Tag: innovation

• Fluted glass curtain wall

  New York architecture firm REX is working on a new office building in Washington DC that will incorporate a beautiful fluted glass facade. Here’s a rendering of what it is intended to look like:

  

  Here’s what that looks like in plan (it’s a GIF that should show typical curtain wall vs. proposed fluted glass):

  

  Here’s a photo of the 1:1 mockup:

  

  And here’s a description from the architect:

  The façade’s approximately nine hundred identical, insulated-glass panels—3.2 m tall by 1.5 m wide (11’-6” tall by 5’-0” wide)—are subtly curved to a 2.9 m (9’-6”) radius through a heat roller tempering process. The curve yields structural efficiency, which meets wind load requirements and enables a thinner monolithic outer lite than normal, providing greater transparency. 

  Because of the curve’s inherent rigidity in compression, only the top and bottom edges of the panels are supported from the floor slabs, while the mullionless vertical edges are flush-glazed for a minimalist aesthetic that improves sight lines, while gaining usable floor area.

  They are working in collaboration with Front Inc., which if you haven’t heard of, you should check out. They are a design/engineering consultancy that specializes in facades and building envelopes. They work with many of the big name starchitects. The developer of the project is Tishman Speyer.

  It’s worth noting that part of the impetus for the fluted glass facade was to try and innovate within the confines of DC’s draconian zoning – which mandates that no building can be taller than 130 feet. Because of this, developers and architects are usually forced to build out to the allowable area, leaving little room for architectural variation. 

  But in this case, the fluted glass removed the need for thick mullions and also allowed them to extend out beyond the lot area by 4 inches every 5 feet (the curves are considered “architectural features”). So this move has created both architectural variation and more rentable area.

  It doesn’t appear that the building will have any operable windows, but other than that, I think it promises to be quite beautiful. What do you think?

  All images from REX.

  2016.06.09

• The change order (ruminations on innovation)

  If any of you are in the
  business of creating – whether that’s a mobile app or a building – I’m sure
  you understand that the product or thing you’re working on will naturally
  evolve and change over time – probably in unexpected ways.

  In fact, I usually take this as a positive sign. When I have my
  head in a project and I’m focused on solving problems, ideas will naturally
  start to flow. I start thinking of things that I never would have thought
  about at the outset. That’s why I generally think of creativity as a process,
  rather than as some divine gift.

  But the challenge with all of this is that many of our existing business
  processes are not set up to deal with this kind of ambiguity. If anything we
  try and punish these sorts of deviations. If it wasn’t pre-meditated at the
  beginning of the project, we call it “scope creep” and charge extra for them as
  “change orders.” These two words equal death in construction.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the realities
  of running a business and the importance of managing scope and resources. It’s
  a balancing act. Without some structure, nothing would get done. 

  But the more that iterative
  lean methodologies and “design thinking” can be embedded into our processes,
  the more value creation I believe we will see.

  My thinking is as follows: At
  least part of the reason that innovation comes from startups and new market
  entrants is that the founders aren’t usually sitting around talking about defined
  scope and laying out elaborate business plans. They’re focused on creatively
  solving problems and doing whatever it takes to get there.

  It’s also one of the reasons
  that conventional wisdom dictates that tech startups shouldn’t outsource development.
  It’s too core a competency and you can’t “move
  fast and break things” if you don’t have that in-house and you’re constantly worried
  about eye-popping invoices hitting your desk.

  I have always seen lots of
  parallels between startups and architecture. In both of these worlds, the idea
  you start with is rarely what you end up with (at least that’s the case in
  architecture school). You research, learn, and iterate along the way and that
  leads you in new and unexpected ways.

  And in my view, that’s often what
  the path to innovation looks like. Because if you define the entire path at the
  outset, how can you expect to go anywhere new? And if you’re not going anywhere
  new, how can you expect to outperform the market?

  2016.06.08

• A money back guarantee on your next home

  

  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.

  2016.06.07

• Is Toronto a world-class city?

  

  Earlier this week I was on a panel discussion called Building Toronto Tomorrow. One of the questions was about whether or not Toronto is world-class city. It elicited a good discussion, so I thought I would talk about that today on the blog.

  Shamez Virani, President of CentreCourt Developments, responded by saying that he thinks Toronto is the greatest city in the world and that he wishes more people would just accept how incredible this city is. I agreed with him.

  I also responded by saying that I hate this question. I think it reeks of insecurity and I think it’s a bit of a red herring. It distracts from more direct and meaningful questions – questions such as our livability and our position as a global city.

  Because the reality is that Toronto is one of the most livable cities in the world and, in my view, we are the only true global city in Canada. We are an important node in the global economy for the flow of goods, people (we’re particularly good at this), capital, and now information. There’s a lot to be proud of.

  But that’s not to say that we’re perfect. Everyone knows we need better transit. And to name a few others (non-exhaustive list), I also think we need to:

  • Get a move on road pricing.
  • Loosen up our archaic alcohol laws and start using nightlife as a competitive advantage for attracting talent.
  • Acknowledge through our governance structures that cities are what drive today’s information economy.
  • Stop thinking about the Canadian/Toronto value proposition as being about cost savings. That is, buy this from us because our currency is weaker than yours. This is anti-innovation and there are much better ways to create sustainable value. (Innovation is still a weak spot.)
  • Focus on developing an information economy that leverages the unique talent and knowledge base of Toronto. For example, I think we’re in a great position for real estate + tech innovation.
  • Do everything we can to encourage big tech IPOs in this city. They are critical to developing the ecosystem.

  There’s a saying in Silicon Valley that you “make what you measure.” It means that whatever you decide to focus your attention on, is invariably what you end up making – regardless of whether or not you happen to be focusing on the right metric.

  In the context of Toronto, I think we’d be better served if we focused on and quantified our position in the global economy, as opposed to chasing some idea of “world-class.” The latter will grow as the former grows.

  I also think that this needs to be balanced against our livability. Sometimes there’s a tension. But there are cities – the best example is perhaps Tokyo – who have managed to pair a high quality of life with one of the strongest positions in the global economy.

  Is there anything else you think we should be doing? We can talk about it in the comments below.

  Image: Building T.O Toronto (BuzzBuzzHome Event)

  2016.05.07

• Introducing Tech:NYC

  Following the lead of San Francisco, a new non-profit, member-supported organization for New York tech companies has just launched. It’s called Tech:NYC. Here are their goals, taken from this blog post:

  Tech:NYC’s primary goals are to support the growth of the technology sector in New York City, to increase civic engagement by leaders of the New York tech community, and advocate for policies that will attract tech talent, jobs, and opportunity to NYC.

  Tech:NYC will advocate for policies that: 1) underscore a regulatory environment that supports the growth of technology companies and technology talent in NYC; 2) promote inclusivity; and 3) ensure access for all New Yorkers to connectivity, technology tools, and training.

  What makes something like this important is that many public policy issues are now rooted in the tech sector. Think about all the debate regarding ride-sharing, home-sharing, drone regulation, contract employees, and so on.

  But what is also clear is that many cities are struggling to deal with these issues. As I’ve argued before, just saying no to innovation that doesn’t fit neatly into our currently regulatory boxes is often shortsighted. 

  So how do we put in place policies that deliver the right results and that are balanced? How do we grow the tech base while at the same time managing the disruptive fallout? That’s what this group hopes to do.

  And it strikes me that every big city could likely benefit from an organization like this.

  2016.05.03

• America needs a new map

  

  Parag Khanna recently published an article in the New York Times calling for a new map for America. 

  Here’s why:

  “The problem is that while the economic reality goes one way, the 50-state model means that federal and state resources are concentrated in a state capital — often a small, isolated city itself — and allocated with little sense of the larger whole. Not only does this keep back our largest cities, but smaller American cities are increasingly cut off from the national agenda, destined to become low-cost immigrant and retirement colonies, or simply to be abandoned.”

  This is something that I’ve been writing about for awhile on this blog. As we continue to transition to an urban-based information economy, it strikes me that, here in North America, we’re going to need to refocus our governance structures around cities. We’re going to need to place our metropolitan regions at the fore if we want to continue competing with rising powers like China – which, by the way, seem to be adopting a megacity model.

  Here’s another snippet from the article:

  “While Detroit’s population has fallen below a million, the Detroit-Windsor region is the largest United States-Canada cross-border area, with nearly six million people (and one of the largest border populations in the world).

  Detroit’s destiny seems almost obvious if we are brave enough to build it: a midpoint of the Chicago-Toronto corridor in an emerging North American Union.”

  I’ve argued for this before and I continue to believe that it makes a lot of sense.

  Image: New York Times

  2016.04.28

• How Premise is crowdsourcing economic data in developing countries

  I have to tell you all about a company that I just discovered called Premise. I think it’s incredible what they’re doing and a perfect example of mobile (smartphones) eating the world.

  The problem that Premise is solving is that of developing-world economic data being both not timely enough and not all that accurate/granular. This is important, because lots of big organizations – ranging from governments to private companies – are making funding and investment decisions based on this inadequate information.

  So here’s what Premise did:

  They put smartphones into the hands of the people who are on the ground in these places. They paid them meaningful amounts of money (relative to local wages). And they developed a technology platform that could index and analyze the millions of local observations being sent in. So far they have paid out over $3 million to their contributors located across 34 countries.

  As an example: Premise has developed food price indices. And the data comes directly from locals physically going to the market on a regular basis (which most would do anyways) and snapping photos of the food + prices. This allows Premise to provide basically realtime pricing data. (There are checks and balances to ensure data integrity.)

  Why does this matter? 

  Because it allows Premise, for instance, to figure out exactly what happens to food staple pricing when something like an Ebola epidemic hits:

  “Premise started tracking food prices in Monrovia on September 8, and throughout the month we observed upward pressure on prices (our Liberia indices and data are freely available at data.premise.com). The price of rice, Liberia’s primary food staple, increased 12% during September. Moreover, we saw significant price differences across the city. Prices in neighborhoods with the most exposure to Ebola were 8-12% higher on average than relatively unaffected neighborhoods. As the disease tore through the city, market sellers avoided the worst-hit areas and trade declined.”

  This is powerful information and just one example of what Premise is doing. Obviously this data is also of use to for-profit companies, which is how the company has managed to raise over $66 million in VC funding. But I think there will also be big benefits for these developing countries. As the saying goes, you make what you measure.

  2016.04.07

• Technology x Business x Design

  John Maeda – Design Partner at venture capital firm KPCB – recently
  published the second and 2016 edition of his #DesignInTech
  Report. I shared his first one almost exactly a year ago.

  His core thesis is that we are heading towards a world where technology,
  business, and design become closely integrated – in school, in business, and so
  on. Throughout the report he looks at the increasing impact that design and
  designers are having within the startup ecosystem.

  Here are a few verbatim bullet points:

  – Design isn’t just about beauty; it’s about market relevance and meaningful
  results.

  – 36% of the top 25 funded startups are co-founded by
  designers, up from 20% in 2015.

  – The general word “design” will come to mean less as we
  will start to qualify the specific kind of design we mean.

  – Currently design education lags the technology industry’s
  needs for data-oriented, coding enabled graduates with business acumen.

  – We must consciously invest in education to develop a
  more hybrid perspective on creativity in the 21^st century:
  Technology x Business x Design.

  – President Obama’s signing of ESSA (Every Student
  Succeeds Act) into law in 2015 is a positive sign: by turning STEM into STEAM (adding Art) in K-12 education as a US priority.

  As somebody who studied design (architecture), business,
  and computer science (briefly, before switching to architecture), I probably
  have a bit of a biased view here. But to the extent that I can be objective, I
  really see this as the future. I am a big supporter of the transformation from STEM to STEAM.

  Below is a quote that Maeda uses to end his report, which I will also use to end this post:

  “Engineers are efficient problem solvers. Business people think short term. Designer want things to be elegant and beautiful. All three need to create collaboration and harmony, and honor the value each other brings. There needs to be a new kind of ‘multi-dimensional’ approach to design that is yet to be invented.” –Linda Holliday

  2016.03.21

• The advantages of disadvantages in business and entrepreneurship

  This morning I stumbled upon an interesting book by Claudia Kalb called Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities. 

  I obviously haven’t read it yet, but I like the premise. The book examines 12 famous figures and makes the argument that each of them had some sort of mental health condition that aided them in their success. 

  Here is an excerpt from a recent Harvard Business Review interview with the author:

  “The most common one may be narcissism. Frank Lloyd Wright is a good example. He had classic narcissistic qualities — a sense of grandiosity, superiority, a huge and complete belief in his aesthetic sensibility, and disregard for architecture that did not live up to his standard. Narcissists also have an ability to be charming, and to lure people into their orbit. That’s obviously useful for an entrepreneur. The issue is that while these qualities may make you a good leader, they may not make you a winning boss. Employees often feel that narcissistic bosses are ruthless or lacking in empathy. Also, unlike people with depression or anxiety disorders, narcissists don’t suffer as much personally from their condition — but the way they behave can be much harder on the people around them.”

  Related to this topic is an emergent body of research that, more specifically, looks at the relationship between mental illness and entrepreneurship. And according to work done by professor Michael A. Freeman of UC-San Francisco and professor Sheri Johnson of Berkeley, there’s a significant relationship. 

  Below are two excerpts from a Washington Post article published last year.

  “Forty-nine percent of entrepreneurs surveyed reported at least one mental health condition. Nearly a third reported having two or more mental health issues, such as ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety or substance use conditions. And half of the entrepreneurs who reported no mental-health conditions identified themselves as coming from families with a history of mental illness.”

  Why would these conditions be of any benefit to entrepreneurs?

  “For all of its ills, depression also brings empathy and creativity. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi attempted suicide as teenagers. Uncommon levels of empathy can allow a businessman to better understand a customer’s need. And a creative mind won’t be satisfied on the corporate ladder, but instead in a fast-moving start-up where he or she can unfurl ideas and dreams.
  

  Individuals with ADHD naturally make decisions faster, are comfortable working independently and are more creative, necessary skills at a start-up. They’re likely to be bored working for someone else.”

  From a city building standpoint, all of this is quite relevant. Because for all of the focus on promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, we don’t seem to be talking about healthcare and mental health systems. And there’s clearly an argument to be made that the two are connected.

  2016.02.23

• Mr. Robinson — Architect as Developer

  I first learned about the work of Jonathan Segal back when I was in architecture school. And he was somebody I immediately admired. 

  At the time, I was struggling to figure out where I wanted to position myself between architecture and real estate development, and he was somebody who had seemingly figured it all out: he simply merged the two.

  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jonathan Segal, he has made a name for himself by being a pioneer of the “Architect as Developer” business model. That is, he acts as both the architect and the developer/client.

  This business model isn’t going to suit everyone, but I suspect that we’ll see more of it in the future.

  Of course, it doesn’t just have to be an architect acting as a developer. It could also be an architect and a developer joining forces or some other permutation. Whatever the case may be, design and innovation are central to business today and that’s why I think this model will only become more relevant.

  Below is a short 3 ½ minute video about Segal’s latest project, called Mr. Robinson. It is located in San Diego. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

  [vimeo 155403927 w=500 h=211]

  If you’d like to see the typical floor plans or rent one of the apartments (they start at $2,400/month), click here.

  Now I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. Do you like the project?

  2016.02.17