Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 807

This is a terrific infill project by Bureau de Change (architect) for HGG London (developer). It's a five-storey mixed-use development in London's Fitzrovia neighborhood.

The design ambition was to respect the area's history, materiality, and proportions, but also create something entirely new. The result is a blue clay (brick) facade that transforms and looks like this:

And it was done by inventing a collection of misshapen blocks -- 44 of them to be exact. Over 5,000 blocks were ultimately used for the facade and it was assembled on site using a 1:1 printed template. Each block came with a set of instructions.

There's something nice about working at this scale and being able to get into this level of detail. It's 21st century craftsmanship (the entire facade was modeled in 3D before it was built).

If you'd like to learn more about The Interlock, click here . All photos by Gilbert McCarragher .

Stephen A. Schwarzman (of Blackstone) was at the Canadian Club of Toronto today, talking about life, finance and his new book, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence . I haven't read it yet. But thanks to today, I now have a copy and I am confident it will probably be excellent.

One thing that I really appreciated were his comments around teachers. Education is paramount. And yet US schools (K-12) are falling behind the rest of the world. (China has supposedly integrated computer science education across the board.) His recommendation: Pay teachers more and don't charge them income tax.

Why no tax? Because it would signal to the rest of society just how important teachers are. Maybe that's exactly the right solution or maybe it's not. Either way, it feels directionally right, and there's no question that teachers are some of the most important people on the planet.

If you're interested in this topic, you may also be interested in this startup . They offer down payment assistance to "essential professionals," such as teachers.

Ben Myers of Bullpen Research & Consulting was recently interviewed by Newinhomes.com about the state of Toronto's new housing market. Ben is always interesting. And these are the sorts of things that I read in my spare time. So here's an excerpt:

The average price of popular new condo floor plans in the City of Toronto in October 2019 was approximately $1,275 per-square-foot (psf) and with growth of 3% a year, prices would hit $1,475 psf in 2024. I wouldn't be surprised to see annual average growth of 4%, which would get you to $1,625 psf in five years in Toronto.

This data was taken from BuzzBuzzHome and -- by "popular new condo floor plans" -- I believe he means that these are the floor plans that buyers tend to click on and review when they visit the site. So it's a good indication of buyer demand.

Here's another quote that stuck out:

Part of the reason that price growth has spiked is a rise in construction costs, development charges, and land prices - this cost-push inflation is passed on to consumers.

That sounds right. And I have been writing about this phenomenon all year. Most of us can probably remember when $1,000+ psf was a high water mark for new construction condos. Now it's pretty much a floor.