Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 672

When I was in graduate school, my plan was to create a vertically integrated design and development company. I loved designing things and wanted to remain close to those sorts of details, but I had already decided that I wasn't going to be an architect in the traditional sense and that I was going to be a developer. And so my objective was to figure out a way to combine everything under one roof. How could we be designers, but also be the entrepreneurs that make buildings happen?

In some ways, Mackay Laneway House is a manifestation of that model. Through a partnership with Gabriel Fain Architects, we ( Globizen Studio ) have been heavily involved on the design side. Gabriel did all of the drawings and the overall architecture, but we weighed in (more than your typical client), selected most of the FF&E, and even designed things like the kitchen (with Scavolini) and the exterior signage. I wouldn't call it true vertical integration, but we did start to blur the lines between architect/designer and developer.

One of the interesting things about this approach is that it begins to create some consistency and a bit of a branded product. The hope is that when Mackay Laneway House is fully complete, it will read as a Globizen project, which is not that dissimilar from what David Wex of Urban Capital was talking about in this recent podcast . Their projects are a specific kind of product. They generally repeat it, and if that's not what you're interested in, then you don't buy an Urban Capital home.

But this also raises an important question: what is the role of architects and architecture in the case of buildings as very specific products? (This is something that we have discussed before on the blog .) Is the job of the architect to create an interesting exterior shell that then gets populated on the inside by a specific product offering? Or is it even worse, is architecture sometimes just an "empty vessel" that gets interior design and a brand slapped onto it? In some cases and with some projects, it does feel this way.

I am a firm believer in the value of architecture and design. An "empty vessel" is not architecture. It is, well, an empty vessel. And that is not what I aim for in any of the projects that I'm involved in. Creativity, function, thoughtfulness and, yes, beauty , are all important. At the same time, I think this is a valuable debate. These sorts of questions are helpful in dissecting the architecture/development value chain. And so I would be interested in hearing your thoughts in the comment section below.

One of my favorite interior design firms -- Crosby Studios -- has just launched a new home goods and accessories concept called Crosby Studios Home. The offerings are unmistakingly Harry Nuriev (the founder of Crosby Studios). It's all about design, art, and fashion coming together. But what is also noteworthy is how the concept was launched using a virtual shoppable showroom . And the experience, which is pictured above, is shockingly good. You simply wander around this blue-floored apartment and click on whatever stuff you would like to add to your shopping cart. This isn't the first virtual showroom experience, but as I was using it, I couldn't help but think that we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future. This and things like shoppable augmented reality .

Images: Crosby Studios Home

A recent essay by The School of Life asks: " Why is the Modern World So Ugly? " Here's how it opens:

" One of the great generalisations we can make about the modern world is that it is, to an extraordinary degree, an ugly world. If we were to show an ancestor from 250 years ago around our cities and suburbs, they would be amazed at our technology, impressed by our wealth, stunned by our medical advances – and shocked and disbelieving at the horrors we had managed to build. Societies that are, in most respects, hugely more advanced than those of the past have managed to construct urban environments more dispiriting, chaotic and distasteful than anything humanity has ever known. "

Naturally, it turns out that this is, at least partially, the fault of greedy and unscrupulous real estate developers:

" When property developers heard that the artistic avant-garde was now promoting a concept of functionalism, they rejoiced. From the most high brow quarters, the most mean minded motives had been given a seal of approval. No longer would these developers have to spend any money on anything to do with beauty. Out could go the symmetry, the flowers, the nice but slightly more expensive materials. It could all be as quick, ugly and cheap as possible; after all, isn’t that what the great minds of architecture had advised? "

The author goes on:

" Yet this nuance was lost on the property developers who came after them. Their constructions weren’t elegantly pared down with grace. They were something far worse: sloppy, mean-minded and ugly. Except that now, because of the words of the modernist masters, there was apparently nothing one could do to charge them with a dereliction of duty. The concept of beauty had been rendered old-fashioned, it smelt elitist and woolly. No one could any more complain that beauty was missing from the world without sounding soft-headed. "

To be fair, the essay doesn't entirely blame developers. It, more specifically, outlines six possible reasons for the ugliness of the modern world. And I do agree with some of them.

Click here for the full essay.