Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 364

Toronto's elevated Gardiner Expressway is a topic that pops up periodically on this blog. We have talked about taking down a portion, realigning a portion, adding a congestion charge, lighting it like they have done in Shanghai , and of course we have talked about the good work that The Bentway team is doing.

Their most recent project is something called Standing Grounds . It's a collaboration with New York-based Tei Carpenter (Agency--Agency, NYC) and Toronto-based architect Reza Nik (SHEEEP, Toronto), and I think it's really clever.

If you look closely at the underside of the Gardiner Expressway, you'll see that there are existing downspouts in place that take rainwater, snowmelt, and whatever else from the highway above, down to the ground. What Standing Grounds is going to do (by next month) is take this existing infrastructure and add natural filtration chambers that can remediate this excess water.

I learned today that plants like milkweed, agastache, and yarrow are actually able to absorb road salts and heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and hydrocarbons. So instead of this dirty water flowing from the highway and into the ground, it will soon be filtered by a seemingly simple garden system that looks like this:

This is an obviously positive thing for the city and I love that it is leveraging infrastructure that already exists. As I said: really clever.

Renderings: SHEEEP

We are getting ready for first occupancies at Junction House and it is exciting to see how many young families -- with children -- are looking forward to moving into the building's larger 2-storey suites. (These are the suites that gave the project its name -- Junction House .)

From the outset, this was always a part of our development thesis. You can't, or at least it's very difficult, to pre-sell an entire building of larger suites in Toronto. But we figured that in a submarket like the Junction, which is very popular with young families, that there had to be some buyers who would want a house-like residence.

Meaning, two floors of living spaces, upstairs bedrooms (better acoustic separation), larger living spaces, and a terrace for BBQing and gardening, among other things.

We are now seeing this play out with the wonderful people coming in for their pre-delivery inspections, and it's a really nice thing to see. Not only as a developer, but as a dedicated urbanite and lover of Toronto. I am not suggesting that it's for everyone. But clearly there is a segment of the market that wants this.

For a list of available homes at Junction House, including floor plans and pricing, click here .

https://youtu.be/q9ujuHhb-y0

This is an incredibly well done video by Pablo Casals Aguirre of BIG's recently completed IQON tower in Quito, Ecuador. What's great is that it both showcases the building's architecture and gives you a sense of what it might be like to live in a tower like this. And it does this beautifully.

If you can't see the embedded video above, click here .