I just ordered a copy of this book. So I haven’t read it yet. But I did just read this Q&A with the authors (and it clearly piqued interested). The central idea is that Tokyo — which is a massive city that is famous for… Read More
All posts tagged “tokyo”
What might Toronto learn from this infill rental project in Tokyo
This is a lovely little infill rental project in Tokyo by ETHNOS (architect) for Real Partners (developer): The building is 4 storeys plus a rooftop terrace. From the plans, it looks like there are 8 units, all of which are two-storey suites. The A and… Read More
Do the best cities have a lot of immigrants?
I tweeted this out last night while watching old reruns of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown series. This was a great show. If I were to give everything up and become a YouTuber, this is the kind of travel and food channel I would want to… Read More
Slime mold may be better than us at transportation planning
So slime mold, which is a fungus-like single-celled organism, has a tendency to build highly optimized networks across its food sources. In other words, if you scattered a bunch of food on a surface and then dropped in some slime mold, it would naturally create… Read More
Largest cities in the world from 100 to 2015 CE
I just discovered this set of maps (via Brian Potter) looking at the largest cities in the world from 100 CE all the way through to today (well 2015 CE). Here are what the two bookends of this map series look like: It is an… Read More
Which building or structure would you say best symbolizes Toronto?
I tweeted this out last night: blogTO then picked it up and it got quite a bit of engagement. Some people, okay a lot of people, used it as an opportunity to be tongue in cheek and respond with things like: cheaply built condos, boarded… Read More
Construction starting at One Delisle
Two quick project announcements today. One, the sales gallery for One Delisle has now officially closed in preparation for demolition and construction (above is a photo from moving day). None of us expected it to close so quickly after only having launched sales in May,… Read More
A single room with a single book, Tokyo
This recent post by Benedict Evans talks about the firehose that is the internet. To illustrate this point, he gives the example of unread emails. If you were to look at your phone right now, how many unread emails would it show? My work email… Read More
Cost of the Olympic Games, 1960-2021
There are many reasons why one might want to host the Olympics. Brand building is certainly one. Making some kind of profit is another. But the direct economic benefits aren’t always clear. Embedded above are two recent charts from the WSJ outlining 1) the cost… Read More
The Tokyo Toilet
One of the biggest challenges with living through this pandemic has been finding a good public toilet. Drinking in the park is all fine and dandy, but at some point you’re going to need to find a place to pee. From experience, I can tell… Read More