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: home

  • Don’t touch the walls

    The Smith House by Richard Meier turned 50 years old last year. In celebration of that, photographer Mike Schwartz took these photographs. And just recently they were published in Surface Magazine along with an interview of both Meier and Chuck Smith. Smith’s mother commissioned the house (completed in 1967) and he was 8 years old when the family moved in.

    My favorite comment in the article is this one by Smith:

    “Don’t throw balls in the house, and don’t touch the walls.” I must have heard “don’t touch the walls” three or four times a day. That said, there’s a crack in one of the windows where I shot it with a BB gun. We got away with some things.

    Modern architecture was supposed to be a perfectly engineered machine for living. But I guess living didn’t include touching the walls or shooting BB guns in the house.

    My favorite photos – both from Mike Schwartz – are these two:

    imageimage

    They feel like inversions of each other. The first one (day shot) is all about the views outward. Meier also talks about how the white on white helps to enhance this experience. The second one (night shot) turns the house inward on itself. Smith talks about how at night the view disappears and all you’re left with is your own reflection.

    I also like how the paint is flaking on the fireplace, which by the way, is perfectly on axis with the home’s entry. It makes you work a little bit for the view. Apparently keeping the paint on was a problem since day one. But it gives the house – which is otherwise seemingly perfect – a bit of a patina. 

    However, I’m guessing that Meier would prefer the paint stay on.

  • Peach skin

    I am fascinated by the way the Japanese think about housing. It is very different than the way we think about housing here in North America. Below is a small house tour that reinforces that. If you can’t see it below, click here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fEeh-8OFT8?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

  • A money back guarantee on your next home

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    I’ve written about Opendoor.com a few times. As far as I can tell, they are the furthest ahead in terms of disrupting the residential real estate market. So I like to follow them quite closely.

    They’ve recently launched some new features, so I figured it would be a good time to check-in on what they’re up to. But first – for those of you might not be familiar with Opendoor – here’s what they do.

    Opendoor offers instant liquidity to homeowners by buying homes site unseen. The fee they charge seems to amount to less than 10% of the value of the home. 

    They also say that they typically offer prices that are about 1-3% less than the market value of the home 3 months into the future. (Apparently 3 months is the average time-on-market for the cities in which they operate.)

    Once they’ve bought the home, they then make improvements and put it back on the market. As of today, they are buying about 10 homes a day in the two markets in which they operate (Phoenix and Dallas). They are spending about $75 million a month buying homes.

    To mitigate their risk, they won’t buy a home built before 1960, a home that was pre-fabricated, a home with a solar lease, and so on. They also stick to values that are between $100,000 to $600,000. But apparently this covers off about 90% of homes in the United States. (You can read their full FAQ here.)

    To accomplish all of this, they have raised about $110 million in venture capital.

    What’s fascinating about all of this is that they are starting to create a seamless marketplace. As they continue to buy more homes (and aggregate supply), more buyers are starting to come to their marketplace. They also allow people to easily find local contractors.

    Over time as they gain scale and as their algorithms improve, one could imagine their pricing becoming more competitive, them taking more of the market, and them bearing much less market risk as homes quickly trade. 

    They liken their model to car trade-ins. Apparently 60% of people who buy a new car are trading in an old one. That’s an interesting comparison that I hadn’t thought about before.

    So what’s new?

    Two things…

    First, they are offering a 30 day full refund on new home purchases. In other words, if you buy a home through their platform and, for whatever reason, you end up not liking it, they’ll buy it back (minus some transaction costs and so on).

    Second, they are providing a 180-point inspection report to buyers and if anything breaks in the first two years of ownership (presumably it is something that contravenes the inspection), they’ll come and fix it.

    These additions are helpful because it starts to target buyers, which will help them fill out the other side of their marketplace. It also promotes greater transparency because now they’re partially on the hook for the home’s performance.

    I like what they are doing and, again, I can’t think of any other company making such big bets in this space.

  • What’s in a word? A lot.

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    One of the things I try to be aware of is the language that I use to describe things. Because the words and conventions we use can impact how we perceive things and they can also reinforce certain inherent biases. (I have a good friend who is an expert on this topic, so he has heightened my awareness.)

    For instance, I find that we tend to equate home and house. In other words, we’ll use the descriptors detached house and detached home interchangeably. And when we say that someone is a homeowner, it can sometimes, or often, mean that they have purchased a house.

    The same does not seem to be true for apartments and condominiums. Rarely do I hear people say that they live in an apartment home or a condominium home. It’s just an apartment or condo.

    This is meaningful because the emotionally charged word is home. It signifies a subjective (and usually comforting) experience, whereas the word house, I would argue, represents a building typology. And so by conflating the two, I often feel that we’re promoting a cultural bias that privileges houses as the ideal building typology. A true home is a house.

    The other word that I often think about in my business is unit. When we talk about multi-family buildings we often – and I’m definitely guilty of this – refer to each suite as a unit. We’ll say things like: “This is a 200 unit building and the unit mix is as follows…”

    Again, I am absolutely guilty of this. But at the same time, I often think about how this word, unit, is probably the furthest thing away from a home. Who wants to live in a unit? That doesn’t sound very pleasant. In fact, it sounds clinical. People want to live in a home. Now that’s a word with positive psychological associations.

    And so by reducing each home to a unit, I think it could be making us lose sight of the fact that each suite will eventually be lived in by someone who will then make it their home. Yes they can be considered a customer who are paying for a product (a great place to live), but I don’t think that should take anything away from its homeyness. 

    I live in a condominium and it is my home. What about you?

    Image: Flickr

  • 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?

  • K-House

    My friend Nicolas Koff – who I went to architecture school with, twice – recently completed a house near Hamilton, Ontario. I think it’s stunning and so I wanted to share it with you all today. It was also featured in Dezeen Magazine this week. That’s where the photos are from.

    Beyond its good looks though, it’s also a great example of sustainable design. The walls were prefabricated and are 40cm thick in order to reduce energy consumption. There are also solar panels on the roof to offset some of the electrical loads. And this is just some of the sustainability strategies employed.

    Click here to see the rest of the photos at Dezeen. I hope you like it as much as I do.

  • A panelization system for precision homes

    I recently had the opportunity to visit the 200,000 square foot manufacturing facility of H+ME Technology here in Toronto.

    Here’s a photo of myself and Nick Zicaro:

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    H+ME (originally called Brockport Home Systems Ltd.) is a division of developer Great Gulf, but they were never intended to be just an in-house provider and much of their business is now with outside clients.

    What H+ME Technology does is manufacture and assemble factory-built wood panels for both low-rise and mid-rise new construction homes. That is, instead of the walls and floors being framed outside on the construction site, they are fabricated ahead of time in a controlled facility (see below) and then delivered to site. This allows for a single-family home to be framed in as little as 2 days on the job site.

    image

    What’s interesting about all of this is that architects have long been obsessed with the idea of shifting construction away from the actual job site. A great book on this topic is Refabricating Architecture by Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake. In it they talk about how inefficient our construction processes are and how we ought to move towards a fully integrated approach that brings together technology, materials, and production methods.

    And in 2006 they put their money where their mouth is and built a fully prefabricated house on Taylors Island in Maryland. Here’s an snippet from their website:

    “Most houses are built from thousands of parts, which are transported separately to the construction site and pieced together by hand—a process of extraordinary duration, cost, and environmental impact. With Loblolly House, by contrast, we wanted to use integrated assemblies of those parts, fabricated off site, to build a house in an entirely different way.”

    The big advantage of this entirely different way is that you’re able to dramatically improve efficiencies, quality, and performance by fabricating the components in a controlled environment, as opposed to on-site by hand.

    Despite all this, the industry has been incredibly slow to change and most houses are indeed not built this way. But H+ME is working to change that, which is why I was keen to check out their facility and learn about their business.

    So here’s how it works:

    H+ME starts by modeling out the entire home in 3D CAD according to the project drawings. This allows them to catch any design coordination errors before they happen on-site. And it’s why their slogan is “Twice built. Assembled once.” They are literally building the entire house in 3D ahead of time.

    Once the house has been modeled, they then send the designs for the walls and floors to their factory and begin production. During this process, all of the rough-ins for electrical, plumbing, and so on, are provided, which makes it super easy for the trades on-site later on.

    Here’s what that looks like in the factory:

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    And here’s what the scene looks like on-site when the panels get delivered:

    //platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

    Ultimately, their vision is to be able to deliver fully closed walls to site. This would mean that all the plumbing, electrical, insulation, and so, would already be in the walls and be ready to get connected/assembled. All of this is a significant step forward.

    Because as Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake argued in their book, this is where the industry is headed. We are headed towards much closer integration across design, technology, materials, and production methods.

    And in the end this is a great thing for both the industry and for consumers. It will translate into less coordination errors. Less construction waste. Less environmental impact. Greater construction efficiency. And much higher quality homes. I can’t wait to see more of this.

    A big thanks to the folks at H+ME Technology for taking the time to speak with me and tour me around their facility. If you’re interested in this space, they will be hosting a Q&A session on Twitter this Wednesday, November 25th at 8pm eastern time. You can join here or using the hashtag #TalkHomeTech. I’ll be tuning in.

  • British stock brick

    On Tuesday night architect Jamie Fobert spoke at the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto. Fobert’s practice is based in London, but he is a graduate of the Daniels Faculty well before it was called that.

    I unfortunately wasn’t able to attend, but I did get on to looking at his work. And I want to share two of his projects that stood out for me. Both are in London.

    The first is the Luker House:

    imageimage

    And the second is the Levring House:

    imageimage

    What I love is how subtle the detailing is in both projects. The Luker House uses a “British stock brick” to mimic its context. But at the same time, it is applied in such a minimal way that the project feels entirely contemporary.

    You can see that same philosophy in the Levring House, which was built to complete an historic mews house.

    Finding the right balance between old and new is not always easy. But I like how Jamie Fobert has done it with these two London homes.

  • Living minimally

    “The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”
    – Lin Yutang

    Yesterday I posted the above photo on social media with the caption: 

    “This year I decided to go ALL OUT for Halloween.” 

    A friend then responded and said: 

    “A minimalist does Halloween. Love it.”

    I’ve been called a minimalist many times before. And it is certainly something that I think about. Oftentimes I feel like life is a constant battle against physical and mental clutter. But that the more you can rid yourself of that clutter, the happier and freer you will feel.

    It’s why I scan most of my paperwork into Evernote and then throw out the hard copies. It’s why I tend to wear a lot of white dress shirts and black t-shirts – it keeps life simple and reduces decision making. And it’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to laneway houses and small spaces. I don’t think most of us need as much home as we think we do.

    If this is something that also interests you, I recommend checking out a blog called The Minimalists. I just recently subscribed to them.

  • Find the best local construction professionals at the lowest prices

    One of my closest friends, who also happens to be in the same industry, is currently testing out a new construction marketplace idea. It’s called Tenderlet and it’s an online platform that helps your average house or condo owner “find the best local construction professionals at the lowest prices.”

    Right now it’s just a basic website, but he is obviously thinking that it could grow into a far more robust online marketplace.

    The way it works is real simple:

    1. You tell Tenderlet about your construction job – everything from a water damaged ceiling repair to new hardwood flooring. 
    2. Tenderlet goes out and gets multiple quotes on your behalf (just like how the professionals do it). 
    3. Then Tenderlet comes back to you with at least 3 quotes and a recommendation. It’ll even handle scheduling and payments.

    Eventually he’s imagining that there will be a mobile app, reviews for the construction professionals, and a location dimension, which can make all the difference, particularly for smaller jobs. But you have to start somewhere.

    I think he’s on to something here. I know I want to use it. So I would encourage you to check out tenderlet.com and give it a try. If you have any feedback about the idea, I am sure he would love to hear from you in the comment section below.