Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 744

Door handles are a funny thing these days. They are one of if not our most common point of contact with the built environment, and yet in the best of times they go largely unnoticed. And in today's world they have flipped to become a source of anxiety. Do I really need to touch this door handle or can I maybe use my foot or elbow? Some have responded by wearing gloves. But sometimes door handles offer up clues -- such as a worn finish -- as to where they are most commonly touched. But then one is faced with yet another difficult dilemma: do you handle the pristine part or remain committed to the worn out part since everybody else is probably thinking what you're thinking and searching for the unadulterated section of the handle? Who knew that opening a simple door could elicit such complexity.

But we shouldn't be too critical of the mighty door handle. Edwin Heathcote recently published this short history of door handles and it's a good reminder of the design intent that has gone into them over the years and how they also came to embody our broader views about architecture. One of my favorites, of course , is the original Bauhaus door handle designed by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer c. 1922. (Pictured above, it's currently housed on the fifth floor of the MoMA in New York.) Its lever starts out square and machine-like, but then transforms into a cylinder, exactly where you're supposed to grip it with your hand. It is ultra minimal, but it tells you exactly what to do. It also helps us with our dilemma. Worn or not worn, the cylinder is obviously where it should be handled.

Image: MoMA

One of my favorite pastimes these days is planning out all of the places I am going to travel to once it is safe to do so and the world fully reopens. Traveling was something that I prioritized before COVID-19 and it is something that I know I will get back to sooner rather than later. But in the short-term, the travel and tourism industry is of course feeling it. According to this recent article from FT , there were 67 million fewer tourists around the world in March 2020 compared to last year. And in April, passenger demand was down even further with a 94% year-over-year decline. This is something, because globally, tourism is believed to account for about 10% of the world's economic output . Over the last five years, 1 out of every 4 new jobs around the world was in the travel and tourism space. And for some countries, such as Cambodia, tourism accounts for over 30% of overall GDP.

What has also happened over the last decade is that South and East Asia & Pacific has begun collecting a greater share of global tourism dollars, which is or was at about US$1.6 trillion in total . East Asia is now comparable to Europe & Central Asia -- it may even be receiving a few more dollars at this point. However, there are some key differences. Tourism in Europe, more so than other region, relies on international travel. And since domestic travel is likely to recover before international travel, Europe is perhaps the most exposed in this regard. Europe also has a pretty pronounced peak. There is something magical about the Mediterranean in July and August and that is indeed when most people visit Europe (see above FT charts). Broadly speaking, the rest of the world doesn't seem to experience this same overt seasonality. (If you think back to the start of COVID-19, you might remember that Asia's travel "peak" usually happens in December.)

Will international travellers feel confident enough by July and August? And if they don't and Europe misses summer 2020, will travel plans get pushed to later in the year or will Europe need to wait for summer 2021? For me it's feeling like a summer of road trips and local vacations. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about and planning for much more. My suitcase and passport are ready. What about you?

Charts: Financial Times

Many cities around the world use underground waste containers to collect garbage. Instead of garbage being collected from individual homes and buildings, residents simply bring their waste to a nearby drop-off location, centralizing the collections process. This may not be the case in all neighborhoods, but it is being done. Ideally, and in some cases, these drop-off locations are connected through underground tubes so that the waste never actually needs to be collected.

Amsterdam is one example of a city that has a robust network of waste bins. But access isn't universal. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the historic city center of Amsterdam houses about 10% of the city's population. But only a portion of these households actually have convenient access to a fixed waste receptacle. Apparently it's because its quays along the canals aren't all that conducive to underground waste storage. This means that garbage tends to get stored on sidewalks within the public realm.

Researchers at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) and MIT have been working on a solution to this problem and it involves Amsterdam's waterways. It turns out that while most residents within the city center don't have convenient access to a waste bin, almost all of them are within 120m of a canal. The proposed solution is called project Roboat and it involves a fleet of autonomous vessels that could serve as on-demand drop-off locations. Here's what they might look like:

The idea is that these garbage collectors would be dropped off and picked up by another set of autonomous "Roboats" and that the entire network could optimize itself over time as demand and usage changes. These Roboats might also serve to transport people and goods, all while they shuttle garbage around the city and perhaps even check the quality of the water in the canals. My first thought is that this sort of autonomy feels easier to execute on than autonomous cars. You have other boats to content with, but you don't have pedestrians.

So maybe we'll be seeing Roboats around Amsterdam sooner rather than later.

Image: MIT/AMS Institute