Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 654

This is an interesting story about New Yorkers starting to seek out larger homes. Last month, Manhattan saw 140 purchase agreements signed for homes priced at $4 million or more. In the last week of February alone, 40 contracts were signed, which is apparently a weekly record for this price point that hasn't been seen since August 2016.

What's also interesting is that, in some of these cases, we're talking about buyers who bought preconstruction and then went back to the developer to swap for a larger apartment. Developer Scott Avram is quoted in the above article saying that 10 buyers have "upgraded their contracts" at 130 William (David Adjaye project) over the last six months.

As we've talked about before, this is likely happening for a bunch of reasons. People have been working from home and want more space. Interest rates are low. And New York saw some softening in prices and now people are jumping back in to seize on those opportunities. At the same time, it is yet another example of people going long on dense urban living.

https://vimeo.com/329987418

The 2021 Pritzker Prize was just awarded to French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. One of the most notable aspects of their work is their appreciation for and reuse of existing structures, which, as many of you will know, is far more sustainable than building new. A good example of this approach is their Grand Parc project in Bordeaux, where they transformed three existing tower blocks and 530 dwellings.

What's fascinating about this project is how they added balconies and winter gardens to structures that previously didn't have any. I also like how there are two layers of outdoors spaces. There's the more enclosed winter garden portion and then there's an open air balcony-type component, which also happens to be a more public-facing space where you might actually run into some of your neighbors.

If you can't see the video above, click here . Once you've had a chance to watch the video, I would be curious to know: Are these spaces that you would like to live in?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5BP05eqblkzy5NK0MeMomc?si=mb-0l_eYR6aIPkPJUGKeLw

Here is an interesting podcast with Austin Russell, who is CEO of Luminar Technologies . Luminar specializes in LIDAR vision systems for autonomous vehicles and has already cut deals with carmakers such as a Volvo. Starting as early as next year , Volvo hopes to start rolling out "fully autonomous highway driving" using LIDAR. And, supposedly, Luminar makes the best kind of LIDAR with ranges of up to 250m. But not everyone believes that LIDAR will be a necessary component of autonomy going forward. Tesla instead relies on vision (lots of cameras and fancy AI software), and Elon Musk has famously said that anyone relying on LIDAR will ultimately be doomed. Time will tell, though I am in the LIDAR camp because of the recency bias that this podcast has created. And in the interim, Luminar going public at the end of last year has made Austin Russell the youngest self-made billionaire in America.