Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 788

I love this article in Designlines Magazine about how Lawrence Blairs (owner of Atomic Design) has setup his 65 square meter one bedroom condo to serve as both a place to live and an art gallery.

The main living area is equipped with white vinyl screens that pull down to conceal the kitchen and other private areas, and make it feel like a white-walled gallery space. There’s naturally also a projector on the ceiling.

Supposedly it takes him about 30 minutes to prepare the space before an event. Here is a photo by Arash Moallemi via Designlines:

You don’t necessarily need a lot of space to do the things that you may want to do. You just need to be creative. Do you think that developers should offer more creative space solutions as part of their standard offering?

Every quarter, Apartment List publishes something that they call their Rental Migration Report. What they do is use search data from their website to determine where their (registered) users are hoping to move to and from. Their first report of 2020 is now out and below is their list of the most attractive US metros. It is based on search data from June to December, 2019.

Now, it’s important to note that this is really only a form of intent — taken from one particular website. This list may not, and probably doesn’t, accurately mirror how and where people are actually migrating within the US. But it is still interesting to see what is top of mind for Apartment List’s users. (If there were multiple search inquiries during a visit to the site, they counted the first metro area.)

Beautiful mountains. Great snowboarding/skiing. And a burgeoning tech ecosystem. I am not at all surprised to see Denver at the top of this list.

Images: Apartment List

After I landed in Vancouver yesterday, I opened up my inbox and found a cease and desist letter on behalf of the Ontario Association of Architects. The OAA had an issue with me using the following text description on my blog: “I’m an architect-trained and tech-obsessed real estate developer based in Toronto.” More specifically, they had a problem with “architect-trained.” They were of the opinion that I was “holding myself out as an architect.”

When I wrote that text description many years ago, I was actually trying to be sensitive to the fact that, because I’m not licensed, I’m not allowed to refer to myself as an architect. I hold a professional master’s degree in architecture, but I do not hold a certificate of practice in Ontario. The text description I chose was actually meant to communicate that I’m a real estate developer who cares deeply about and sees the value in great design.

The OAA and their lawyers clearly read it differently. So I have removed the derivative “architect” language from this blog. Frankly, it’s not a big deal to me. And in the almost 6 years that I have been writing this blog, I don’t think anyone has ever reached out to me thinking that I was a practicing architect. To be clear: I am not an architect. In case any of you are curious, here is a copy of the letter that I received.