My good friends over at Urban Capital recently released a short film about the making of their River City project here in Toronto. (If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here.) For those of you who aren’t familiar, River City is a 4-phase… Read More
The last time I was in Paris was in 2006. That’s a long time ago and so it was great to be back in the city earlier this week. I don’t know the city as well as I do many other cities, but I speak… Read More
Paris 1e
I jus pre-ordered a copy of Edward Glaeser and David Cutler’s new book called, Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation. (I’m usually a hard copy kind of guy, but I decided to try this one out on Kindle /… Read More
With seemingly so much happening in the world these days — everything from COVID to climate change — it is perhaps easy to feel a little discouraged about the current state of affairs. But I am an optimist. And as I mentioned on Twitter a… Read More
The City of Toronto is currently reviewing its Official Plan, which is a city planning document that acts as a kind of master guide for land user matters. It is a pretty important document in that it dictates, among other things, what kind of development… Read More
Building height and density are not one and the same. You can have tall buildings configured in a low-density way (think post-war towers in the park). And you can have low/mid-rise buildings configured in a high-density way (think Paris and Barcelona). This is one of… Read More
In the world of development, there is something known as a floor space index (FSI). Some places call it a floor area ratio (FAR), but they mean the same thing. It is one measure of density. To calculate it, you simply divide the total building… Read More
Building things, as we all know, is a risky endeavor. I think of myself as an optimist, but the reality is that there are countless things that can go wrong. There’s approvals risk, political risk, market risk, construction risk, design risk, and many other kinds… Read More
The Kowloon Walled City was once one of the most densely populated precincts in the world. And by some measures, it was. Prior to its demolition in 1993, the Walled City was believed to house some 50,000 people — mostly informally — and was known… Read More
