think, is to not sterilize that away when we plan and build. And all of us involved in the building of cities are probably guilty of doing that to an extent.

  • Architecture bike tour

    I am in New York right now and I spent the day riding around on a Citi Bike looking at architecture. Atop two wheels is such a fast way to get around.

    The first stop was the new transportation hub at the World Trade Center. Here’s a photo of the Oculus:

    The main station house (above) is absolutely breathtaking, but the exterior (in particular the entrances) felt a bit unresolved to me.

    Here’s a photo of 56 Leonard by Herzog & de Meuron:

    People call it the Jenga tower.

    And here’s a photo of a building on Broadway in Soho:

    Look at how the overhangs fold down and adjust the window dimensions so that it matches the building to the left. Bigger windows towards Broadway. Smaller windows as you move inward. I thought this was really neat.

    And now back to New York City. See you tomorrow.

  • Franchise starchitecture

    Back in 2014, Witold Rybczynski (who taught at Penn while I was there) wrote an article in The New York Times Style Magazine called The Franchising of Architecture. In it, he argued against the trend of “starchitecture.” 

    Here’s an excerpt:

    “Architecture, however, is a social art, rather than a personal one, a reflection of a society and its values rather than a medium of individual expression. So it’s a problem when the prevailing trend is one of franchises, particularly those of the globe-trotters: Renzo, Rem, Zaha and Frank. It’s exciting to bring high-powered architects in from outside. It flatters a city’s sense of self-importance, and fosters the perception of a place as a creative hotbed. But in the long run it’s wiser to nurture local talent; instead of starchitects, locatects.”

    Following this, James Russell (a longtime architecture critic) wrote a searing rebuttal called The Stupid Starchitect Debate. He called Witold’s story a piece of utter laziness and urged us to stop whining about celebrity architecture.

    Here’s an excerpt:

    “Celebrity architecture is not a franchise (McDonalds is a franchise), but branding. Branding is repellently ubiquitous, and it is pure romanticism to think architecture can escape a trend that so powerfully guides spending. A friend became a museum director in part because building a new building was part of the job. I thought he would bring up an energetic young local talent, but he ended up with an international big name because, he said, only the stars would bring in the donors. That’s sad, but emblematic of an era when private wealth builds the cultural facilities the public won’t pay for. That’s why celebrity architects are brands—a title none of them sought, though all are adept at exploiting. Even wealthy, sophisticated trustees like to bask in the glow of a name that’s got cachet, rather than look hard for someone with obvious talent but who is not well known.”

    This is a fascinating debate. And I would be curious to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

    My own view is that, yes, it is wonderfully romantic to think that we can go back to a period of time when London architecture was designed only by English architects, Paris architecture designed only by French architects, and so on. But the world has changed. The genie is out of the bottle on that one.

    I also don’t think that brand needs to be a dirty word in the context of architecture. There’s value in brand equity. And everything can be construed as a brand. This blog is part of my personal brand. That’s our world.

    The problem I have with this line of thinking is when architecture gets reduced to style, to form, to a veneer. Architecture is an opportunity to solve problems and respond to real (including local) constraints. That also creates value – arguably much more value. And I don’t believe that only “locatects” have the ability to respond to that challenge.

    There’s so much more that can be said about this topic.

  • Urban change through rapid prototyping

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    The Market Street Prototyping Festival is just finishing up in San Francisco. The festival, which is now in its 3rd year, is centered around urban interventions that can be rapidly prototyped and tested. The goal is to discover new ideas that could be used to transform and improve Market Street – the city’s civic spine. It is a joint effort of both the San Francisco Planning Department and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

    Here is a list of all the prototypes. You can “like” projects, but I wish they would have made it easier to filter and see which ones are the most popular.

    One project that I liked is Vote With Your Feet. It consists of two doorways and a single crowdsourced YES/NO question above it. You vote by choosing a doorway. Once you walk through, you are then shown the results. Here’s a Boomerang video of it in action. I like it because it provides a frictionless way to acquire lots of ground-up feedback. Imagine placing something like this at the exit of a busy train station or transforming the existing doors.

    Tactical urbanism can be a great mechanism for investigating and instigating positive change. This is hugely important considering how slow moving and bureaucratic city building can be. It’s not the same format, but NXT City here in Toronto has similar ambitions. They source new ideas for our public spaces from young people. I am thrilled that both of these initiatives exist.

  • The Edge — The World’s Greenest Building

    When I was in grad school, I used to search around online and make lists of real estate developers that I felt were philosophically aligned with my own view of the world. I didn’t want to work for just any developer, I wanted one that cared about design, technology, sustainability, and so on.

    One of the developers on my list was OVG Real Estate in Amsterdam. They describe themselves as “the largest real estate technology company in The Netherlands” and they have recently completed The Edge, which is being called the greenest office building in the world. It received a 98.36% sustainability score from BREEAM-NL.

    The building uses 70% less electricity than the “typical office building” and uses solar panels on its rooftop, as well as on some neighboring university buildings, to produce more energy than it consumes. The building is also a great example of the Internet of Things. Anchor tenant Deloitte created its own mobile app so that employees can control lighting, climate, and so on.

    The building also has an on-site gym. I’m a big fan of mid-day workouts.

    There’s a lot going on with this building, so here’s a video from Bloomberg describing how it functions (click here if you can’t see it below):

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSzko-K7dzo?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

    Photos of the building here.

  • Building crap

    Last night I participated in an excellent dinner discussion with a group of planners, architects, city officials, and politicians from Amsterdam. They were visiting Toronto to see first hand what rapid intensification has done to this city. And I very much appreciated the invite. Thank you.

    My message was that intensification has created a far more vibrant and exciting city compared to 15 or so years ago. It’s hard to know what exactly could be correlated with intensification, but we have certainly seen an explosion of culture, innovation, and pride in this city – among many other things. (It could be all Drake’s doing.)

    However, the counter argument at the dinner table was that Toronto is letting unfettered development produce unremarkable architecture. We are simply building glass tower after glass tower. And I know that, for many of you, this will ring true. I hear it all the time, including in the comments of this blog.

    Now, I will be the first to admit that there has been a lot of shit built in this city. No argument there. Some people have no taste. But at the same time, I think it’s myopic to assume that it’s strictly because of profit-motivated developers. 

    Oftentimes the perception is that development projects are awash in cash. There’s tons of money in which to do the right thing. Developers just need to stop being so greedy and start being more creative.

    The reality is that developers operate within a market. There are real limits to what people will pay for new space. And when, for instance, land prices go through the roof (an input), municipal fees jump (cost of doing business), and approvals drag (time value of money), guess where everyone starts looking for savings? In the build.

    I say this not to justify building crap. If I had it my way, everything would be beautiful. I champion design whenever possible. I say it simply to shed light on the process. Because when we all understand the factors at a play, I believe we all become more effective at finding solutions.

  • Building the future

    Toronto-based heritage architect Michael McClelland recently published a piece in Spacing called: Misuse of Heritage Conservation Districts can deaden both past and future. 

    Here are a couple of snippets:

    The City of Toronto believes it has found a silver bullet to control development pressure in the downtown core through the use of a tool known as a “heritage conservation district” (HCD).

    The problem is that HCDs are meant to conserve intact and bone fide heritage areas, such as Wychwood Park, Rosedale, or Cabbagetown. They were never intended to control development downtown.

    In preparing for a HCD designation, consultants trained in history examine an area’s context and determine what is of value historically. They do not generally study the growth potential of an area, its future, nor any economic considerations, nor the larger planning policy framework, or even an evaluation of the built form generated by other market forces. HCDs look at heritage.

    The rigidity of the proposed new urban design controls introduced by the HCDs effectively prohibits innovative and thoughtful architecture in the downtown core.

    My own view is that it should be a balance between preservation and progress. We should respect our past, but at the same time look towards the future. Don’t fear change. Michael argues that HCDs achieve neither of those things. It’s worth a read.

    Speaking of the future, the CityAge conference is returning to Toronto on October 6 and 7. Their mission statement is about “building the future.” I was on one of their panels last year and it was an overall great event.

    If you’d like to attend, use the code “CITYAGE” to save $100. And if you’re a young professional (under 35) and/or a startup, email Marc Andrew to get an even sweeter deal. Tell him you’re a reader of this blog.

    Image: Photo by me taken at People’s Eatery on Spadina Avenue

  • Forest

    I just backed the following project on Kickstarter:

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/991195979/n-o-r-t-h-simple-timeless-and-refined-watches/widget/card.html?v=2

    It is a new watch line from two Montreal designers. The brand is called Forest Time Co. There’s so much creative talent in that city.

    I was immediately drawn to the focus on minimalism and on high quality materials. That’s a philosophy I can get behind. I plan to go for the black band with copper case.

    I know nothing about watch movements, but it’s a “Japanese Miyota.” I assume that’s pretty basic.

    I love finding interesting projects on Kickstarter. There’s something about backing a team and their new creation. We should all aspire to make and create more.

    At the time of writing this post, they’re about $1,000 shy of their funding goal of $24,000. I hope they reach it by this Sunday. I’m sure they will.

  • Weekend architecture roundup

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    Things have been far too serious around here this week with talk of interest rates, unrealized gains, flooding, and the EU referendum. So let’s change that and do a bit of an architecture roundup. It has been on my agenda for a few weeks now to move toward some sort of regular post about architecture and design.

    1.

    DUS architects of Amsterdam recently completed a fully 3D printed urban cabin (pictured above). It totals 8 square meters and was printed using “bio-plastic,” which means the entire structure could be shredded and reprinted into something else. The Urban Cabin is a research experiment, but the thinking is that 3D printed homes could serve as an “on-demand housing solution” in rapidly urbanizing cities, in disaster areas, and so on. That said, the niche use case can quickly become the mainstream use case.

    2.

    REX has just released their design for a Performing Arts Center on the World Trade Center site. The design is a minimalist “mystery box” that provides an infinitely customizable interior canvas for directors. I have long been interested in the work of REX because of the hyper-rationale approach they quite often bring to architecture. It’s about allowing architecture to emerge from the project’s constraints, programmatic requirements, and so on. Here’s a video of the project.

    3.

    Finally, this Swiss chalet (not the restuarant) in the town of Anzère has got me pretty excited about the upcoming snowboard season. It was designed by the Amsterdam-based firm SeARCH. And I love the dichotomy between the raw exposed concrete and the softer wood details. Also note how the garage, situated beneath the house, is built into the mountain. It is connected to the house above via an elevator that is also carved into the mountain. Sadly, my ski retreats don’t typically involve James Bond-style lairs.

    Image: Copyright Ossip

  • Compact and constrained

    I was walking by a tight construction site last night and it got me thinking. Besides the obvious environmental benefits of building up, as opposed to out, compact urban sites can force something else: intent.

    One of the ways I think about good design is that it is intentional. It is about seeing problems and/or opportunities and then being deliberate in how you respond. Every creative decision needs a reason why. I like how John R. Moran talks about design in this blog post from 2014:

    “The opposite of design, then, is the failure to develop and employ intent in making creative decisions. This doesn’t sound hard, but, astonishingly, no other leading tech company makes intentional design choices like Apple. Instead, they all commit at least one of what I term the Three Design Evasions.”

    The three design evasions he goes on to talk about are (1) preserving, (2) copying, and (3) delegating.

    The thing about compact and constrained urban sites is that they can force you away from the three design evasions that Moran lists in his post. You can’t just repeat what was done in the past or copy what someone else has done, because that precedent probably didn’t have the same challenges you face.

    Of course, if this were enough to promote great design, our cities would look a hell of a lot different. Still, it’s one of the reasons why I’m attracted to compact forms of development such as laneway housing and other urban infill.