Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 548

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If you happen to find yourself in Miami or London in the near future, I would highly recommend that you check out Superblue . Neat B and I visited Superblue Miami this past weekend and it was an incredible experience.

Above is a short video of one of the immersive installations ( click here if you can't see it embedded above). This one is by the Japanese art collective teamLab and what you're seeing is a whole year's worth of seasonal flowers coming to life and then dying off.

It's meant to show you the continuous change and cycle of life and death that we all live through every day, and you certainly feel that as you go through the space. The installation itself also responds to how you move and interact with it, with some actions encouraging more blossoms.

It's, of course, all very Instagrammable.

But I think this descriptor is old news and doesn't do the work justice. Superblue is a serious cultural experience. One of the other works on display right now is a piece by light and space artist James Turrell . And for this one, there were no photos and talking allowed. The timed experience was meant to be more meditative.

It was the first time that I had seen something by James Turrell in real life and it didn't disappoint. It made me feel things, as did the entire Superblue experience. So again, a top experience that I would highly recommend.

On a related real estate note, the 50,000 sf Superblue space is located in an area of Miami called Allapattah (which is west of Wynwood and 5 miles east of MIA). I'm an outsider to the city building undercurrents of this city, but I keep hearing people talk about the area as the next Wynwood.

The other cultural institution in Allapattah is the Rubell Museum, which I wrote about in 2019 as it was moving over from its original home in Wynwood. Supposedly the family now has the largest private collection of contemporary art in North America. So that's something.

Maybe these two anchors will be what does it for Allapattah. When we walked around the area there didn't seem to be much else going on. But we all know how quickly that can change.

Here is an example of retail signage on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. The interior signage (behind the glass above the doors) is specific to the brand Osklen (which is a great sustainable fashion company from Brazil). And the exterior soffit signage is specific to the property in that the same design and typeface is used for all of the retail tenants.

I think that this consistency creates a more elevated feel for the overall property, but the obvious downside is that the retailers don’t get to express their unique brands and identities in quite the same way. Still, I think the above approach is a pretty good compromise. What do you think?

I was in a “design charrette” meeting earlier today where the topic of good architecture and why some cities do better than others came up. It got me thinking about my recent post about the quality of Canadian architecture and so I’d like to revisit that discussion today. The Walrus article that I previously cited focused a lot on uninspiring public architecture and the procurement processes that generate them behind the scenes. But here are a few other things to consider.

1/ Design guidelines and planning policies have an impact on our built environment in more ways than most people probably appreciate. For example, there are design moves in some of our projects that I really dislike. But we were given no choice. In fact, in one instance I remember us advocating for less area/density (shocking for a developer) because we thought it made for better architecture. We ultimately capitulated, and the additional area was certainly a nice to have, but it wasn’t our opening position.

2/ Nice stuff does often cost more money. There is no question that a project like One Delisle is more expensive to construct compared to a “typical” building. However, we made the decision to invest in high quality architecture and we built our pro forma around this approach. In this regard, it is helpful to be in bigger and more expensive cities/submarkets so that you can generate the kind of revenues that will support high-quality architecture.

3/ At the same time, there is no reason that thoughtful design needs to cost more. Good design is simply about being creative, responding to constraints, and, frankly, just giving a shit about what you’re doing. You want to see that somebody cared. So while nice things and elegant details do often cost more money, we shouldn’t use this as a crutch. The same is true for climate. Colder climates shouldn’t be considered handicapped. Creativity and thoughtfulness can thrive anywhere. We just have to give them the opportunity.