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Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Brandon DonnellyVisual preference survey
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
>4.2K subscribers
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyVisual preference survey
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
Create Streets recently published this review of the proposed Shoreditch Works development project in Hackney, London. And one of the interesting things they did as part of it was something they call a visual preference survey. What this means is that they showed a statistically representative sampling of over two thousand British people some before and after images so they could choose which they prefer.
Here's how they responded:
As you can see, from a visual perspective, there was/is strong support for the proposed development. At least according to these three views. This is despite the fact that the proposal is, of course, taller than what's there today. What I think this starts to show is that good design matters. People respond positively to beauty. And, that it's important to show what will happen at street level above all. This is how we all experience cities.
Visual preference surveys aren't all that common. I'm not sure I've seen one conducted for a new development. But it's a great idea and I plan to borrow it from Create Streets.
Cover photo from Shoreditch Works
Create Streets recently published this review of the proposed Shoreditch Works development project in Hackney, London. And one of the interesting things they did as part of it was something they call a visual preference survey. What this means is that they showed a statistically representative sampling of over two thousand British people some before and after images so they could choose which they prefer.
Here's how they responded:
As you can see, from a visual perspective, there was/is strong support for the proposed development. At least according to these three views. This is despite the fact that the proposal is, of course, taller than what's there today. What I think this starts to show is that good design matters. People respond positively to beauty. And, that it's important to show what will happen at street level above all. This is how we all experience cities.
Visual preference surveys aren't all that common. I'm not sure I've seen one conducted for a new development. But it's a great idea and I plan to borrow it from Create Streets.
Cover photo from Shoreditch Works
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2 comments
Let’s compare the 22% image against the 76% image: 22% is so ugly it makes 76% look comparatively good. As an architect in practice for three decades and someone who has sat on my city’s Design Committee, it can’t help but wonder if the architect and developer ‘conspired’ to draw something deliberately repulsive to make the meh alternative acceptable. This is essentially bait and switch tactic as old as time. I wonder why we -as a society- entertain this sort of activity. Thinking of a hockey analogy, players get paid to put the puck in the net, not to bounce pucks off the goal. The 22% image is essentially a weak shot on net. Why do we put up with iterations that are not a development team’s best efforts?
But isn't the 22% image just a photograph of the current reality?