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: placemaking sign

  • We are close to home

    I don’t use Facebook anymore, but I was recently sent this. It is a post by a reporter for The West End Phoenix asking people from the community what they think of the JUNCTION sign on top of Junction House. As of right now, there are 217 comments and, if you scroll through them, you’ll see that they are actually overwhelmingly positive.

    Some people were critical of the fact that, depending on what you consider to be the boundaries of the Junction, this sign may or may not actually be in it. Some see Junction House as belonging to the West Bend neighborhood. So here is yet another real estate developer stretching boundaries and renaming neighborhoods.

    I don’t know, neighborhood boundaries are a funny thing. They’re often amorphous and they often change. Here’s what Google believes to be the boundaries of the Junction:

    As you can see from the map, the whole point of the sign was to mark one of the entrances to the neighborhood. Although, Junction House seems to sit on contested lands; Google Maps shows it as simultaneously belonging to the West Bend. Whatever the case, it is really great to see that the vast majority of people seem to love the sign.

    My favorite comment is this one here: “Love it. My kid recognizes it and always yells that we are close to home.” I mean, this was our hope. We wanted to create something that could become a symbol for the area, help to reinforce its existing identity, and also bring people delight. The fact that kids are loving it makes it that much better.

    Perhaps this is proof that we shouldn’t be so rigid when it comes to the design of our cities. A little color, and some LEDs that look like neon, can be a positive thing. Just ask the kids.

  • More lights on buildings!

    Back in undergrad, I spent a summer living and working in Taipei and Hong Kong. It was my first time being in either of these cities and I absolutely loved it. I was studying architecture. I was really developing my love of big cities. And these felt like two very real and big cities.

    Below is a cheesy tourist photo that I paid someone to take of me from the Kowloon Pier. I still have access to it because obviously my mom has it framed and prominently displayed in her kitchen:

    I’m sharing this photo because one of the things that really stood out to me about Hong Kong, in particular, was how they lit their buildings. There were neon signs (which is something that Hong Kong is, or least was, famous for); lights shining up into the sky (bad, I know); and full light shows and animations across entire building elevations.

    I immediately thought to myself: “Why don’t we have fun like this? Especially considering that Toronto can get kind of dark during the winter.”

    Well, some twenty years later, we are now starting to have more lights. We fought hard for our placemaking sign at Junction House. The CN Tower has since been illuminated. And most recently, we got 160 Front Street West. But it turns out that building lights can be a little divisive:

    My view is exactly what it was when I first landed in hot and humid Hong Kong. And so I respectfully disagree with Jocelyn Squires (though I have great admiration for her work). Architectural lighting adds color and dynamism to our cities. It can also help our cities from all looking the same.

    Let’s stop being so conservative and have some fun. Nice work, 160 Front.

  • Junction House by Air Norm

    If you work in the development industry in Toronto, then you know, or know of, Norm Li. He runs one of the top visual content studios in the city and the country. But he (and the company) also do a bunch of other things like DJ at industry events and fly around in a helicopter taking incredible photos of the city from above. He invited me to join him in 2018 and I captured photos like these.

    This past week he sent me a text with the below photos of Junction House and a message saying, “new lock screen.” I, of course, immediately blasted them around to the team and then asked if I could post them online. I love how these turned out. And every time I see our placemaking sign, I am happy that we fought for what we all believed would end up looking pretty cool.

    Thanks for the photos, Norm.

  • Toronto’s next best photo-op is in the Junction

    Today is a travel day, so I don’t have a whole lot to say. But BlogTO did just publish a story about our Junction placemaking sign: “This intersection is set to become Toronto’s next best photo-op.” I am also happy to report that the sign’s timer has now been installed, which means that, starting today, it will get illuminated each night from sunset to 11PM. (We’re required to shut it off at this time because, you know.)

    So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. And I truly hope that this installation will become a symbol for the Junction neighborhood. This was our sole purpose for pursuing it. It would also be ironic if something that was so difficult to get approval for ends up being loved by city. Perhaps it’s a lesson that stubbornness can be a good thing when you believe in something.

  • All lit up in the Junction!

    Friday was a busy day at Junction House.

    In the morning, we gave a hard hat tour to Toronto’s City Planning Division. They are currently revisiting the Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards, and so this was an opportunity to see what these standards translate to when you’re on site trying to actually build a mid-rise building.

    It was great to see the group so highly engaged and looking for ways to improve the delivery of this housing typology. Thanks for taking the time to visit Junction House.

    Then we had the “official lighting ceremony” for the placemaking art. And by official lighting ceremony, I mean that there were a handful of us playing around with a drone and trying to get cool pictures on our phones. However, did we have one actual videographer, so stay tuned for some proper video footage of the installation.

    Finally, in the evening after sunset, we got to see it illuminated for the very first time. And it was everything we had hoped for! An idea turned into reality, many years later. Shout out to the Urban Toronto community for spotting one of our earlier prototypes online and then encouraging us to make some design changes. We are happy we listened.

    But what do you all think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

  • Junction House just got its placemaking art

    Today was a fantastic day for the development manic meter. This was finally installed at Junction House:

    If you happen to find yourself in the area, check it out at 2720 Dundas Street West. And if you’d like to know a little bit about how this placemaking art came to be, click here.

  • Placemaking art

    Back in 2017, when Superkul (architects) first started coming up with concept designs for Junction House, we all decided that it would be nice if we could do something to mark the important view terminus that exists with our site.

    We explored a few different ideas and then ultimately landed on a rooftop neon (or neon-like) sign that would read “Junction House.” The idea was to pay homage to the old signage that used to be present in the Junction and to some of the iconic rooftop signs that still exist around the world.

    Of course, the goal was never advertising. There is no economic imperative for us here. We just wanted to do something fun that at the same time could mark the entrance to the Junction neighborhood.

    After proposing this idea, we quickly learned that these are next to impossible to get approved. But to their credit, the City of Toronto fully got it. We heard things such as, “look, we can’t call this art, but we like the idea and we like what you’re trying to do.” Thank you for that.

    The compromise we ultimately struck was to remove the “House” part, leaving just “Junction.” This way it no longer referenced our project and instead referenced a place. By doing this, it became “placemaking.” And that is what is now baked in our site plan approval.

    Fast forward to 2022, and we are now getting ready to test our first 1:1 mockup of the sign. I can’t wait to see how this looks on site.