Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 928

Yesterday morning I went on a ravine walk from Summerhill up to St. Clair Avenue East. Toronto’s ravine system is easily the most unique feature of our city’s geography. Architect Larry Wayne Richards once described the topography of Toronto as San Francisco inverted. They have hills and we have valleys.

Toronto’s ravines serve, among other things, as a recreational treasure, a magnet for nice homes, and as an important component of this city’s water infrastructure. But as you walk through many of our ravines, you can’t help but think that we could and should value them a lot more.

I appreciate that there needs to be a balance between environmental conservation and recreational use, but that doesn’t seem to be the primary issue. It is neglect. And it is probably because they are out of sight and out of mind for many people. Toronto’s ravines are an undervalued asset.

Yesterday Sidewalk Toronto released its draft site plan for Quayside . Here’s what it looks like:

There’s a big emphasis on people-first streets and on the public realm. I like the idea of a waterfront plaza at the tip of the Parliament slip and of a floating walkway bridge to Promontory Park (bottom right hand corner of the above image).

There are also a number of more enclosed pedestrian laneways and courtyards, which I am sure will result in more favorable microclimate conditions. That matters, especially on the water.

Here are some high level project stats:

• All mass timber construction
  

• Five “sites”
  

• Buildings ranging from 3 to 30 storeys

• 68% residential (40% of the residential will be below-market, with 20% being affordable and 5% being deeply affordable)
  

• 20% commercial
  

• 15% flex space (retail, production, arts, community)
  

• ~2,500 residential units
  

A full copy of the draft site plan can be downloaded, here .

Image: Sidewalk Toronto

Airbnb has just announced a new initiative called Backyard, where it will be looking at new ways in which homes can be designed, built, and shared. They are, in a broad sense, becoming architects.

The initiative has been in the prototyping phase for some time now, but the plan is to put forward some sort of product in 2019. Despite the name, the initiative won’t just be focused on small backyard cottages or accessory dwelling units.

Here is an excerpt from Fast Company :

“Backyard investigates how buildings could utilize sophisticated manufacturing techniques, smart-home technologies, and gains vast insight from the Airbnb community to thoughtfully respond to changing owner or occupant needs over time,” Gebbia says. “Backyard isn’t a house, it’s an initiative to rethink the home. Homes are complex, and we’re taking a broad approach–not just designing one thing, but a system that can do many things.”

This is yet another example of tech and real estate coming together. But as I’ve mentioned before on the blog, I think eventually we’ll stop making that distinction; it will just become the way in which we build companies.