Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1377

Some people believe that cities are all about bricks and mortar. While other people believe that they are first and foremost about people. Though I wholeheartedly believe that our built environment has a profound affect on our lives, I am in the latter camp. 

Real estate to me is an outcome. It is the result of people needing space. A new condominium is built because people need a place to live. A new office building is built because somebody built a great company and it needs to house its growing workforce. So at the end of the day, what is a city without people?

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this point is to show you what cities look like without them. This morning I stumbled upon an interesting series of city photographs where almost all of the people have been removed. They are by artists Lucie & Simon and the project is called Silent world .

The top image is Times Square and the bottom image is Queensbridge in New York.

Images: Lucie & Simon

One of the most interesting talks that I attended while I was in graduate school at Penn was by John Maeda . 

John operates at the intersection of design, technology, and business, and I find his work fascinating. He’s probably best described as a graphic designer, visual artist, computer scientist, academic, and author. And when I heard him speak in 2008, he was also President of the Rhode Island School of Design.

More recently though, John has entered the world of venture capital by becoming a “ Design Partner ” at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) in Silicon Valley. But what’s really interesting about this move is that when he joined KPCB in January 2014, he was the first designer to arrive on Silicon Valley’s legendary Sand Hill Road. No other VC firm had a designer in-house.

And that’s because design hasn’t, at least historically, been considered that important. In fact, in some cases it was seen as being detrimental. Brian Chesky – cofounder of Airbnb – has gone on record saying that when they were first starting out, Silicon Valley didn’t think that a bunch of designers from RISD could build and run a company . Boy were they wrong.

So that’s changing. As of this month (March 2015), there are now 6 other designers on Sand Hill Road. The venture capital community has seemingly woken up to the value of great design.

John Maeda has branded this shift, #DesignInTech. And he recently gave a presentation on the topic at SXSW. It’s a great read, particularly if you’re somebody who cares about design. Click here if you can’t see it below.

//www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/kleinerperkins/design-in-tech-report-2015

Design in Tech Report 2015 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

A few days I retweeted the above home from Dwell Magazine. Then yesterday I was driving through midtown Toronto and I stumbled upon it. And that got me thinking more about this kind of project.

The house is a triplex with, presumably, one unit in the basement, one unit on the main floor, and one unit across the 2nd and 3rd floor. The existing detached house was only 2 storeys and so a third floor was added to create what is likely the “owner’s suite.”

It’s not uncommon for many of the houses in central areas of Toronto to be converted into duplexes and triplexes or to flip back into single family homes after being subdivided for rentals. It goes to show how adaptable the single family house can be.

But it’s not everyday that you see such a high end triplex being built as, what seems to be, a permanent residence and kind of dream home for the owners. Historically, when people built their dream home it has meant a single family home.

This might not seem like an important distinction, but I think it demonstrates a growing acceptance of intensification within low-rise single family neighborhoods .

Part of this I’m sure has to do with rising housing costs. But I think it also has to do with valuing location over raw space and with an acceptance of urban density.

I don’t know about you, but I would have no concerns with permanently laying down roots in a house like this. It’s beautiful.

Image: Dwell