Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1248

Hunter Oatman-Stanford just published a longish read over on Collectors Weekly that talks about the history of suburban office complexes in America. That part alone makes it an interesting read.

But he also makes the argument that innovative companies like Apple and Google are still stuck in a midcentury suburban mindset with their new mega headquarters:

“I look at Apple’s Norman Foster building, and it’s 1952 all over again,” Mozingo says. “There’s nothing innovative about it. It’s a classic corporate estate from the 1950s, with a big block of parking. Meanwhile, Google is building another version of the office park with a swoopy roof and cool details—but it does nothing innovative.”

Others have made this same argument. Back in 2013, Wired published an article talking about why Apple’s new Norman Foster spaceship could result in them losing the war for tech talent. 

And if you read the piece in Collectors Weekly, you’ll see just how little, in some cases, the office environment has changed since the middle of the 20th century.

Back then, we also had big name starchitects designing suburban head offices for innovative companies. Below is a photo from the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. It was designed by Eero Saarinen and it opened in 1956.

There’s  lots of research that suggests that, today, both entrepreneurs and capital are flocking to urban centers, instead of the suburbs. And I certainly don’t need to repeat that to this audience.

But given this shift, I think we will increasingly view the suburban sprawl of places like Silicon Valley as a serious competitive disadvantage. I mean, I am sure these new buildings will be lovely, but I certainly wouldn’t want to work there. 

Would you?

I’m going to be speaking on a panel on May 3rd, here in Toronto, called Building T.O. Tomorrow. The topic is the future of this city.

It is being put on by the good folks at BuzzBuzzHome and it will be held in the lobby of Allied’s new Queen-Richmond Centre (134 Peter Street). If you haven’t yet been to this building, that alone makes attending worthwhile.

Here’s the event poster:

If you’d like to attend, make sure you RSVP to aleks@buzzbuzzhome.com .

On a largely unrelated note, I recently picked up the handlebar bicycle mount for my GoPro and I’m looking for some fellow city geeks who would like to ride around the city and film some – potentially cool – videos.

I find that being on a bike is one of the best ways to experience a city (at least the cities that are actually bikeable). So I’m hoping some of that magic will translate into video. If that sounds at all interesting, drop me a line .

I have decided to spin-off the Architect This City identity into a weekly newsletter that I’m referring to as a “curated city building bulletin.” (This is as a result of the unbranding of this blog last week.)

The inaugural issue went out this past Monday at 9am eastern with a collection of city building-related links. And that was it. This is not another blog. I’m not writing any new content for it. It’s simply going to be a collection of links to things that I think city builders would find interesting and/or valuable.

Here’s why I decided to do this:

It allows me to keep this new bulletin entirely focused on one thing. You’re not going to find me sneaking in a link about snowboarding, wine or something else that I’m interested in. It’s strictly about targeting city builders. (Of course, city building can be a pretty broad topic.)

Keeping in mind what I wrote yesterday about saying no , I also chose this format because the additional workload for me will be minimal. In order for me to write a daily blog like this one, I have found that I need to keep a running list of reading material. But a lot of what’s on this list (stored in Pocket ) never sees the light of day – there’s only so much I can write about. This new bulletin will be a quick way for me to share the rest of it.

Finally, I’m also hoping it’ll be an efficient way for me to share the links, events, projects, and other things I receive from readers. In an ideal world, the bulletin will evolve into having a “links” section and a “from the community” section – which will be things that subscribers send me but today don’t get shared.

So that’s the plan. If that sounds good to you, please subscribe at architectthiscity.com . 

To kick things off, I’m going to be giving away 5 x free ATC t-shirts. (See photo at the top of this post.) To win one, just (1) subscribe and tweet out a link to this new city building bulletin , (2) tag @athiscity , and (3) tell everyone which city/town you live in.

Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.