Tag: paris

• Louis Vuitton’s Big Duck

  

  When I first saw this picture of Louis Vuitton’s flagship store in Manhattan I thought it was AI. That is where we are right now. When something looks wild, I just automatically assume it’s fake. But alas, it’s not fake. Louis Vuitton is renovating their flagship store at the corner of 57th Street and 5th Avenue and so, naturally, they decided to completely cover it with luggage facade wraps.

  These wraps make the entire building look like six grey trunks stacked on top of each other and are a nod to a 19th century luggage design from the company. They even used real metal details throughout. Apparently the heaviest luggage handle weighs something like 5,000 pounds.

  This is wild and remarkable in so many ways. The scale of it is remarkable. This is a 15 storey building concealed entirely by luggage trunks. It also speaks to the scale and dominance of New York as a city. Not every city can absorb a pile of giant luggage trunks and not bat an eye. But in New York, it’s just another noteworthy thing within its relentless urban grid.

  I also can’t help but think of the work of architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. In 1972, they published a book called Learning from Las Vegas. And in it, they defined two types of contrasting buildings: decorated sheds and ducks. Decorated sheds are, as the name suggests, nondescript buildings. Think big box stores. These buildings get their specificity from signage and other ornament because, without this, they’d just be nondescript sheds.

  Duck buildings are, on the other hand, buildings that take on a symbolic form. In other words, their shape and construction tell you what they’re all about. The term duck comes from an actual building that looks like a duck, namely The Big Duck on Long Island. This is a building that was built in the 1930s to help promote the owner’s duck farming business and is now on the US National Register of Historic Places.

  The Big Duck is and was an actual building, whereas Louis Vuitton’s trunks are just temporary construction wrap. So they’re not exactly the same thing. Still, the similarities are there. Both were erected to promote their respectiveness businesses. And both tell you, through their form, what’s meant to happen inside. So in this sense, Louis Vuitton has just created its own Big Duck.

  Photo by Brad Dickson via Dezeen

  2024.11.19

• Paris may have the busiest bike route in the world

  

  In my opinion, we need far better urban data if we’re actually going to make evidence-based decisions. Thankfully, there are lots of great companies that are focused on this space. One of them is Eco-Counter, which makes devices to count pedestrians and cyclists, among other things. This is an important job, because as Peter Drucker used to say, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

  Let’s look at their bike counters. According to their global map, they have 464 of them installed around the world. Montreal has 58 of them, which we’ve spoken about before, and is an impressive install base. And Toronto looks to have only one, which is located on Bloor Street on the north side of High Park.

  The busiest route/counter in Montreal is at St-Denis Street and Rue des Carriéres. So far this year — up to November 17, 2024 — this counter has seen an average of just under 5,000 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 1,600,468 trips. Both of these metrics are notably up compared to 2023 when I last looked at the data.

  The busiest route in Eco-Counter’s entire network is on Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris (an important main roadway, not a side street). It has seen an average of 13,667 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 4,386,996 trips. Not surprisingly, the Paris counter exhibits less seasonality. People still cycle in the winter in Montreal, but it’s less than in the warmer months.

  Finally, our lone Toronto counter adjacent to High Park has seen an average of 1,186 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 380,813 trips. Not quite Paris or Montreal (the latter of which has a colder climate), but I would argue that this really isn’t an indicative location for Toronto given how underdeveloped the area is. Plus, you need to see each route as part of a network.

  If you look at Montreal’s top 5 bike counters, all of them have a year-to-date total that exceeds 1 million trips. This is important information if you’re trying to make mobility decisions and these are significant figures. Imagine if these millions of people got off their bikes and instead decided to take transit or drive a car. That would change things.

  Photo by Celine Ylmz on Unsplash

  2024.11.17

• Venice to Venice

  

  Crypto Citizens are a collection of 10,000 NFTs that were minted between 2021 and 2024, starting first in Venice, California and ending in Venice, Italy. Each of their 10 locations has a sub-collection of 1,000 pieces and I am the owner of CryptoParisian #112, because, well, Paris was the next best city for me after they egregiously skipped over Toronto.

  This is one of the most ambitious projects in the NFT art community and, now that they’ve completed their world tour, they’ve just released a documentary called Venice to Venice. It is currently being screened in private venues around the world, but eventually there will be a world premiere at a film festival. This is when I presume they will land in Toronto!

  If you’d like to watch the trailer and/or mint it, click here.

  Photo: Seth Goldstein

  2024.11.15

• Call with a Paris developer

  I had a call with a developer in Paris earlier this week and it was interesting to hear him talk about the new home market over there. It sounded a lot like Toronto. Higher interest rates cooled demand. Individual investors largely disappeared. And now developers are having to rethink their strategies and floor plans (including suite sizes).

  But in his view, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It now means that you actually have to be a reasonably good developer in order to have a chance at succeeding. You have to design thoughtful floor plans and build great housing. It’s a return to fundamentals, and I would argue that the same thing is happening here in Toronto.

  My other noteworthy takeaway was around social housing. All new developments in the Île-de-France region are subject to inclusionary zoning. I believe the requirement is 30% of the suites. These suites are then purchased by social housing operators, and it is one of the ways that new supply is created in the market.

  We talk a lot about IZ on this blog, but what’s interesting about this approach is that it becomes a forward sale for the developer. Meaning, it helps to de-risk projects. Before doing anything, you know you’ve sold 30% of your inventory, and somehow the numbers all work. European social housing math is baffling to me.

  I am now wondering if this creates some kind of incentive to keep development costs in check. Because if social housing operators are expected to buy 30% of all new homes, then they too are going to want them to be as cost effective as possible. I’m speculating though; I don’t know that this is the case.

  If you’re a developer or real estate person in Paris, please get in touch. I’d love to learn more about your market and trade notes.

  2024.11.06

• Paris introduces new limited traffic zone

  As counterintuitive as it may sound, one way you could try and improve traffic congestion is to discourage people from riding their bikes and instead encourage them to drive more. That’s what’s happening in Toronto right now. Another way is to dramatically restrict car usage. And starting this Monday, that’s what Paris will be doing with its new limited traffic zone (zone à trafic limité) in the center of the city:

  

  This new ZTL is approximately 5 square kilometers. About 100,000 people live within its boundaries, and it is estimated that somewhere between 350,000 to 500,000 vehicles enter it each day. But according to the city, it is estimated that only around 30% of these trips are absolutely necessary (because of a lack of alternatives, for example). The purpose of the ZTL is to reduce the unnecessary ones.

  The way it will work is that drivers will no longer be allowed to drive through this zone. You’ll only be able to enter if you plan on stopping for a legitimate reason. It’s not yet clear what this exact list of approved reasons will be, but the general idea is that if you want to drive in for dinner or to attend a meeting, that’s fine. What you can’t do, though, is just drive around in a souped-up Honda Civic blasting Taylor Swift.

  The next 6 months are planned to be a period of education. Drivers exiting the zone are just going to be told that there’s this new ZTL and that they better have stopped somewhere. But eventually there will be a 135 euro fine and eventually drivers will be expected to furnish some sort of supporting evidence for their stop, such as a restaurant receipt. There’s also talk of adding automatic cameras.

  Of course, this creates a lot of gray areas. What about if you’re just going over to a friend’s place for dinner? Will they then need to write you a note saying that you went over for some homemade bouillabaisse? Yeah, I don’t know the answer to this. But you have to admit that this is a bold city-building move, and a far more effective way of improving traffic flows.

  Unlike removing bike lanes, this plan will actually work.

  2024.11.01

• Canada announces high-speed rail between Quebec City and Toronto — finally!

  The train from Paris to Marseille takes just over 3 hours:

  

  To drive this same distance, it would take just over 8 hours:

  

  So unless you had a very specific reason, I don’t know why you’d ever want to drive this route. I certainly hate long drives and would avoid this at all costs.

  On a related note, the Canadian government announced this week that it will actually be moving forward with a high-speed train linking Québec City to Toronto, stopping in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. And unlike previous announcements, it will actually go pretty fast — upwards of 300 km/h, which is comparable to what the TGV does on the above route.

  There are three consortia currently competing for this contract, but apparently the federal government has already chosen a winning bidder. An announcement is expected next month. At the same time, the project office owns all of the bids, and so there’s a chance that elements from each of them could be used in the final project.

  According to official messaging, the design alone is expected to take some 4 to 5 years, which is an eternity and way too long. But at least we seem to be moving forward. This rail link is a no brainer. It will compress the geography of an importantly bilingual corridor with nearly 20 million people — about half the population of Canada! It’s our megalopolis.

  Now we just need to move forward with urgency and with an unwavering commitment to creating the best high-speed rail service in the world. Let’s not accept mediocrity. And let’s not cancel it once we’ve already sunk millions into it. That would be a terrible outcome for such an obviously important nation-building project.

  LFG.

  2024.10.29

• Map of every development project in Paris

  It is surprisingly difficult to find good real estate and development information about a market that you’re not familiar with. So I was pretty excited when I came across this map of every development project in Grand Paris (Greater Paris) created by Arthur Weidmann.

  It’s in Google My Maps and what he has done is pin every project according to status: under construction, under renovation, approved, proposed, and recently delivered. For each pin, you’ll also find information like the expected completion date, the use(s), the area, the architect(s), and photos. It is unbelievably detailed and, according to Google, it was last updated 8 hours ago.

  Here’s the full map with all statuses shown:

  

  And here’s what it looks like if you filter by only projects under construction:

  

  It’s interesting, but not surprising, to note that the majority of construction projects seem to be taking place outside the boundaries of Paris proper. However, if you alternate to projects under renovation, it more or less flips, with most of the projects being within Paris:

  

  This tells you something about the city.

  Sometimes when I’m looking at or for information like this, I think to myself that I must be in the minority of people who are interested in tracking development projects with this level of detail. So I find it interesting that this map has been viewed nearly 300,000 times. Clearly, I’m not actually alone.

  2024.10.14

• Mapping 15-minute cities

  This is an interesting map to play around with. It allows you to see how many 15-minute neighborhoods and cities there are around the world. And it works by calculating the average time it takes to walk or bike to the closest 20 points of interest in 10,000 cities. These points include all of the usual suspects like places of work, schools, healthcare institutions, grocery stores, and so on. A blue cell indicates an average walk time < 15 minutes, and a red cell indicates an average walk time > 15 minutes. The darker the color, the shorter or longer the average time in minutes.

  By this measure, it’s hard to beat many/most European cities. Here are Paris and Barcelona:

  

  

  The city propers are completely blue, and you have to go pretty far out (or up into mountains) to find areas that don’t have 15-minute conveniences.

  Toronto has a strong core and isn’t terrible overall, but expectedly, we aren’t as uniform and as deep blue as Paris and Barcelona:

  

  Where things get really interesting, though, is when you look at cities like Dallas and Houston:

  

  

  It’s clear where these cities stand on walkability.

  2024.09.26

• Roncesvalles is a great, single-sided, street

  Roncesvalles Avenue is a successful north-south main street in the west end of Toronto. I say successful, because it is truly a great street. It has transit, bike lanes, a fine-grained built form, and lots of interesting retail:

  

  But it is somewhat unique in that a large section of it is a one-sided retail street. Meaning, it looks like this:

  

  This obviously isn’t a fatal flaw. It remains a wonderful street. And there are lots of examples of thriving one-sided retail streets. Ocean Drive in Miami Beach immediately comes to mind (notwithstanding the fact that locals tend not to go to it).

  But conventional retail wisdom does dictate that two sides are better than one. Consider this 2023 report by Cushman & Wakefield ranking the top global main streets across the world. All of the streets that I have been to before are two-sided:

  • 5th Avenue in New York between 49th and 60th (above 60th is, incidentally, when the street converts to single-sided because of Central Park)
  • Montenapoleone in Milan
  • The main street of Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong
  • New Bond Street in London
  • Avenues des Champs-Élysées in Paris
  • Grafton Street in in Dublin
  • Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona
  • Bloor Street in Toronto

  These are all two-sided retail streets.

  None of this is to say that the west side of Roncesvalles has nothing going on. It has a diverse mixture of uses, including churches, libraries, apartments, and many other things. But I think there is still an argument to be made that it has been hamstrung by restrictive zoning.

  That said, Roncevalles is defined as a “major street” in Toronto’s Official Plan and so it does fall under the city’s new Major Street Study. Maybe that changes things.

  2024.08.14

• Olympic athletes will — probably — be able to swim in the Seine

  

  Since the modern Olympic Games were revived in 1896, no city has ever hosted swimming events in an urban river. Too poopy. But Paris, as we talked about, hopes to be the first. Starting on July 30, the Seine is scheduled to host the swimming portion of the triathlon competitions.

  Except, it will depend on water quality. Today’s training sessions (scheduled for Sunday, July 28) were cancelled because water tests showed that the Seine is currently below acceptable standards. This is due to heavy rain over the last few days, which I guess overloaded the city’s storm network.

  So what is clear is that — 36 years after then-Mayor Jacques Chirac first promised to clean up the river — the city has only been able to successfully achieve this, sometimes. It’s not an easy task.

  According to Bloomberg, the clean-up efforts have already cost €1.4 billion. This was spent on doing things like constructing a 50,000 m3 holding basin (about the size of 12 Olympic-sized pools) under the Gare D’Austerlitz. This now holds storm overflow during heavy rain events, in lieu of it going into the Seine.

  But this doesn’t provide any guarantees as evidenced by today’s cancelled training sessions. Presumably, it just makes it less likely for overflow stormwater to get dumped into the Seine. So a cynic might ask: Why bother with all of this?

  Well, for one thing, swimming in a river in the middle of a major global city is just plain cool. Look at how the Swiss do it. But another reason could be that you want to create one of the greenest cities on the planet. And if that’s the case, then seeing athletes swimming in the Seine is a pretty powerful image.

  It shows progress.

  Photo by J Shim on Unsplash

  2024.07.28