When An Improper Fireplace Installation Causes A Ski Lodge Inferno
Nigel Knotsworth*, decorator extraordinaire to the rich and famous.
Was NOT an architect.
Yet didn't mind when other refer to him as such (and didn't correct them).
He liked to be seen as the "captain of the ship" on his latest ski lodge project.
The "real" architect, Bruno Lareira* meanwhile was given the boot, when his services were no longer required.
Assigning responsibility therefore became a hopeless exercise when the ski lodge burned down... due to an improperly installed fireplace.
Knotsworth abandoned ship.
Lareira was left holding the bag.
Find out how it ended for all parties in the final instalment of "The Claims-Free Architect" podcast.
*Knotsworth and Lareira are fictional characters.
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
How Ignoring The Neighbour's Runoff Resulted In A Paint Shop Flood
Any new building needs to be designed taking its context into consideration.
Ignore the context at your own peril, and you may find yourself in a situation similar to that of Jonathan Snowbank, OAA*
He and his engineer, Max Wasser, did just that and found themselves underwater, literally and figuratively.
Listen to "When Water Flows Uphill" on The Claims-Free Architect podcast to learn why Coping should have been more vigilant, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
When A Millwork Schedule Typo Leads To A $200,000 Mistake
Stages of millwork schedules mastery:
1. Beginner: Jot down quantities on a napkin and hand to contractor
2. Intermediate: Create a spreadsheet, fill it out and hand to contractor without verifying quantities
3. Advanced: Link BIM model to spreadsheet and create a schedule from 3D model
4. Master: Link BIM model to spreadsheet and create code to auto-update quantities as the 3D model is modified, then phone millwork company to double check the quantities before manufacture
Jason Coping, Interior Designer at J&J Dosh, failed to reach the higher echelons of millwork mastery and paid dearly for it, ending up with 180 more custom cabinets than the project needed.
Listen to "Too Much Of A Wood Thing" on The Claims-Free Architect podcast to learn why Coping should have been more vigilant, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
How A Mould Expert Worsened Damage From A Faulty Sprinkler Valve
The most dangerous addiction in Architecture is relying on experts who are a bit too enthusiastically advocating for their ideas…
Find out how Aaron Trench, OAA had to contend with one such expert who caused more problems than he resolved.
Listen to "A Spot of Mould" on The Claims-Free Architect podcast to learn how a mycologist ruined Trench’s day, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
When a 25-Tonne Precast Wall Crashes Down, Who's Responsible?
Spongebob knows what’s up.
Enzo Balla, OAA*, received a notice of claim that he was responsible for the collapse of a concrete panel at a factory that he designed and that was under construction.
He did not, nor did the engineer and the contractor, check that the prefab concrete panels were to be properly tied during construction, to precisely avoid what happened.
Here are 3 lessons he learned over the months-long mediation he had to go through:
Lesson No. 1: The architect is the "captain of the ship" and as such, has the ultimate responsibility for the safety of his buildings.
Lesson No. 2: All parties (Architect, Engineers, Contractors, etc.) would be found liable in a court of law, and should all be proactive in finding and addressing issues, especially where safety is concerned.
Lesson No. 3: Shop drawings should be taken seriously and inspected carefully as they often contain critical information.
To hear the full story that will keep you on the edge of your seat, find "The Claims-Free Architect" where you get your podcasts.
*Enzo is a fictional character.
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
What Happens When An Unreasonable Client Demolishes Completed Work?
Preventing clients from demolishing a perfectly good building is 80% systems, 15% communication, and 5% luck.
Farley Wilton, OAA, did not follow this rule and, as a result, saw his design partially demolished by his client, Ava Boxer, a diva-like developer who didn't think good enough was, well, good enough.
A challenging claim and mediation ensued.
In the latest instalment of "The Claims-Free Architect" podcast, you'll hear the story of Farley Wilton and the claim made against him by his absentee client.
Listen in if you don't want to be like Wilton.
Find "The Claims-Free Architect" where you get your podcasts
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
Helicopter Aerials 2024 - Last Call For The Laggards.
Last year, I did my first aerial shoot by helicopter.
I was scared shitless, because it's big financial commitment, and I wasn't sure it would pay for itself.
Here are 5 lessons I learned since this time last year:
1. It turns out people like aerials.
2. It's expensive compared to a drone, but offers a different perspective that's only achievable from a helicopter.
3. With a bit of planning, prices can be fairly reasonable and give your firm a unique perspective on your completed work, especially if multiple firms share images.
4. It's the best tool to show urban projects in their context.
5. Developers love it as a base for renderings.
6. Enough people bought images to be worth the investment.
7. Work with Michael Young (Shared Construction Content), he'll save you tons of time and money.
We're doing it again this year, there is still 2 days to get on board. The first image starts at $900, with decreasing costs for each subsequent picture.
Deadline: Wed, Nov 6th at Noon.
Location: Toronto Downtown and surrounding areas (projects elsewhere available for an add'l flight fee).
To get your insta-quote, send me the location(s) and desired number of images here.
Hope that's helpful.
PS - Don’t wait for the 2025 edition,
When Cheaping Out Results In A Beloved Building Burning Down
Architect Bertram Wooster's clients were powerless while watching their beloved heritage burn down to charred rubble.
Wooster himself would have likely been able to prevent the catastrophe had he heeded these 4 lessons:
1: Rationing engineering services to save a few thousand dollars is a risky move.
2: The alleged lack of firestops is a frequent source of claims. Architects need to make sure they are properly installed.
3: Laymen often imagine architects' duty of care to mean observing every nail being pounded in, every staple being punched in. It's good practice to be crystal clear as to what each professional's responsibilities are (architects, consultants and trades).
4: Be careful not to offer unrealistic and possibly uninsurable guarantees, by providing professional advice based on unrealistic expectations.
5: In dealing with a claim, parties on both sides will make outrageous and unreasonable claims to gain the upper hand. Fortunately, reason often prevails, but following the rules and operating "by the book" will prevent costly liability.
In the latest instalment of "The Claims-Free Architect" podcast, Bertram Wooster, OAA is the target of an insurance claim alleging failing to maintain duty of care.
Listen in if you don't want to be like Wooster.
Find "The Claims-Free Architect" where you get your podcasts
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
How The Incorrect Soils Report Led To A Building Collapse
There are 4 stages of subsoils mastery for architects:
1. Beginner: Oblivious to the fact that the soils report used to design a building is for the wrong site.
2. Intermediate: Routinely uses soils report from adjacent sites.
3. Advanced: Ensures that the correct soils report is used.
4. Master: Has 3 reports produced by 3 different soils expert.
Jokes aside, in the latest instalment of "The Claims-Free Architect" podcast, Harry Weet, OAA demonstrates what kind of catastrophe can come from operating at the beginner level of subsoils mastery.
Listen in if you don't want to be like Harry.
Find "The Claims-Free Architect" where you get your podcasts
Credits:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
The Claim-Free Architect
You may have heard before about "Architects' Claims Stories" a podcast I've been producing for the last 3 years for ProDemnity insurance company. If you haven't, you should check it out here. These beloved stories, which were originally penned by David Croft, have been adapted and released as a podcast, which is now in it third season.
Some of you may know these stories in their written form, as they have existed as such in ProDemnity's world for 30+ years.
The move from the written word to a podcast format (initially these were planned as an audiobook), was primarily to make these stories more appealing to a younger audience and reflect how people increasingly consume information today.
This year, the podcast was slightly revamped and in that process, renamed "The Claims-Free Architect" to better reflect both the podcast's and the company's mission.
These cautionary tales of insurance claims made against architectural professionals are written for architects and adjacent professionals. They are entertaining, enlightening and sometimes subtly funny (pay attention to the names of the characters next time you listen).
More importantly, they contain nuggets of critical knowledge that the whole team behind this podcast believes every architect should know and internalize, as they will likely prevent many mistakes, saving architecture practitioners and their staff, time and money.
The lessons learned are summarized at the end of each episode, making it super easy to retain the critical information that will help you run your business more efficiently and avoid the most egregious practice-error. It's a great way to learn from other's mistakes.
The young practitioners of today are the practice leaders of tomorrow, so in appealing to a broader audience, we hope to recapture the aura of the written stories that older practitioners are familiar with.
It also reflects a broader trend in marketing, where time-based media is taking an increasingly larger role in how businesses market themselves and reach out to their audience. Information is now accessed and digested in all kinds of ways (via social media, video and podcasts for example) so it is critical for anyone in a marketing role to pay attention to those media. I see lots of promising younger architects try new ways of promoting themselves, from vlogs in cars on Youtube to podcasts, with the most dedicated ones seeing some real success in finding new ways to reach their intended audience.
Some are of-the-cuff reactions to an event or musings on a particular idea, while other are highly produced scripted videos (or podcasts, like The Claims-Free Architect) that look more like documentaries than a youtube video.
All have in common the idea to convey ideas in an easily-digestible, engaging format and a level of consistency that enables them to grow their audience slowly and steadily, which in turns fills up their marketing funnel and allows them to be more choosy in who they work with (don't forget that this is a marketing effort - so the goal is to produce results for your marketing efforts and help you find more work).
Going back to the podcast, here are brief decriptions in what you'll learn from season 3, currently being released:
In "Why It's Risky For An Architect To Ignore Existing Conditions" , you'll learn what happens when architects, who are making extensive renovations to a building with complicated mechanical systems, can’t —or simply don’t—fully examine existing conditions before they start out.
In "How a Fire Hydrant Upgrade Led to a Million-Dollar Lawsuit" , you’ll discover how a small, unnoticed alteration in a survey datum point can snowball into a major headache. This story illustrates the importance of obtaining accurate information, and keeping scrupulous records, especially for complex buildings
In "The High Price of Favouritism: A Story of Misguided Loyalty in Contract Bidding" you'll learn that being fair and transparent in the bidding process is crucial because choosing favourites or making changes at the last minute can lead to serious trouble.
In "Cold Dinners and Hot Tempers: Unraveling the Human Cost of Conflicts in Construction" you'll learn how interpersonal conflicts, misunderstandings, and professional missteps in a construction project lead to unforeseen consequences and legal battles.
In "The Million-Dollar Friendship: When Cutting Corners Costs More Than Just Money", you'll learn why architects should never compromise on essential design elements and quality materials to cut costs, even for friends or to achieve a specific aesthetic.
In the most recent episode "The Melting Mansion: A Tale of Miguided Materials", you'll learn that Agreeing to build a high-quality neoclassical masterpiece in the Ontario hinterlands, without the extravagant budget required can only result in a deteriorating client relationship, and a dilapidated building.
If you're interested in learning about new ways of marketing your services, but don't know where to start, or would like to brainstorm some ideas, or pick my brain about your particular situation, please reach out.
Also, if podcasts are your thing, be sure to subscribe to The Claims-Free Architect. It could very well help you remain claims-free.
This podcast wouldn't have been possible without ProDemnity of course, but there is also a whole team behind this effort that deserves credit and high praise for their creativity and flexibility.
They are:
Original stories - David Croft, adapted for audio by Gordon Grice.
Performance - Liam Gadsby (the man with the mellifluous voice).
Producer - yours truly (RVLTR).
Audio recording and Engineering - Audio Process.
Publisher and executive producer - ProDemnity Insurance Company
Truth is Golden Ep. 23 - Start with Why w/ Stephen Shedletzky
During the summer break, I will be sharing the last three episodes of Truth is Golden, my previous podcast that’s been discontinued a few years ago. I still believe to this day that this content is evergreen, hence my ongoing effort to republish it so that people can learn from creatives about what makes them tick and how they’ve become successful.
In this episode, I had the pleasure to talk to Stephen Shedletzky, former Lead Igniter at Simon Sinek's Start With Why and one of the nicest, most genuine human beings I have ever met. We talked about the importance of purpose, culture and of course, Rock'n'roll.
Shed has since written a book and started his own consultancy, continuing to inspire leaders to foster productive cultures.
Check it out below.
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About the podcast: The intent behind our podcast series "Truth Is Golden" is to look at renowned creatives and their work with a critical eye. We aim to ask deep questions in order to peel back the layers of marketing, clever one-liners and sexy branding. We want to show the world what it truly takes for genuinely creative forces to find their own voice build a career on what is very often nothing more than a drive to do things differently. We want to hear about the successes, the failures, the inspirational stories and the lessons gleaned from all of it. We want the truth, so that we can inspire other people to fulfill their own creative aspirations and in the process contribute to making the world a better place.
A Devastating Loss, A Chance to Rebuild Toronto's Cultural Gem
The iconic St. Anne's Anglican Church - a breathtaking Byzantine-styled heritage building adorned with artwork from the renowned Group of Seven - stood proud in Toronto's Little Portugal community for over a century. Until fate dealt a devastating blow, reducing this architectural masterpiece to ashes in a tragic four-alarm fire.
For me, discovering St. Anne's felt like a revelation. Its intricate details, rich history, and cultural significance left me awestruck like a fresh-faced architecture student. I was so captivated that I set out to create a documentary (currently in pre-production) celebrating this hidden gem, virtually unknown even within artistic circles.
But now, the tight-knit community who called St. Anne's home has been left devastated and homeless overnight. Irreplaceable artworks and artifacts...turned to cinders. My heart breaks for their profound loss.
Yet in the midst of this heartbreak lies the opportunity to rise up and rebuild, just as Paris has done with the iconic Notre Dame. St. Anne's rector Rev. Don Beyers has vowed the church will be restored. But he cannot do it alone.
Join me in supporting this community effort to revive their beloved landmark. Every donation, no matter how small, will help reconstruct this one-of-a-kind cultural treasure.
Take action now:
Visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/stannesfire to donate
Spread the word far an wide to your network
Together, we can transform ashes into a resplendent phoenix - ensuring this architectural jewel once again graces Toronto's landscape for generations to cherish.
Don't let this piece of our heritage be lost forever. Donate today and be part of the renaissance.
Single Serves ep. 410 - Landis on the Power of Art in Public Spaces and Placemaking
Image courtesy of our guest
My guest for this episode is Emma Landis.
She is the founder and principal of Richan Art, an art advisory focused on collections management for corporate and private collectors, as well as public art commissioning for some of Canada’s largest developers.
Emma holds an MA and a PhD in art history from Western University and University of Victoria Respectively.
In this episode, we are discussing her mission to build a greater appreciation for and understanding of the arts among various stakeholders, such as collectors, for whom she seeks unique and meaningful pieces; developers and institutional clients; as well as students through the development of a mentorship program at OCAD University and the Etobicoke School of the Arts.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2024 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Emma, thanks very much for joining me today. It's really good to have you on the show.
Emma Richan: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me today.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So let's start with a little bit of an introduction and can you tell our listeners who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?
Emma Richan: Absolutely. My name is Emma Richan. I'm an art consultant and the principal of Richan Art, which is an art advisory based here in Toronto. I advise corporate and private collectors on how to build unique and meaningful art collections.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Very short and sweet. That's great. So I want to start with the deep age old question. Why is art so important to us humans?
Emma Richan: Oh, that's a great question. I would say that art is what makes us human. We do so many things that we have to do, like science, math, all of these things are very important to continuing the human species, but art is something that is so uniquely human, it really compels us and it drives civilization forward in a way that is very different from some of the hard sciences.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So would it be fair to say, it's kind of a way for humans to explore ideas that don't really find a home anywhere else?
Emma Richan: Yeah, you could say that, and I also don't want to put art completely separate from science and math because a lot of people are able to explore similar ideas in one platform or the other. There are lots of artists who explore physics, for example, through a creative practice.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, that makes sense. So let's bring it back a bit more to down to Earth matters. And you said you're an art advisor and collection manager for your clients. Can you tell us what that is exactly? Art advisory and collections management?
Emma Richan: Sure. So this can work in a variety of different ways and my clients look different, depending on their needs. So I work, for example, with corporations who may or may not have collections already and they need advice on which acquisitions they should look to next, what would be smart investments for their company and which artworks perhaps represent their goals and their mission and dare I say, brand, and then also how to care for that collection, how to document it properly for insurance purposes, how to do appraisals, should be done approximately every five years to safeguard the collection. So that's kind of how it looks, very loosely, for some of the corporate clients that I have. I do have corporate clients who also want public arts, so I would help facilitate that process with the city, there's a lot more stakeholders involved and sometimes, we also do mentorship programs with local schools, universities, or high schools. And then when it comes to private collectors, that ranges quite a bit as well, depending on their personal goals. And I help them establish their goals if they don't have them yet. So some people do have investment as a priority, and even the idea of investment changes from person to person. So helping them tease out what it is that their priorities are. When I say investment, for some collectors, that just means trying to make sure they're making smart decisions. And $10,000 can be a lot of money on a single painting for a lot of people. So they just want to make sure that they're not throwing their money down the drain. They want to make sure that they're buying something that they love and they don't necessarily need to be making money on it. They just hope that it'll hold its value.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So at the very least, it's not losing money. It's a very interesting world. And do you work with people who are in it purely for the art and money's no object and they don't care if what they have loses value and they just want to buy art that moves them? Or is there always an investments mandate behind what they do and what they buy?
Emma Richan: That's a good question. I find that even very, very wealthy people, they still have a budget because they have other priorities in their life as well. There are very few people, I call them mega collectors, and they're the people like Eli Broad who funded his own museum in LA or the Rubel family in Miami who are able to fund their very own museum too and hired their own staff and everything to safeguard that collection and have taken control over how it's displayed. I have high net worth collectors, for example, even they, who are able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single piece, that's their budget. Everybody has a line. It's different for different people.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So how did you get involved in that world? And the corollary to that question is, what drives your passion for the field? So let me ask the question again. How did you get involved in this world and what drives your passion for the field?
Emma Richan: Thank you for asking that. How did I get involved? I have been interested in art since I was very young. At that age, it was more an interest in creating art myself. When you're a kid, you're not really thinking about what job you can get in the art market, and I grew up in Kingston. Both my parents worked at Queen's University and Queen's actually has a really exceptional art gallery on their campus, the Agnes Etherington Art Center. And they are very fortunate to have had some wonderfully generous benefactors, the Baders, Alfred and Isabel Bader, and they have donated original Rembrandts and incredible examples of Renaissance art to that collection. So that was my first exposure to "real" art. And after that, I mean, fast forward a bit, I did my undergrad and my graduate studies in art history and I had a pretty good sense that I wanted to move into the private sector as opposed to public, being museums and institutions. And I think that is just kind of a natural drive of mine. Both my parents, I mentioned they worked at the university, but my grandfather owned a jewelry store in Regina, where my family's from, and my great-grandfather owned grocery stores in Regina as well. So I think there's something natural in me, some natural drive to have this entrepreneurial spirit and combine it with my passion for art. And you asked as well, what keeps my drive going?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah.
Emma Richan: I really love helping people connect with art and helping them find what resonates with them. One of the reasons I like to be an art consultant as opposed to owning a gallery, is because I have a lot more freedom with which artists I'd like to work with. And I'm not confined to a specific roster or stable of artists that I need to promote because I already own a bunch of inventory of their work that I need to sell. So this way I can really help people connect with exactly what it is they like and what their interests are and say, "Oh, have you thought about this artist? It really seems to connect with your personality or your home or your values system."
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): That makes a lot of sense. So can you maybe share a couple examples of notable projects or experiences that have shaped your career and things that are meaningful or important to you that can help our listeners understand a little better what it is that you do? To me, it's still kind an obscure world 'cause I know nothing about it. And so I'm kind of fascinated to learn more about what happens behind the scenes.
Emma Richan: Sure, absolutely. And it can be a bit of an opaque industry, which is, part of my job, is to help collectors or people interested in collecting and navigate that world. Something that I'm working on right now that is, I think, shaping and changing the direction of my work a bit is a public art project that I started a few years ago. Public art is quite a different sector than collecting or advising on private collectors' collections, for example. So with public art, the first project that I'm working on is with a major developer here in Toronto. He has a long history of doing public art here. I'm very lucky that he gave me a chance to start working on public art because he was working with a different advisor in the past and he just wanted to shake things up a little bit and try something different. So with this project I had to, if we break it down into what I actually do, we had to start out with creating a public art plan that needed to be approved by the city. These are pretty specific documents. There are clear things that need to go into it, description of the site, historical context. You need to create a long list of artists to be approved. So everything that goes into this public art plan is usually, about 10 pages long by the end of it. It needs to go to the city, to the Toronto Public Art Commission, it's a board of professionals not employed by the city, and they have to approve that this looks like a good idea, that it's going to be public serving because this is private money on public land and needs to be publicly accessible, the sites, the potential sites for where the art needs to go or may go needs to-
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): When you put those plans together, do you already have an artist or even an art piece in mind or at that point, it's just this is what we want to do, but we're still looking for the art itself?
Emma Richan: At that point, there are only possible art locations selected, a long list of artists, and the artwork has to be, at least in the city of Toronto, has to be site specific. Meaning, when we select an artist, they create the piece at least for the site. So it's a commission. Meaning, we can't buy something that's already been created, which I think is great actually, because then it really will speak to the neighborhood that it's going to or at least has the potential to.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, or even the building or the space it's in, right?
Emma Richan: Yeah.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): I have this sculpture in mind that's at the Panem Village, that big blue thing-
Emma Richan: Yeah.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): ... The human figure and you can walk through it. I always thought this was pretty cool. So I guess that's a good example of a site specific project?
Emma Richan: Yes. I mean, any of the public art in Toronto is designed for that site. And sometimes people or the artists, they have to be quite creative because the space that they're given is not very large. So, I mean sometimes it is, but sometimes it's in a dense downtown area, for example. They have to make sure the artwork is visible from close up or from inside one of the buildings. How is it going to look from all these different perspectives for different people?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): That's interesting. So let's go into it a little deeper, into architecture and development. Why do you think it's important to prioritize the finding high quality art for developments and how should developers and designers prioritize or organize it?
Emma Richan: So I really think that public art has a vital role to play in any well-designed urban landscape. And it can be a really effective tool in community building. And people nowadays, are very discerning and very visually literate. So I think a developer or anyone commissioning public art, whether that's a designer, a landscape designer or whoever, there is a new global audience that they need to be considering when they're creating their projects because their audience will notice if it is kind of an afterthought. And the public art, whether it's public art inside a space, like in a lobby, or outside, it really, it needs to be considered at the outset of the project and needs to be built into the budget from the get-go so that it's not thought down the line, "Oh wait a second, we really need public art, but wait, there's no art. There's no budget left. How can we do this for like $50,000?" And it's not possible. It's almost better not to do it at that point, unfortunately, if it can't be done properly. And for example, with public art outside, it also needs to be decided very early on because things like lighting need to be considered, which means electrical may need to be done before concrete's even poured. It really needs to be done really early, earlier than a lot of people expect and-
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): It's almost concurrent with the building design or the site design, right?
Emma Richan: Exactly. So some of the public art projects I'm working on now, the art itself doesn't take as long as the building. I mean the development could be massive and take many years, but we have to kind of line all the public art, the design stage, the fabrication, installation, any mentorship program, it all kind of has to line up with the construction schedule.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): That makes sense. So as a thought just occurred to me as you were talking, like art and architecture used to be very much intertwined up until fairly recently. If you think of a lot of public buildings in the more traditional style of architecture, you'd have a building that's adorned with sculptures and frescoes and all kinds of things.
Emma Richan: Absolutely.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): And with contemporary architecture and modern architecture, it seems like this has largely disappeared. The old quote, I think it was, Adolf Loos, "An ornament is a crime," things like that. So what's your take on that change? Because those used to be, the architects would either design the ornament and the art as part of the building or commission artists to work with them directly on whether we put gargoyles and whatever else they were decorating buildings with. And now it's no longer the case. Now I'm not going to say it's an afterthought because based on what you described, it's not the case, but it's almost like a thing you do on the side to enhance public spaces. And is there any value in maybe trying to get to a place where art and architecture are intertwined and inseparable, and how would you see that happening in the contemporary context? Or are there even examples of that, that you can think of?
Emma Richan: This is a really good point and it is really a modern phenomenon to have this disconnect between architecture and art. Because yeah, I mean, we're talking even in the 20th century, people during the early 20th century and during the Renaissance, Michelangelo and Leonardo, all these famous artists, they were architects, they were artists, they were the Renaissance man who was able to do all of these different things. They were mentors. And now, I think part of the challenge is that we live in a world where everyone is hyper specialized. And I know I feel like a lot of architecture programs in Canada, like Waterloo and at Daniels ALT, they do a good job of teaching art appreciation in their programs. But I think there's, as you mentioned, there's still a disconnect in art creation and also, understanding how to work with art professionals so that there can be that integration and urban landscape architects are really good partners for our consultants as well to work together.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): It's been a while since I was an architecture school, but while I was there and I went through three different schools, you wouldn't even dream of designing a building where the art was part of the architecture. And the closest I've ever come to, was for a studio project where we designed a building around pre-selected pieces of art, which was an interesting exercise. It would not even occur to us to do, and I'm not even saying neoclassical buildings like you might've seen up until the 1920s or so, but even just contemporary architecture that was more artistic. And I guess the closest one that comes to mind in the current context would be someone like Thomas Heatherwick. Many of his buildings are kind of sculptures in their own rights, but it is also a completely different approach. It's interesting that this is not done or even thought of when we have literally millennia of precedents that are that way.
Emma Richan: Exactly. And it is, I guess, also part of this trend to, the modern buildings, the contemporary buildings that are going up now, they're very clean, clean lines. There isn't even the same ornament in the buildings themselves. But there are a couple examples that I can think of that despite that, are able to successfully incorporate art, and one in Toronto would be the Shangri-La, downtown. They have that really amazing piece by Zhang Huan. It's not, per se, part of the building, but the way it kind of goes up and almost kind of wraps itself.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): It's that [inaudible 00:12:56] wolf-looking figure with the [inaudible 00:12:58] attached to [inaudible 00:12:58].
Emma Richan: Yeah, exactly.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, I know exactly.
Emma Richan: It's kind of that silver look to it. They do a good job and that does a good job, especially in what we're talking about today's standards of corporate art and building it into the building itself. And then, while this one was really controversial, in New York City a couple years ago, they created a second bean, you know Chicago's Bean, by Anish Kapoor, and they recreated it, or obviously, Anish Kapoor was involved in the project, but they put it at the base of a new development and they had it looking as if the development was kind of squishing it. That's a funny project 'cause there's a lot of controversy around having it [inaudible 00:13:32].
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): It took a lot of [inaudible 00:13:33] for being a second bean. But that's also an interesting point because The Bean was so iconic, people literally traveled to Chicago to see The Bean.
Emma Richan: Yeah. So that's a great example of how art can be a place making tool.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, I think it was Brandon Donnelly on his blog, who's a very interesting blogger about architecture, urban planning and development, he's a developer in the city in Toronto. And he was saying, if you're not the first one to do it, you've already lost the plot. There's already one bean. So if you want to do something else, create your own iconic piece of art. And I guess, I can imagine that the idea behind the Second Bean was like, we want something that's safe. It's going to appeal to people 'cause we know it did in Chicago, but then you're missing the point of creating public art, is that you want to create something unique that both speaks to the place and also is new so that people are attracted to it. So I see, and I agree with some of the criticism, it's like, why would you just replicate something that's been done and not come up with your own original idea?
Emma Richan: It may be partly a budgetary restraint. If they wanted to have a blue-chip big artist like Anish Kapoor, but they didn't have the money to get an original work by him, this might've been their solution. Maybe that's [inaudible 00:14:28].
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): I can't imagine Anish Kapoor being cheap, even if he just replicates this piece.
Emma Richan: I know.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): But anyway, those are really interesting ideas. Because listeners of this podcast are primarily designers and architects and people in the industry, the architecture and design industry, can you maybe give some practical advice on people who would be interested in developing, integrating art in their practice? Maybe more or better, but don't really know how to do it or want to maybe get to it in a more meaningful and thoughtful way?
Emma Richan: In the sense that they'd like to work with someone to make that happen or they'd like to do it?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Let's say you're an architect and you're interested in integrating art into your projects, but yeah, you just want to know where to start, basically. Let's put it that way.
Emma Richan: Okay. So I think whether you're an architect, a designer, or a landscape architect or developer even, the first thing you want to do is, when you're creating your idea, have art in mind from the outset, not just for budget reasons, but for scheduling and for aesthetic consideration. And as part of your concept in your design, you could also start playing with that idea right from the beginning, for how you could apply that to art. And you'll want to as well, look at what art specialists or art advisors have the expertise in that specific area. For example, not all advisors do all types of work. Not everyone will do public art management. You'll need to find someone who has experience doing that and just have a conversation. You don't need to be locked into anyone. You can just have different conversations with them and they may need to see things like plans or discuss with you what your aesthetic or other goals are for. And then from there, it really depends on the specific project. If it's an interior project, if it's exterior, if you're looking to incorporate art into a restaurant, for example, you may need to have something commissioned. You may be able to buy things with the help of an advisor that are already created. And well, the designers and architects can choose their own art. Certainly, they don't have to have an advisor. An advisor can really, there are a lot of steps involved, and so it's great to have a dedicated person to manage finding the right work that fits with what you're trying to achieve. Not only that, because it's not just about finding something that aesthetically fits, but you also need to know how to negotiate with the people selling the work, have the relationships already with those people in the art industry, to find the best prices, to do the packing, shipping, making sure everything is in the right condition, overseeing installation, lighting, all these things. Designers are busy people, right? Architect designers, they're busy. And so it's great to have someone else handling all these other details that come up because there is a lot that goes into it. So having a dedicated point person would really help out these teams, I think, achieve their goals.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): And so, in terms of public arts, is this something that's strictly voluntary? So your developer who loves art, just wants to integrate that in their project, or is there an actual mandate, say, use Toronto as an example, or if you have other cities you want to talk about, you're welcome to do that as well. Or is there a mandate from City of Toronto to say, if you have a development bigger than certain size, you have to dedicate X percent of your budget to art? How does that work exactly? 'Cause I know in places, there's a public arts mandate, but I don't know if it's the case in Toronto or if it's still true. So can you clarify that for us?
Emma Richan: Sure. And this is changing and has changed. There's been some changes made since 2022. There is a lot of confusion around it right now, how to incorporate art into projects. Before, it was kind of like a medley of different programs, but it worked. People knew, developers knew how to go through the system. There's a 1% program, so developers are supposed to dedicate 1% of their construction budget to public art or to a public service. And they could choose, that community benefit could be public art, so they had the option. It's less clear now, how-
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Was that the mechanism they used to get increased density or it's something separate?
Emma Richan: Exactly. That was a section 37 density bonus [inaudible 00:17:47].
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Okay. Yeah. That's the one I [inaudible 00:17:48] before.
Emma Richan: Yes, exactly. So now there's greater ambiguity for how developers can fund public art in the city. But the 1% budget is still recommended.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So is section 37 still in force?
Emma Richan: It's been changed.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Okay.
Emma Richan: And I mean, the city has still, they've really expressed their desire to improve the presence and meaning of public art. But some of these newer programs that they've been implementing has been challenging for implementing private funding to support public art. So right now, well in 2021, they did the year of public art. That's what the city had made this whole year of public art. And it was really successful in supporting local and emerging artists and doing this kind of hyper local activations throughout the city. But it seems to have come at the expense of the city's interest in securing private funding, which I would argue, both are really important in creating a robust arts focused culture for the city.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So what do you mean when you say it came at the expense of securing private funding?
Emma Richan: Well, because at the same time, that's when they started making these changes to density bonus, because density bonusing doesn't exist now. It's kind of like, you build what you're supposed to build in that size, in that area, and then you have to give the city a certain amount of money for community benefits. But it's unclear how, if you can, select public art as that, or if you just have to give the city that amount of money, based on how you're building.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): It sounds like just got more complicated.
Emma Richan: It did, but developers can still and should still, I would argue, doing public art because it'll look a little bit different now.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah. And so that was the next question I had for you. Even if there's no incentive from the city to do public art, what would be the benefit for developers, and even architects, to really push for public art? There's obvious ones we've already touched on, but maybe you can expand a little bit on that. What is the ultimate benefit of that? Maybe at a local scale on the residents of the place and maybe the direct neighbors, but also on a larger scale, people elsewhere in the city or even outside of the city. And maybe you can lay it all out for us and tell us what you think about the benefits and why people should do it.
Emma Richan: Sure. So I think we've mentioned a couple of things already in that audiences are very visually aware now. As you mentioned as well, we do need to cater to local residents when we're considering art, especially public art, but we live in an increasingly global world. People are constantly traveling and moving around and you want the art to speak to both groups, which is a very large challenge, really, to be able to speak to the community and be a draw for international visitors. So I think I need to go back to something like The Bean, I think it's super successful in achieving that, in achieving something that is a point of pride for local residents, it's a meeting place, it's a playful space, it's a space of respite. And I think that successful public art does all of these things. And then it also, it's a draw. It successfully manages to create community at the local scale and the global scale. Everyone feels connected to a piece like that. And then I think a city, for them to succeed in creating their public art strategy or programming, there really does need to be the right incentives in place to get the art made. And the goals really have to fit the culture of the city as well.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): So regardless of current programs, what do you think the incentives should be? If you could, with a magic wand, implement the ideal public art policy, what would that look like?
Emma Richan: Oh, that's a big question. I mean, because there will be developers who will always do public art because they really care about it and they already understand the value of art in their sites. They know, I mean, there's kind of the headier ideas around having art as being really valuable to our culture and to us as human beings. And then, from a more practical, depending on who you are, potentially crass perspective, it really can help build brand identity as well, as a recognizable site that people want to go to and people want to live there and be near that site because we've got this really amazing work of art. And that doesn't have to be, a city like Berlin does a great job with that. It doesn't have to be crazy blue-chip, expensive, famous artist to succeed in doing that. Berlin has examples-
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): You say Berlin and I can't think of any iconic piece of art in Berlin. I've never been to Berlin, so I'm sure I would if I had, but there's nothing like The Bean in Berlin, in my mind.
Emma Richan: Right. That is true. However, everyone knows that Berlin is a big art city.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah.
Emma Richan: It builds up a reputation for having this culture. And people, lots of people in the arts, move to Berlin, even if it's just for a short period of time. And they have a really large public art collection and a really large public art presence, both historical and contemporary. And they're able to do that and to establish their reputation without buying crazy expensive stuff and without having major controversy. And so that's kind of the model I think Toronto could follow because we don't have the mega bucks that some of these US cities have to do that with. Or Dubai, for example, they've got a totally different trajectory [inaudible 00:22:05].
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, that makes sense.
Emma Richan: Their brand new city, for example, it can be harder for cities that have already got their urban planning established and they've got all the spaces already in place, to then figure out where we can insert public art. Whereas if you're incorporating public art into the development of the city as it's growing, that can be an easier challenge to face.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think it's time to wrap up. I touched on most of the points I wanted to touch on, but the last question I would have for you is, we've talked about The Bean as this iconic piece of art. Do you have a favorite or is there another one that really speaks to you as the pinnacle of public art in terms of both international, local reach, quality of art, all those things we touched on?
Emma Richan: Anywhere in the world?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, anywhere in the world, not just Toronto.
Emma Richan: I don't know if I can specify one particular work.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Or you don't have to stick to one, but maybe a couple that speak to you.
Emma Richan: I think that cities do a really great job. The public art that sticks out to me the most are the ones that resonate well with the city that they're in. So for example, in Colombia, there's a lot of work by Botero, and I really love that work is there, and that really speaks to the place and the people and history of the area. But I wouldn't want to put a Botero in Toronto, per se. It doesn't really make sense. Jaume Plensa has some really great pieces around the world. There's one in Toronto, there's one in Calgary, and I would say, I like the one in Calgary better. And I know Calgary gets some flack for their public art programming. I think it's something people just love to hate, but they have some great pieces. For example, this one, and it's right by the bow because you can actually walk into the head.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Is it the white wire frame head?
Emma Richan: Exactly. Exactly, yeah. And so, it's in a plaza so people can walk around it, they can walk into it, and you can see it from afar. You can go, again, up to it or into it. So I really like that piece. I mentioned Zhang Huan's at Shangri-La. I think that's one of the most, if not the most successful piece in Toronto. It's different than a lot of the other works that we have. And I think Toronto, there's a lot of room to create different types of work. And yeah, I'm very interested to see what comes out of Dubai's developments. And also, Smart Centers is developing the new downtown Vaughan. And they're really focused on integrating art into all of their spaces, and they're being very brave and bold about what kind of work that they put into those spaces. So I'm excited to see how they manage to integrate art into this little new culture that they're creating.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): Yeah, I'll make sure to keep an eye out for it. So thank you very much for joining us today. I think it was a very interesting conversation about art. And in my opinion, one we don't have it often enough. Because architecture can be very, especially in commercial development, can be very kind of numbers driven. So it's good to have an opinion on how art can integrate into that. And I think well thought-out, public art can really enhance the more pedestrian aspects of architecture in terms of money and return on investment and things like that, if it's done well. But also, all the intangibles that are not necessarily measurable, but will drive traffic to the site or make people more interested in the place are also equally as important. So where can listeners find you and if they want to get in touch or just follow you, where do you reside online or where people can connect with you?
Emma Richan: Well, I have a website. It's www.richanart.com. You're also welcome to email me. My email address is emma@richanart.com. I have a LinkedIn and an Instagram page. The Instagram is @richan.art.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR): All right, I'll be sure to link all those in the show description. Thank you very much again, and maybe we'll have more of those conversations in the future, once there's more stuff to talk about, especially art as it relates to Toronto.
Emma Richan: Great. Thank you so much for having me today.
Single Serves ep. 409 - Bogdan on The Crisis of the Architectural Profession
Image courtesy of our guest
Oana Bogdan is the founder of Brussels-based practice &bogdan (founded 2007). In 2016, she was Secretary of State for cultural heritage in the Romanian Government (her country of origin) and has also been involved in many industry organisations and businesses in addition to her own practice, too numerous to list them all here.
In her practice she promotes cooperation and operates from the “follow me I’m right behind you” type of leadership and is on a mission to tackle the challenges of the architectural profession in the 21st century, especially in the belgian context, but many of these lessons apply to architecture in other locales, which often suffer from the same problems.
In this episode, we are discussing what Oana calls "the cris of the architectural profession", as we connected over a shared desire to see some of the challenges that architects face in many jurisdictions tackled and solved once and for all.
Check it out if you’d like to learn about what Bogdan sees as solution to the profession’s biggest challenges.
https://www.instagram.com/bogdan___design/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/oana-bogdan/
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2024 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
So can you start with giving us a short autobiography in a few sentences of who you are and what you do, to help our listeners understand who I'm talking with today?
Oana Bogdan:
I'm originally from Romania, but I moved to Belgium with an Erasmus scholarship in 1999. And actually I graduated here and I started my career here as an architect. And, in 2007, I've co-founded an architectural practice in Brussels, and, since the end of 2022, I'm the only partner. I am alone, as a woman, to run this practice.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
I see. Thanks for the brief introduction. So you and I connected over your advocacy around the crisis of the architectural profession, which is a topic that I've been interested in for a while. Can you tell us what you think... what your definition of crisis is? And, as a follow-up question, what do you think the causes of the crisis are?
Oana Bogdan:
Maybe I should start by saying that I put a lot of value in what we do as architects. For me, we have a huge responsibility, in the first place. We are in charge or responsible, let's say, for the way we humans understand to organize space and therefore life on earth. But also we are responsible, let's say, for what we don't build or where we don't build. Meaning that we are responsible for making place for nature if you want. Nature needs a lot of space to function and to provide the ecosystem services that we need, actually, we humans need.
So, in my mind, we have a very important role. Very long ago, many years ago actually, I decided for myself that I want to invest a lot of time in thinking and talking about the definition of our profession, as architects. Meaning that I don't believe it should be a pity to focus only on buildings. So our training and our experience with buildings could be then extremely useful in thinking that, in systems, in thinking about greater topics, if you want, than one building. Thinking about the future of cities and how we can survive in cities, knowing that they will become too hot, many of them. You see?
But also going even beyond that and helping with our way of thinking, helping architects for instance, government. And I've been involved in that. I've been Secretary of State for culture in a government in Romania. And after that I co-founded a political party that then ended up in the European Parliament and then we ended up talking about the future of Europe, about the European Green Deal, and so forth.
So I put a lot of emphasis on what architects do. At the same time, even if we only focus on buildings, things have become so complex. And at least where I am in Europe and in Belgium, the number of tasks that an architect has to do has grown so much. And that is not appreciated enough or not compensated enough, for instance, financially. It has become extremely difficult for us to do our job. And, how shall I say, the number of responsibilities, the small ones, this number has become really big.
And last but not least, actually, what I call, crisis of our profession, is very much linked to a series of crises. And I know this word is... I'm also not into doom scenarios and I'm someone very optimistic and looking to the future and I think we can do a lot of good things. But the biggest problem we are facing as mankind is the limit of our planet. So the natural resources are almost finished, we are done. And construction plays a very important role in that, in the use of natural resources. And, on the other hand, buildings, or where we build, is so important for the regeneration of natural resources.
We are extremely close to the natural resources of this planet and, therefore, we are somehow in the middle between the natural resources and between the end users, between the clients. There's a lot of pressure from all kinds of sides. And at the same time, our role as such is not acknowledged, so that's why.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
And that's a great answer. It actually brought up a lot of points I want to cover. So we're going to try to cover at least some of those because there's a lot of very interesting things to talk about. I want to make a couple of short comments before I ask the next questions. I think you are onto a lot of very interesting points. One is that architects have, and I had a conversation with another guest on this podcast, have a really unique position due to their training to take on all kinds of roles outside of traditional architecture. And that's a point we can further discuss if you're interested in. But I think it's important to make because you see a lot of people, and I'm one of them, who study architecture, get a degree work or not in the industry, and then end up doing something completely different, or at least only tangentially related to the design of buildings.
In my work, I work with a lot of architects in marketing and business development capacity. And what I often tell clients is that designing buildings is a given for an architect. It's what every architect does. So if you're not able to differentiate yourself to your clients from other architects on some other front, or on another basis, you are going to be just another architect that are going to consider maybe for the project. But you're not going to be very differentiated and therefore you're unlikely to get the job.
And I've always told clients, and there's many examples, you just need to look around to find that value of the architect to the client and the society. Is what can you offer beyond the building you designed that's actually valuable to your clients? And I have this example of a friend, who is not an architect, he's a builder, but that could apply to architects as well, who once was building a home for one of his clients. And he advised them to spend more money on digging up a deeper basement to have a tall basement that was first usable, but also a ground floor that was at grade level instead of being raised from the street level. And so that allowed him to have a usable basement, an accessible ground floor for potentially disabled users and add an extra story on top because the height you've gained.
And so the extra hundred or so, $1,000 they spent on the basement ended up making the house worth $300,000 more. And that's what I mean when I say the value architect and value of design. These are the things that architects go after and too many don't. So, without getting too much into commentary, does that resonate with you? Is that something you want to maybe touch on?
Oana Bogdan:
For sure. With nuance again, that my experience is also very much socially engaged, meaning that for instance, our office, it's a deliberate choice. Our office, 50% of our activity is focused on public projects and 50% on private ones. And the private ones are all big. We do not do individual houses and villas because we also believe at least... Where we are most active, so we are active in several countries in Europe, but they're all densely populated. So we believe that there is not so much space left for individual villas, so we should live closer together.
So our projects, why am I saying that? Because the private project that we do, it's all about collective housing, meaning that there is always a component. There is a bigger impact on the public space. There is a bigger discussion to have. So, as an architect, you can propose, as you suggested, you can propose a lot of good things that then the client accepts to do because, thanks to or due to the size of the project. That's one thing.
The public projects in Belgium and elsewhere, they are always realized through a public competition. So of course because they have a certain size for $5,000 competition. For instance, we're busy with fire stations, with centers for drug users, schools production, a lot of very different programs. Well, and then, when you do such public projects, of course, there your impact could be even greater. The only problem is then that even the public clients, let's say, even if they admit sometimes that indeed we are overworked, that is not an official, let's say, appreciation of recognition of what we do.
But that doesn't stop us. I've never stopped the project because I didn't feel respected enough, of course. I mean there's a lot of joy in seeing good results, seeing that projects, that one building if you designed it well, meaning that if you really look at it as if it's part of an organism of a body, the city is a body and the building that it design is a very small part but important. Every part of our body is important, plays a role. If you look at it this way, then you'll be surprised about the impact that it has. So our idea about being an architect is that we would very much like to go back, if you want, to the beginning of the 20th century, but not to be the heterosexual white rather old male architect who is a hero, not at all about that, but to be the architect that has a social mission.
So we have a social mission, we have a responsibility, if you want, we are doctors of space. And the space, the spatial organization of things has a huge impact on people. And we also say in our office, I mean, when we design a building, our responsibility is huge not only for the end users of the building, but also for every single person that passes by. Because you see that building and it has an impact of you and it can be oppressive or it can be depressing or it can be, I don't know, it just make you hate your city. So it has a very big importance. And then as often it happens with public projects, we often operate in vulnerable neighborhoods. Our end users are vulnerable people because they're often social projects, there's not so much budget for them. So the question is always how can you design in a way that dignifies people and how can you do that with little money?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
And I think you're touching on a very interesting problem because everywhere I've seen architecture being practiced, it's always the same issue. Especially with, maybe more so with, public projects, is that even though architecture often ends up being a small portion of the overall budget, if you relate that to the cost of construction, specifically, it's always being... Budgets are always being cut or very low. And there's a lack of understanding that if you invest in the design upfront, it could save you a ton of money down the road. And that's the example of the basement I gave earlier. It's like by doing things differently and really making use of the architect's expertise and creativity, you can change drastically the economics of the project. The question I have for you is whose responsibility is it to make sure that budgets are healthy so architects can do a good job because I have my opinion on it, but I want to hear yours and what you think is the issue here.
Oana Bogdan:
With this, you touch a bit of a bigger problem and the bigger problem is the quality of the brief. Whether it's private client or a public one, because of course the budget is always linked to a brief. Someone has to think about a need and has to describe it. And the problem is that often that already to make that brief be good designers, you see. We see that in competition. But even for a private client, okay, let's say for one villa if you want a bit easier because as an architect I can imagine that when you start, you really listen a lot to your client and you try to understand what are the real needs and aspirations and you can redefine that brief. But what about, for instance, a public building when many things have been decided, right? The place, the location, the volume, the budget and so forth. And based on what? So we see many, many things going wrong with bad briefs and bad budgets.
So the budget originally allocated is the responsibility of the client, not of the architect. Where the architect starts to have responsibility, but again, I'm talking from my own experience, we as architects in Belgium, we are I think some of the last craftsmen in the world and our responsibility doesn't stop. In Belgium, there's no split between design execution. We do follow up of constructions, we do cost estimates, we know the fire norms and we apply them. We do so many things. We calculate sewage systems. We know to do so many... we draw details. So we make the reports on the construction side. So, I mean, we have tiny liability after the delivery of the building, but we do a lot. So what we also do is we do cost estimates throughout the process and we have a methodology to start very rough and to go more in detail of course on the way.
And that is our responsibility, of course, if we operate in normal circumstances, I mean we always have a good understanding with clients. When the pandemic hits, when the war in Ukraine hit and prices went crazy, of course there is an understanding that we cannot do miracles. But other than that, it is our responsibility to advise the client in the best possible way. And, for a very big part, it's our responsibility to propose something. So that what I want to say is that whenever we design it should be also realistic and it should be within a budget that is agreed upon, otherwise, it just doesn't make sense.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Do you guys have city or state architect positions in Belgium, people who are in charge on the client side to develop those briefs and put together budgets? How does it work on where you are?
Oana Bogdan:
Yes, there are two important actors. We have what we call the Baumeisters. So there's the government architect on the regional level and the city architect on the local level. And they are the guardians of quality of urban space. And they actually guide public competitions most of the time and they are involved. And they have a team. Each of them in this team, they also have designers and they do research by design in order to place the capacity of sites. And then they do work with specialists to also allocate budgets to projects. B.
But, of course, sometimes it works better, sometimes less good. But then it's up to us, as architects, when participating in competitions, and we've done that, to tell them, look guys, you want us to put a underground parking on minus two, but we are next to a canal. There is also for architects to be very critical. And then we have what we call the development agencies. The development companies, let's say, of cities where, again, you have very competent people working and they again organize city development organizations. So they're autonomous, but of course they're paid by the city, but they are in charge of developing projects. But they often also work with the city architect. So yeah, there is a strong...
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
So do you think those positions or those people you have to work with help building better architecture? Because we have an example here in Canada, there's the city of Edmonton in Alberta that has created the position of city architect a number of years ago. And that city architect was a guest on this podcast a while back. And what we've seen in maybe 10 years or so of them doing that is that the quality of their public buildings has gone up dramatically because now there's someone who understands architecture, commissioning it and working on the briefs on. They hold a lot of competitions and a lot of the public buildings they're constructing are winning awards nationwide and even outside of the country. So I think there's something there where if the commissioning client, which in your case public buildings is a state, has an understanding and is committed to building better, can have a large impact.
But what do you think architects can do themselves in helping pushing for better architecture? And I think from my perspective, what I see a lot is that architects fail to see and identify what their value is to their clients from the perspective of what their clients see in them. And that's a common problem here. And I think it's a common problem worldwide where architects think that what they do is designing buildings and they do ultimately that's the result. But to their clients, they're solving other problems and they often fail to see that. What do you think of that?
Oana Bogdan:
First of all, you have to carefully choose your clients. And that's very difficult because saying no to a client I know as an architect is not evident. And you have to say yes to clients with whom you have at the impression because at the beginning you don't have the certainty, but at least you have the impression that you share similar values. And then things go a lot better because we should not underestimate the impact of the client on the project. I often say that if I look back to our projects, for instance, the best projects are the ones in which the client was a very good one. It was visionary, ambitious clients. And I always, we are very reasonable architects. We understand that the private client, for instance, has some responsibility in terms of business. I mean they have to make profit otherwise why are they in business?
So we understand, again, I'm talking about bigger clients, so clients that do bigger projects, but even as you say, for instance, your example is a very good one, right? I mean you're a private person, you have a villa being designed, but there is so much quality in that villa that can also last because your architect convinced you to go for that. So you profit in many ways you enjoy that villa and then if you want to sell it, you sell it with a good margin. So it's a good example. But we can do the same with bigger clients. But I think the only way we can push a little bit the agenda you or the quality is when we trigger a very sensitive spot in the client. When we make the client aware of the impact that the project has on the city. The responsibility and also the pride that the client can take afterwards saying, look, I've done this housing project 150 dwellings, but we also create an accessible public park and it's actually an urban forest.
So, the 150 apartments are in an urban forest. How lovely to live in an urban forest. But everyone around benefits from this forest because they can cross it. It's public. So it's private land, but it's publicly accessible and how great. And, those trees, they participate in the cooling of the city. So look how many good things we do. It's also a marketing tool. Then you go and say, look, we did something great, but it's also good. So it's good for the city, ultimately to be good for our business, we sell well. So I mean you can get into these win-win situations, but there should be trust between the client and the architect.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Yeah, it makes sense. And I've seen architects who are reasonably talented do their best work when they work with clients who are really involved in the project. This is an example of a house that I photographed years ago, where the client who was an engineer, was a fan of mid-century modern design, was very involved in the design of the project. And I thought he was able to bring out the best of the architect because he pushed him so much. So I think you have a very good point there.
So I want to talk a little more about the value of design because I think in the public's consciousness, you may disagree with me, but design is often thought as this nice to have instead of really necessity because everything is designed. But the things that are well designed are not noticed. And it's the things that are poorly designed that we notice and we get frustrated by. So why do you think it's so hard to convey the value of design to people in general and clients specifically?
Oana Bogdan:
That's a very good question. I think that, throughout the time, architects did not communicate enough about what we are doing. Our office went to a process of rebranding. When my associate decided to retire and to stop his activity, we changed the name. So it was before Bogdan & Van Broeck, and now it's &Bogdan. So we just moved the "&" in front to just say that we want to corporate. And that process was guided by a branding company. So branding company. People who are very much who get to know so many companies, they go to so many strategies and they get to know so many industries. And they thought they knew a lot about architecture. And then when they interviewed all of us, our clients, partners, to have a 360 view on who we are. And at the end they really shocked us, said, guys, what you do?
I mean we didn't know that you do all these things. As architects know, we understand better. We understand better what design is. Although they as a branding company, they also doing providing service design. So I mean they're not so far from the world of design, let's say, but still. So I think there's a problem of communication. There is an issue of also exponential growth of rise of complexity and clients can't keep the pace with it. And then there's also a very, how should I say it, unfortunate situation, in which moment in which we design, when we design, when the client makes the investment, the client takes a risk. Maybe the building permit doesn't come on time.
There's a lot of stress in that moment when we design. And nobody wants to pay an architect for, they're not so happy to pay the architect when they don't know what the outcome would be. Okay, will I get my building permit? Can I build it? Can I build it within the budget? Can I move in when I want? It's a lot. And when the prototype can imagine the risk is huge. So this is why for instance, at least in Belgium, the real estate agents, the ones that sell, if you see how much money they get for doing almost nothing, why? Because they get the percentage of the sales.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Yeah, it's the same here.
Oana Bogdan:
Everything is there, fantastic. Everyone is happy, the project is happening, the stress is gone, and they are paid from the sales. There is this situation. And then, there is also this, how should I say, because as you say, there is design in everything. Everywhere you look there is also architecture, right? And when we're small, we play with Lego. People also have the idea that maybe they know something about it. It's very different from a brain surgeon. I think nobody dares to...
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
So why do you think that is? Because the architecture education is almost as long as the medical education and it requires, it may not be as scientific or, what's the word I'm looking for, advanced knowledge, but it's still a lot of, I think it's more based on experience and the knowledge of how things are put together and how to know how do that well. And that's still a very difficult expertise to earn or to learn. Why do you think a brain surgeon or even a regular doctor would be considered so much more knowledgeable than an architect? That's kind of baffling to me because the knowledge an architect has is tremendous, let's be honest about it.
Oana Bogdan:
And it's definitely not less than the one of a surgeon, it's just that it's more general. So it's more left horizontal, whereas the surgeon goes... But that's the thing. It is because being a surgeon is a specialization. You're really highly specialized and the brain is inside the head. Nobody sees it. Citizens on the street, they don't see the brain in someone's head. So it's a very unknown thing, and, again, we all grow up in, we go to school, it's a building. We grow up in a house, it's a building. We see buildings, we have the feeling that we all make snow, we play with snow and ice and the sands on the beach.
So it seems easy because we see it and it doesn't seem so difficult. You have vernacular architecture. You go, you see, everywhere in this world see, analytic people have built things. So I mean it can't be so complicated. But then, when you start... I have to say that all our clients, I believe that when they start working with us, they respect us. But when the project is there, their respect is sky high. Really. I mean, they say, oh guys, what you do? It's incredible.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
So where do you think that shift happens from the time they hire you to the time you deliver a project and that change in the level of respect they have for you? What are you guys specifically doing to change their minds?
Oana Bogdan:
But it's simply going with them through the whole process. When they see the number of actors that we have to interact with, the number of steps, the number of approvals, the iterations, the time it takes. It takes such a long time to deliver a building. All the problems that we face. I mean, we were even confronted, if you want, we were doing a big project in Leuven in Belgium, we discovered a bomb from the second world war on the construction side. So then you have to adapt. And so the capacity of the architect to adapt to any given circumstance is huge. There is so much unknown you never do, it's very seldom that you do twice the same thing as an architect. I mean, at the end of the day, a surgeon, I know that every human being is different, but the brain is a brain. I'm sorry. You see what I mean?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
The site of a building is always different and there's different conditions.
Oana Bogdan:
Yes, yes. So it's really... how do you? What? And they ask this. Yes. And you have to do that. And, for instance, I intentionally, now lately we ask clients to join us to the first discussions we have with firefighters. Belgium has been traumatized. The fire norms are more severe than the average in Europe.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Traumatized by what, specifically?
Oana Bogdan:
There were a few... There was one very big fire in Brussels, when was it, the eighties, nineties, and more than one in a very big mall, a city mall. And since then it was really a drama. So it's each time when the drama happens and people, the norms tend to be...
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
It's interesting that one big fire nowadays is seen as trauma when entire cities used to burn down regularly.
Oana Bogdan:
Exactly. Because they're already wood. And then yes.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Even as not that long ago, like 150 years ago, the great fire of Chicago, San Francisco, there's many cities that have burned down not that long ago. And we tend to forget that this was a common occurrence. It's interesting.
Oana Bogdan:
But what you say here touches something else that is very important. And maybe it has to do with, how should I say it, with why our life is a bit difficult as architects is this constant need for comfort and safety. Do you know that in Belgium when you design a school, if you have in the playground a difference of level of 30 centimeters, you have to foresee a kind of railing or something?
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
It's similar here. Yeah.
Oana Bogdan:
The surface of the playground, the ground surface should be, is often covered with a kind of rubber. So when kids fall, it's not too hard. If you have some columns, sometimes we have covered spaces, covered playgrounds, and there are some columns because there's a building on top of the roof. Well, those columns can't have sharp corners because what if a kids hits the corner, so we have to wrap the column with a kind of mousse.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
That speaks to a different problem. You're right. But I've had that same reaction to... We used to bomb down mountains on bikes without helmets. And sometimes you get hurt. And I understand that you want to keep things safe, but that's a very interesting conversation maybe for another time because it's not quite the topic of today. But yeah, I think there's a tendency to want to make things too safe and too comfortable. But that has actually, it's relevant to this conversation because it has a cost on the cost of construction and design.
Oana Bogdan:
Yes. Because it also goes to temperature. I mean, our buildings, they become this perfect, we call them perfect condoms. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. I mean, why should we adapt the buildings infinitely to this needs, which are even not a need. Why do have to have...
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
21 degrees, 70% humidity? Yeah, exactly. And one of my favorite architects, I'm sure Glenn Murcutt said in the lecture one day he came to Toronto. He said, why do we need to make everything 21 degrees all the time? Why don't we have 16 degree houses in the winter and just put an extra sweater on?
Oana Bogdan:
Exactly. Exactly.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Which we do anyway, if you live in an old house, you're never going to get that perfect temperature because it leaks and there's...
Oana Bogdan:
Because now we are talking about natural resources. Now we are talking about CO2 emissions that are needed, that we produce in order to build these perfectly ventilated buildings that you can't open on the window because everything goes to pieces if you open the window. So this very unnatural environments, indoor environments... Do you know that at least, I don't know how it's over there, but here the percentage of the budget allocated to technical installations, I mean it's like 50, 60%. It's much more than architecture. So you build architecture, the idea that there's some technical stuff. No, now it's other way around, there's a technical stuff that has a building somehow in it. So it's all technical installations that also to maintain them. It's terrible. It's difficult.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
It's the same here.
Oana Bogdan:
They break down all the time.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Codes are very difficult, very restrictive. And there's a big issue right now because, you might have heard of it, we have a housing problem in Canada, and to lesser extent in the US where housing has become so expensive because it's literally impossible to build.
Oana Bogdan:
Exactly.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Because regulations are too restrictive. Neighbors and neighborhood associations have way too much power. And I had another guest on this podcast talking about double egress buildings for residential up to whatever, 10, eight to 10 stories. In Canada, anything above two or three stories has to have two staircases sticks at the building. And they're saying, as you know in Europe, it's only one staircase, and there's many ways to deal with the safety issue. And they're starting to look at that. But the fact that we can't even... it takes decades literally for people to advocate for change, for things to become a bit simpler because it's gone a little too far on the safety and keeping everything as safe as possible front. That's a big issue because it has a direct cost on the industry and how you build. And I think regulators, like people that are in government and governance, need to understand that when they create regulations, it increases the complexity and it makes things more difficult. So I was saying it's not relevant to the conversation, but it is because it affects everything else.
Oana Bogdan:
You even have absurd situations in which, for instance, there are many homeless people in Europe, in certain cities, and then there would be this idea, since Covid, there are so many office buildings which are vacant, right? They're not occupied, they're not used. What if you use them as a shelter for these homeless people? No, we have to renovate them and then make them an energetic performance. And I don't know what, and it goes to, as you say, it takes time. It costs a lot of money. I mean, come on. Isn't it an office building with minimal intervention? Isn't it better than sleeping on the streets? That building is anyway empty? And if you talk about sustainability, there is so much CO2 that has been embedded to build that office building that using it for something else, that's already a fantastic score. It's your own plus, it's good, it's great.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
But the problem for politicians that if they allow that, then their ass would be on the line. Because if something happened, people would say, why did you let that happen? So I think that's why squatting is such a big thing in many cities around the world, because that's kind of the unintended use that you tolerate, but you can't condone. Because if you condone it, then people are afraid that it's going to lead to other problems, which in some sense could. But, even as a temporary shelter in the winter, you're cold, don't sleep in a tent, occupy a building floor. And then the deal, it could be like when the weather gets nice again, you have to leave. I don't know. That's where architects could come up with really creative solutions actually. Because it's where the value of design resides. It's to give people solutions that they couldn't even have dreamt of.
So speaking of Belgium, I want to hear a bit more about what are those challenges specific to the architecture profession in Belgium and how architecture works, because I think that might be interesting to some of my audience to hear how things are done elsewhere in the world.
Oana Bogdan:
Well, when I arrived in Belgium in 1999, the first thing I've done was to go in a study trip to the Netherlands. It was the gold that the super Dutch were active. It was the golden years of the Dutch architecture, and it was incredible. And the most important cities of the Netherlands were full of architecture, tourists, people coming to see all those miracles, all those amazing buildings. Well, now in Belgium, we live the super Belgium if you want. I mean it's really Belgium architecture, the number of architecture tourists that contact our office. And I'm sure they contact also my colleagues. It's huge. I mean, there are constant requests to visit our buildings. The Mies Van der Rohe European Union Award... If you see the number of nominations of architecture compared to the population, right? I mean, we are so much smaller than Spain in Germany. It's huge. So it's extremely, I have my theory why the architecture is so great, but that's another discussion.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Can you touch on that briefly just to give us an idea of what that is?
Oana Bogdan:
Yes. It's two things. It's a long-term investment in quality of architecture that started more than two decades ago.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
On the government's part?
Oana Bogdan:
Yes, yes, on the government's part. And then all these public competitions, which are also open. And we have one series, it's called Open Call, which is even announced in launch in English, and you can participate from all over. So there are many British architects, for instance, active in Belgium, just to give one example. So there is this openness towards architects from all over the place, but it's also the threshold was kept lower, the threshold to access to this competition. So you don't have to, for instance, we've never designed a fire station before, and yet we were selected to participate in this competition for a fire station because we were considered good designers. So this idea that you don't have to do a hospital before in order to be able to do a hospital today.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
That's music to my ears because a big issue we have here in Canada is that to get a public building, you have to have designed a similar typology. You have to have say three to five similar buildings in your portfolio. So young designers that might have a lot to offer from a creativity perspective can not get those jobs. And one way to address the lack of experience in knowing what, because there's value in knowing how those buildings are put together, it's undeniable. But you could really easily solve that by pairing creative young architect with an experienced one and say, okay, you won the competition, but now you have to work with someone who's designed 10 hospitals and that collaboration will allow you to get that first hospital under your belt.
But here it's not... To the extent that what's been happening, is a lot of firms are buying specialist firms. Say a big firm will buy a smaller firm that's specialized in hospitals just to get that portfolio, basically. It's kind of insane. And so I'm glad to hear it's not the case where you are, because I think there's a different way, and the Canadian architecture industry and governance is completely blind to that. So it's very, very good to hear that it's actually possible.
Oana Bogdan:
But it's really a pity because, as you say, you can take so much these different experiences, just having designed a fire station and now you go to design a hospital. I mean, there's so much you can take and you can look at things with a fresh perspective. And this is nourishing the creativity. And even maybe it's an advantage. In Belgium, we have many, many small offices, really many. It's a very small scale stuff, which means that quite often we team up and, for instance, in this selection procedures that lead to competition, when one of the officers in a team is a very young one that is appreciated, you get extra points. Okay, look, that's not promoting young architects.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Yeah, that's the opposite here. That's the problem.
Oana Bogdan:
This is how the level went up. So again, it's a long-term investment in public competitions in the government architects, chief architects, how we call them as guardians of quality of architecture. The public debate, which is quite sparkling, let's say. That's one of the reasons why Belgian architecture is so good now. And the other reason is the following, it's a very, very long story. You absolutely don't have time now for that. But Belgian architecture, real estate in Belgium is very cheap compared to other countries. It has political reasons it's like that. It's a cultural thing for a long time like that. But it's artificially kept low. I give you the perfect example. There are people working, French, Parisians, people from Paris working in Paris. Their job is in Paris. They go to Paris every day by train. We have a high-speed train. It takes you one hour and a quarter to get to Paris. They live in Brussels because in Brussels they can afford a very big dwelling and they commute to Paris every day by train.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
I didn't know Brussels was that close to Paris?
Oana Bogdan:
Yes. It's called TGV, Eurostar. It's a fast-speed train, one hour and 50 minutes. And you arrive in the North station. I mean it's in the city center, so you're not on the outskirts. So you're with the subway, you get very fast away where you have to be to work. So that just tells you something about the prices in real estate. Meaning that also our fee, which no matter how calculated, even if you calculate our fee per square meter or as a percentage of a building, a building cost, if you use the benchmarks, you end up with a fee that is of course proportional to the real estate, which is again proportional to the building cost, which is low. So architects for a very long time were forced in Belgium to be extremely creative with the budgets that were allocated. So doing great things with nothing, which was wonderful, starting with 2008. We were in a financial global crisis. It also hit Belgium. Belgium is on the globe, so we couldn't avoid it. And we were ready. Oh wow, there's no money. Fantastic. Come to us. We can do it.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
It's like that analogy that you get more creative when you have constraints, right? It's like the jazz improvisation. Improvisation is not just the free for all. There's actually very strict rules you have to abide by, and that's what allows you to create amazing music. So I think there's a strong analogy there. We don't have a ton of time left, but there's a couple more things I want to touch on because I think that's going to wrap up the conversation nicely. We talked about the challenges of the architecture profession and specifically what it is in Belgium. How would you like to see the role of the architect redefined? If you could use your magic wand and say, I want architects to operate in that manner, what would that be for you specifically?
Oana Bogdan:
I have quite an experience in arriving in projects when after the work done by consultants. So we have the big four consultancy companies, the
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
KPMG's and...
Oana Bogdan:
Yes, Ernst and Young, and so forth. I would like us to be involved in all kinds of issues or challenges the same way as these consultancy companies are. Because I really believe that we, as architects, we can help a lot. We can architects together with all these organizations that need help, we can help them in surprising ways. And often, I dare say, much better than these consultancy companies. So I would like to be respected the same way. I would like to be involved the same way they are. And ultimately, I also like to be paid the same way they are.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Yeah. Who wouldn't? So how would you accomplish that? Because I think what you said has a tremendous value in that. I alluded to that earlier. Architects have a lot of value to offer, not just in buildings, but in anything that's design related or problem solving related, really. How do you accomplish that? How do you become that consultant that you aspire to be?
Oana Bogdan:
Well, I am going in the direction a little bit by accident, let's say, because I discovered myself how useful we can be in completely different contexts. So I was in a government, I was in politics, wonderful. I mean, for me, creating a political party is exactly the same as applying for a building permits for a building. It's the same kind of work, same kind of documents, very useful, but also a way of thinking that the most important value that we can provide this architecting, this is really a way of thinking. Architect is a verb for me. So, to architect. And how you can do it is, first of all, I think you have to be vocal. You have to start talking. And, in the sense we have now all these platforms, use them. We got to know each other on LinkedIn. And so you start talking and then people hear about you and you start to share your vision on what architecture is and what architect is.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
That's a very good point because too many firms think the work speaks for itself, but it doesn't work that way. You have to put it out there. You have to put your thoughts out there to, if you ever want to be a respected, recognized professional, there's no going around it.
Oana Bogdan:
Yes. And also you have to, for instance, I take great pleasure in being published by daily newspapers. My dream is to get published in the subway in Brussels, we have this free newspaper that you can take it every day. No, there's another one, another edition there. If I ever get published there, that's my dream. Because so many people read that.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
Is that a challenge?
Oana Bogdan:
It's not a challenge, but it's not quite often architecture... I mean, it depends what you have to say because it's quite often considered boring or not interesting, or why should we publish you? So you have to come up with something that is juicy, let's say, or it can draw the attention. But no, and so far we haven't published a lot in daily newspapers, and our opinion is asked about things that are not strictly related to buildings. So slowly and surely, we are also advising politicians for public policy. So we are getting... I was involved in discussions about city marketing. It's very interesting.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
That's great. I think that's a perfect point to end on. There's probably a few more conversations we would need to have to cover all those things. But in the interest of time, we're going to wrap up today. The last thing I want to ask you is how can my listeners learn more about you and follow you, and where can they find you online or elsewhere, if they're interested in learning more?
Oana Bogdan:
Well, on our website we have a category called Reflections, on which we reflect upon important topics. Our website is Bogdan.design. Design comes from design thinking. Or on LinkedIn Oana Bogdan, it's there that I talk because on Instagram, yeah, you can't talk much. It's more pictures.
Arnaud Marthouret (RVLTR):
I'll make sure to link those two when I post it and give you the credit that you deserve.
Truth is Golden Ep. 22 - Not Just Numbers w/ 5468796 Architecture
This interview was initially published in June 2020.
I had the pleasure to interview Saša Radulovic, Johanna Hurme and Colin Neufeld, the partners at 5468796 Architecture as part of our Truth is Golden series. I was impressed to discover, in the course of my research for this interview and after talking to the 3 partners how approachable, genuine and friendly they were, on top of being some of the most innovative and creative architects alive today.
After doing the interview, I had the pleasure to meet Saša and Johanna by chance while they were in town and they proved to be just as nice in person over a drink.
If you want to know where the future of Canadian Architecture is headed, do yourself a favour and listen to the interview below.
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About the podcast: The intent behind our podcast series "Truth Is Golden" is to look at renowned creatives and their work with a critical eye. We aim to ask deep questions in order to peel back the layers of marketing, clever one-liners and sexy branding. We want to show the world what it truly takes for genuinely creative forces to find their own voice build a career on what is very often nothing more than a drive to do things differently. We want to hear about the successes, the failures, the inspirational stories and the lessons gleaned from all of it. We want the truth, so that we can inspire other people to fulfill their own creative aspirations and in the process contribute to making the world a better place.
Credits: ©2020 Revelateur Studio Inc.
Post-Production: Ryan Aktari
Music: Bounce Trio, Star Animal, © 2014, All rights reserved.
Truth is Golden ep. 21 - Good Fucking Design w/ Jason Bacher
This interview was initially published in Feb 2020.
One founding half of GFDA and certified foulmouth, Jason Bacher is a talented designer, dedicated teacher and all-around decent human being. We talked about his humble beginnings selling wallpaper and how that eventually led him to found Good Fucking Design Advice with his long-time friend Brian Buirge. We also talked about failure, the strangeness of moving to new cities, firing your mother twice and the value of standing out using unbridled profanities.
Powered by RedCircle
About the podcast:
The intent behind our podcast series "Truth Is Golden" is to look at (future) renowned creatives and their work with a critical eye. We aim to ask deep questions in order to peel back the layers of marketing, clever one-liners and sexy branding. We want to show the world what it truly takes for genuinely creative forces to find their own voice build a career on what is very often nothing more than a drive to do things differently. We want to hear about the successes, the failures, the inspirational stories and the lessons gleaned from all of it. We want the truth, so that we can inspire other people to fulfill their own creative aspirations and in the process contribute to making the world a better place.
Credits: ©2020 Revelateur Studio Inc.
Post-Production: Ryan Aktari
Music: Bounce Trio, Star Animal, © 2014, All rights reserved.
Single Serves ep. 408 - Cohen-Murison On The Intersection of Tech and Design
Image courtesy of our guest
Rachel Cohen-Murison stands at the forefront as an architect and entrepreneur, embodying the fresh wave of innovative designers who are shattering the norms of the conventional practice. They're adopting a more entrepreneurial approach to architecture, strategically creating value by eliminating market pain points.
Rachel and her contemporaries undeniably signify the brilliant future of architecture. As digital natives, they're unchained from the typical constraints of traditional practice.
As Jake Rudin astutely pointed out in a previous episode, this groundbreaking approach solidifies that architects hold a unique position to tackle the pressing issues of tomorrow. They're equipped to devise innovative solutions beyond the reach of other professions.
Discover how Rachel is trailblazing this path.
https://www.rohehomes.com/lotus-mini-prefab-homes/
https://www.dencity.build/calculator#
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2024 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
RVLTR:
Thank you very much, Rachel, for joining us on the show.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Arnaud.
RVLTR:
So we're going to start with a really hard question. Obviously, that's a joke. But can you tell us who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less? And I'm not going to count the sentences, it's just a good-
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Okay. Okay. Tricky. Yeah, I'll try to keep it succinct, but basically I'm a Toronto-based designer with an architecture background currently involved in the Accessory Dwelling unit sphere. So that means everything backyard home.
I have developed a software, as you said, to allow homeowners to understand their eligibility to build a backyard home. I'm a consultant with a marketplace for backyard homes in Canada, as well as working alongside with a West Coast builder of modular housing. So yeah, everything to do with backyard housing.
RVLTR:
That's great, and I'll be sure to link all those relevant websites in the show description.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Perfect.
RVLTR:
Let's start with the genesis of Dencity. How did the idea of this business come about?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, so it was really during the pandemic. My partner and I had some extra time on our hands, as some people did. And we saw what was happening with the laneway suite policies in the city. More and more homeowners, specifically in Toronto, were interested in understanding their eligibility to build backyard homes. But they really had very few resources, maybe a Facebook group to ask other homeowners how to build. They didn't understand the bylaws. I was getting questions even from other clients to work about ADUs, backyard housing, laneway suites and different cities. So yeah, we thought, "Why not take my architecture background and knowledge, being able to decipher bylaws and put that to code with a 2D-3D interface?" That was my partner's strong suit, coming from computer science. So yeah, that's how it got started.
RVLTR:
That makes a lot of sense. So was there a specific problem that you might want to expand on a little bit that you were trying to solve with this platform?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, I think at first it just started off as a homeowner-centric tool to better convey to homeowners exactly their property's eligibility. But then it turned into much more of a global mapping tool for us to better understand the city, and see how many properties are eligible for a one-story or two-story unit. What is the true impact in terms of the missing middle solution that laneway suites or garden suites can have in a city like Toronto? And it turns out there are thousands and thousands of properties that could be densified with a very low bar of entry for homeowners to invest in, or companies, what have you. And so it turned into a much bigger thing where I also pivoted from capital A architecture, more into understanding bylaws and zoning at a much larger level.
RVLTR:
So would it be a fair assessment to say that without a tool like yours, homeowners would have to hire some kind of expert to analyze their property and tell them what they could do?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yes, definitely. I would also say, though, that this is a stepping stone. I would say Dencity is a stepping stone for homeowners to get into it. There's also a costing calculator that's part of it, but they should still consult a professional to get into the weeds with an on-site check, site measure, getting into a full design, signing on a design professional or a builder.
RVLTR:
Of course. Of course. That makes sense. So that's been going on for a couple of years now. What has been the evolution of the tool and who has it served mostly or what use cases did you see come out of your initial idea?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, great question. At first it was mainly homeowners coming to me wanting to pursue further site eligibility studies in person. They use the tool, but they still have questions. Funny enough, even those who I would deem have a pretty good understanding of the bylaw, they still found the tool super useful to clarify their thoughts. And then they still might have a few questions, so they would still come to me. And yeah, we'd do an on-site study or I'd send them off to another consultant.
RVLTR:
So the laneway suites have been legal for a few years now. So aside from your tool specifically, what has the uptake been until now? And is it what the city hoped it would be?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Right, with laneway suite, I have to say yes, there are more permits being processed in terms of laneway suites. But the true barrier is financing. If the people can't finance, they can't build. So regardless of the laneway suite bylaws having been slightly approved upon recently in the City of Toronto, garden suites being made legal as of last autumn, I believe, and even other cities like Hamilton improving, West Coast is improving their bylaws. Again, if there's not enough financing, then homeowners can't build.
RVLTR:
So what is the barrier in terms of financing that homeowners are facing? Does it require a new form of financing? Is it hard to borrow for this kind of project? What are the parameters that people have to deal with?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, so that's a really good question. Basically, the banks here are not used to seeing products or creating products for backyard homes. They're used to seeing a primary dwelling and offering a second mortgage or home equity line of credit on this. I believe it takes about 30 laneway suites, let's say in Toronto to convince a bank, this is a mortgage broker, a friend of mine who told me this, to then create a product for laneway suites, let alone garden suites.
So you're seeing a home equity line of credit being offered more in a city like Toronto. But we're going to have to wait to see the same product being offered for garden suites. That's just one prong. There might be government help at one point. There might be smaller banks or credit unions offering products in the very near future. So let's see. Let's see.
RVLTR:
Are you saying that to this day there's still no specific financial product for laneway suites?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
I know I believe that TD might offer something as a home equity line credit; taking into consideration again these 30 data points to offer financial product and nothing specific at the moment.
RVLTR:
I have a neighbor who just got a garden suite approved, so he was probably one of the first ones. And he's going to build it himself because he just doesn't have a lot of financing or cash to do it. So it's interesting to see that the financing alone can make or break a project. So beyond the financing, let's talk a little bit more about the housing shortage. What would you say are the main causes of the situation we're in right now, in your opinion?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, another very good question. I would say we've gone through this huge surge in housing costs. Obviously a part of the solution is supply, but it is definitely not all of it. There should likely be government intervention at a certain point, renter protection, different hybrid models of renter income, profit sharing, reducing barriers to permitting is very significant, reducing red tape, removing exclusionary zoning. All of these are really good mechanisms that I hope will be implemented in the near future.
And I do see them starting to be implemented throughout Ontario and throughout BC. I think in the next few months or by the end of the year, we should be hearing from the BC premier about doing away with away single family zoning across the whole province and allowing for up to a fourplex or multiplexes on every property, as well as an ADU.
RVLTR:
Oh, that would be great. I'm glad you mentioned the regulatory issue, because I've talked to a lot of people about this problem. And my conclusion is that part of a large part of the responsibility, and where we are today, is regulatory in nature. It's the length of permitting, the cost of permitting, the ability that neighbors have to throw a monkey wrench in the works with the Committee of Adjustment. The Committee of Adjustment itself the fact that for even minor variances, you have to go through this incredibly onerous and complicated process. And I think if politician, and it's relevant right now, because we're about to elect a new mayor in Toronto, which will happen before this podcast is released. But it's very topical. Because I think if we could elect someone who realizes that they just need to get out of the way and simplify everything. Taxation is also a major issue and that can be a problem, both with the sales tax and development charges, which are insane. Those are all issues that need to be addressed.
And I think as long as, in my opinion, the regulatory environment is not immensely simplified, no matter what other solutions we come up with increased Dencity as of laneway suites, garden suites, whatever else, it's not going to solve those problems. It's still going to be just as complicated to build anything. The problem is that, and I don't want to get political; but it seems like the front-runners in the mayoral race are not really particularly good on the issue. So if we don't elect someone who's going to solve that problem in Toronto, I'm not talking about elsewhere. I don't know what it isn't like in other cities, but I haven't hunch that it's a similar problem. Are there any other options for people, or for us as a culture or society to make it happen? Because if we can't rely on politicians, maybe we have to take the matter in our own hands, right?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, I know. It's incredibly frustrating and I agree with you in terms of the political stakeholders. They definitely are a significant piece of the pie. They are the ones who will have control over taxation, changing the way things are with the development charges, property tax, everything.
In terms of, I don't want to say mechanisms to, there is a potential for private industry to try to come in and suggest things to the government. I'm also involved with a group called ADU Search. They were funded by the CMHC and round one of the housing supply challenge. I'm involved as a consultant with them to try to help them develop a marketplace for ADUs across the country. And for sure they're talking to government entities. We're all trying to push for the same thing, but even in terms of one little piece of the pie that they can take off as a marketplace, it's enough to at least try to show the government for now, this is a viable market, homeowners are interested. Now you need to try to push things on your end to reduce permitting times, defer development costs, for affordable housing or for a low level development, push taxation in a different way perhaps.
RVLTR:
I always like to think in terms of solving problems by looking at the incentives that all parties involved are dealing with. Is there a way to incentivize politicians? Maybe it's with an increased tax base or whatever the case may be, to convince them that it's also in their interest to do it, and that facing the wrath of NIMBYs might be worth the trouble?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, look, you could provide the government with an opportunity cost of how many workers and what percentage of your tax base will you lose if you don't develop the housing for your key skilled and unskilled workers in the near future? You'll lose hospital workers. You'll lose everyone from every industry if you don't provide them housing. So someone needs to do the study.
RVLTR:
Yeah, that would be very interesting to see. Because you often hear that most Canadians' retirement money is tied in housing. And the idea is that you buy something, it increases in value over the course of your lifetime. Then you sell it when you retire to downsize and you use the proceeds to fund your retirement. Do you think there's any danger, if that's truly the case, and it seems to be for a large portion of the population, that if you increased supply, their nest egg might suffer, or is there such a shortage that no matter how much we build, prices won't come down for a long, long while? And how would you address that issue? I think that's one of the primary reasons, even though they don't necessarily openly speak about it, why NIMBYs oppose new developments is that they're afraid that their property values are going to go down. Can you speak to that?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah. So you're wondering if putting changes or if the property values come down that they'll lose their nest egg to pay for their retirement. I would counter that by saying, "Well, what will you get again, once all your skilled workers leave?" In terms of those providing you with healthcare, with working at the grocery store, everyone around you in the community that you need to interact and survive with. And also why not give others a chance? I'm not even saying the next generation needs to be property owners. They could equally be renters, but allow them to have an opportunity to thrive in the same country that you've thrived in as well. There are alternate models to get to a sustainable retirement than taking it through your house. Even as a renter, again, you could do renter focused or renter to income profit sharing models, the likes of which I've seen work relatively well in Europe. Again, we don't need to even crash everyone's house value to bring in some step for first time home buyers or renters to achieve some stability in their lives in Canada. But something needs to change.
RVLTR:
I was just being the devil's advocate, obviously. I don't believe that there's any danger of those values going down because you would increase the supply. If anything, they might go down because if the interest rates keep going up and the mortgage terms get redefined and people get upside down on their mortgage and default, and if the prices keep going up basically and as well as the interest rates, that's what could crash the market. You could have a similar crisis is what you had in the States in 2008. And there's also, apparently, from what I understand, a lot of evidence that if you increase the housing supply, that generally increases the value of the properties around it. Because if you have more valuable properties, say, because you can put fourplexes by as of right, the houses in the neighborhood will benefit from it as well.
More people doesn't mean devalued property. Quite the opposite. And there's a lot of denser cities in the world, Paris, New York, London, where property values are insane and they have a lot more people than we do. Anyway, that's a bit of a digression, but I think it's going to be a battle of not just logic, because logic doesn't work in those instances. It's really about showing people that it's in their best interests to let others build and incentivizing them in some sense, politicians or NIMBYs or other stakeholders in the process by showing that they will benefit from it as well.
I think that the problem we're seeing right now is there's a bit of a battle of wills between people who don't want to increase Dencity because there are the incumbents with the property values that have gone through the roof and have benefited from it. And the people like me and perhaps you as well, who haven't been lucky enough to enter the market at the right time and are now finding ourselves in a more precarious situation than even five or 10 years ago. And instead of pitting one against each other, I think it's really about showing each side that they can all benefit from increased Dencity and a more vibrant culture in society, especially in the big city like Toronto that keeps on growing and never seems to stop.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
That's it. That's it. And we all want to be part of the city.
RVLTR:
So far. Some to leave, but that's a different story. So let's talk a little bit about your tool more. What's the role of data, urban planning, policymaking and design?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, so I'd say it's multifaceted, but in terms of what we do with Dencity, there's a front-end, so homeowner-facing app. But as I mentioned, there's also the back-end. We're able to apply a data science approach to analyze all this data and see what the ideal footprint is for laneway suite or a garden suite. Also envisioning something in a 3D tool is pretty useful for a city like Toronto or Vancouver where there are all these angular plane requirements. And from a homeowner's perspective, yeah, they understand that.
RVLTR:
That's another point that we heard we need to do away with.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Sure. Exactly. Yeah. Maybe a carryover from more NIMBY policies of the past, but especially in Vancouver. But yeah, that's something to help people at a very vernacular level understand bylaws as applied to space. So yeah, we've extended this into Sechelt as well. You'll notice on our website, it's not just Toronto. We also offer Sechelt BC on the Sunshine coast, small city north of Vancouver. So you can play around with putting one of the row homes on a property there.
RVLTR:
And so the data you work with, you said part of it is collecting from the people who use your tool, but the existing data that allows you to perform those analyses, is that data that's freely available? How did you get access to it?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, so the data you can actually find on Toronto's open data portal. Anyone can go in and download. They have different iterations every few months updates to the data, and it's all GIS-based, so geospatial.
RVLTR:
And so that data is basically open source and you're building a tool on top of that to do those analyses of people's properties, right?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
That's it, yeah. And I inject the bylaw info on top of the geospatial through code, and that's what you get at the end of the day.
RVLTR:
Let's broaden the conversation even a little more, and because you're at the forefront of developing tech-based tools to simplify the process and maximize people's property values. What do you think the future is looking like when we're talking about applying tech to architecture planning or construction?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
So I would also just go back there a little note about maximizing property values, although that is obviously a concern that homeowners want to preserve their property value, not have it go down. It's not always the evidence behind building. A lot of homeowners from the survey I did with Dencity a few months ago, their primary motive was actually to house family, and then second was rental income, third was agent place, and there were a few other [inaudible 00:13:53].
RVLTR:
Well, that's exactly what my neighbor is doing. He's building the garden suite to house his kids because they can't afford to live in the city houses. And when he gets to retirement age, his kids can take over the main house and he can move into the garden suite as his retirement home, basically. That's the whole idea. So I could totally see that playing out literally in my backyard.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But in terms of you asked about the future of tech as applied to architecture planning, et cetera. Yeah, so the way I see it, there are a few companies in the picture right now that are doing something similar to Dencity in terms of providing a digital planning tool, whether it be a you search ratio city in Toronto, Symbium out of California. They have a very interesting model called Complaw. I believe they've submitted their own, they created their own word there, computational law.
But basically all of us operate in this realm of applying geospatial data in an online software to allow homeowners, policymakers, planning and permitting offices to speed up processes. So the way I see it, there will be more and more city-based permitting softwares. That's what Symbium's doing with their build product in I believe a few municipalities in California. Yeah, Ratio City helps developers and planners better understand property-based densification, [inaudible 00:14:58] again, going more into the marketplace, but they help homeowners understand ADU viability in people's backyards. So yeah, I see that as being one branch. I think there will also be more vertically integrated housing products that operate with the software, might have a prefab solution, but go from beginning to end with homeowners as a full vertical product.
RVLTR:
What time interval do you think we will start seeing some solutions like that? Because you've hinted at the issue in the preparation for this, and I've talked about this many, many times with other guests, the way we build is basically the same as it was a hundred years ago, or at least 50 years ago. It hasn't really changed.
The quality of building maybe has gone up or the technical performance of building has gone up. I don't know if the quality has, but the performance has. But that's about it. And it's increasingly more expensive to build, especially if you compare to other industries where the prices of materials and products keeps going down, or if it doesn't go down, you continuously get more for what you pay. So if you take computers for example, the computer today is probably just about as expensive as it was... It's probably cheaper than it was 30 years ago. It's also a hundred times or a thousand times faster. And I still can't figure out why we haven't seen efficiency and cost gains in the architecture building industry. Because if anything, it should be going down up. What's your take on that?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
I know that's a really tricky one. I think it's going to take a builder who is executing something, again, maybe one of these vertically integrated products that's likely prefab, but at such a scale that there's an efficiency there where materials are sourced more cheaply, fabrication is so streamlined. Cost of labor may be the same as any other worker, but you've just made their time that much more efficient, cut down on say 70% of the inefficient time use at a labor level. That brings in huge efficiencies later on in terms of the end price.
Also, if you can truly harness again, do away with all the red tape and leverage low barrier of entry housing options that don't require as much permitting, that don't require as hefty development charges, that will cut down hugely on the end price of a project. Like when I'm talking to a city planner in Kelowna about ADUs and I mentioned how Toronto has deferred development charges for I believe 20 years, which may be too long of a time on their ADUs. As long as you live on the property, maybe it's 15 years, the Kelowna office says, "Oh, maybe we should think about that. Maybe we should be reducing or deferring development charges to just let in a lower barrier of entry, low level housing option."
RVLTR:
And so there was a company that showed promise in vertically integrating everything that was Katera that went belly up a couple of years ago. And we haven't really seen anything like that since or even before. And so the promise of, at least in the case of prefabrication to being the solution to or woes has failed to materialize as far as I'm concerned. Maybe there are things happening that I'm not aware of because architects have been talking about prefabrication for decades, but it's never become mainstream. It's still a niche service or product. Do you have any idea why?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
That architecture is such a niche product?
RVLTR:
No. That prefabrication has remained niche when it is been touted as this solution that could solve all the problems. And why isn't it more adopted more broadly?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, so I think there's one thing which is literally the construction constraints. What kind of prefab are we talking about? Panelized versus modular. If it's modular, you're looking at what could fit on a tractor on a truck bed basically to ship to site. So that has literal volumetric constraints. And then what a crane can crane in. In terms of panelization, again, are you getting around, you have certain advantages as a modular builder, if you can get CSA approval and if you can get everything permitted in factory with the modular volumetric, great because then you get 80% of the construction permitting out of the way, just put it on site. But again, if you can't put that in with a crane at the scale and size that fit on a truck and you need to go panelized, that might still require more permitting and checking and planning to get that on site once it's on site, which might just make it at the same level of complexity and having the same timeline as building on site potentially.
RVLTR:
Yeah, I think from what I understand, modular is the more promising of the two. It's more constrained in terms of what you can design, but there's ways around that. The panelized system, what I've been told by clients who use it regularly is that it produces better performing buildings, but they're not cheaper. It cost about the same, maybe a little more, but you just get higher quality buildings.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
You will. Yeah, for sure. Higher thermal, very good thermal ratings, higher quality. It's not left in the rain while you're building. So of course, hey, if you want to pay the same but just get a higher quality product, great. But again, I still think a builder needs to come in at volume and just produce these quickly. You can also look to Quebec because I do believe Quebec pricing with their modular builds, both panelized and volumetric, is still more affordable based on labor costs there and material costs.
RVLTR:
Yeah, I've heard that before as well. We've covered a lot of ground. We went all over the map in terms of the housing shortage and what are some of the causes and the solution? How would you summarize our conversation in a couple of sentences? What would you want our listeners to take away from this?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Yeah, so I just want to end by saying why I'm interested in ADUs and missing middle is because we are, again, in this time of immense housing insecurity, housing shortages across the country. So I personally am interested in understanding the three barriers for missing middle, which are financing, construction and permitting. And that's how I situate myself with the work that I'm doing with Dencity, with the companies that I consult with, the government entities I speak with because ADUs are part of the solution, not all, and I'd just love to see more options out there. There is a healthy environment of other startups coming in who are also interested in this, like Partna which is offering alternative financial solutions to Canadian homeowners. Again, ADU search real homes, all these people who are trying to improve with these three barriers. It'll take time, but I see it happening already.
RVLTR:
That's a great positive note to end on because it's easy to get frustrated when talking about this issue. I want to thank you very much for your time. The last question I would have for you is what has been your favorite part of this interview?
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
Favorite parts? Just getting to speak about all of this again and tie this back to the more global issues we face and realizing I'm not alone in my struggle as well. I believe you and others, you're thinking the exact same things. It's just good that we have a forum through podcasts like this to express ourselves and discuss solutions.
RVLTR:
Yeah, I think conversations like these are where solutions start to emerge, so it's very important to have them.
Rachel Cohen-Murison:
That's it.
RVLTR:
Well, thanks again for your time. It was a great pleasure to have you on the podcast, and hopefully it's not the last time.
Truth is golden ep. 304 - Rich, Brilliant and Willing w/ Theo Richardson
This interview was initially published in July 2019.
New-York-based, RISD-trained Canuck designer Theo Richardson spoke about his upbringing, creativity and the future of design. A genuinely nice and thoughtful guy, Theo revealed some of the secrets that led him to have such a successful career at a relatively young age. Listen in to hear more about his life and philosophy.
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About the podcast:
The intent behind our podcast series "Truth Is Golden" is to look at (future) renowned creatives and their work with a critical eye. We aim to ask deep questions in order to peel back the layers of marketing, clever one-liners and sexy branding. We want to show the world what it truly takes for genuinely creative forces to find their own voice build a career on what is very often nothing more than a drive to do things differently. We want to hear about the successes, the failures, the inspirational stories and the lessons gleaned from all of it. We want the truth, so that we can inspire other people to fulfill their own creative aspirations and in the process contribute to making the world a better place.
Credits:
Produced by Revelateur Studio
Post-Production: Ryan Aktari
Music: Bounce Trio, Star Animal, 2014.
Organ & Keys : Matthieu Marthouret
Ténor Sax : Toine Thys
Drums : Gautier Garrigue
Composed by Toine Thys (copyrights SABAM).
Buy it on BandCamp :
weseemusicstore.bandcamp.com/album/smal…big-rivers
More info and music here :
www.youtube.com/user/weseemusic
www.matthieumarthouret.com
www.facebook.com/MatthieuMarthouret.Music/
Five Years of 'Single Serves' Podcast: A Reflection and Call for Help
Five years!
That's right. It's been that long since I decided to embark on the creation, production and hosting of Single Serves, my second podcast (because one is never enough!) after Truth is Golden ran for a few years. I find myself at a pivotal crossroads, Single Serves is undergoing a thorough re-imaginining, in part due to new opportunities that have come across my desk, which cannot be revealed just yet, and in part due to a need to assess what’s been accomplished in those five years…
I created Single Serves with a simple premise in mind: to share innovative and interesting ideas I came across in the worlds of architecture, design and adjacent realms in an engaging and easily-digestible format. These 50+ interviews have had a tremendous impact on the podcast’s listeners, if the feedback I’ve received is any indication. Knowing that the content is hitting its mark, it’s become apparent to me that doing it with very limited time and resources can only take it so far.
Hence the reflection and call for feedback. I want to continue delivering the same great content but expand its reach. While the format may change, the spirit will remain the same as we take on the ambitious goal to break outside of our bubble and reach more of the people who need to hear its message of innovation, creative and dogged optimism, with a dash of healthy skepticism.
That’s why I’m calling upon you. I need your wisdom, your insights, your unfiltered thoughts. Your feedback will help shape the future of this podcast and make it even more relevant for the people in our industry.
The specifics: we’re looking for design professionals who want to stay current and be exposed to unorthodox ideas, to have a 30 minute recorded interview where I’ll ask you a bunch of questions about your experience as an architecture and design professional.
All you have to do is sign up for an interview here and I’ll do the rest.
With your help, we're confident we can make the next five years of 'Single Serves' even more valuable, memorable and entertaining.
So, let's hear it, folks, as for once, the microphone is all yours.
Single Serves ep. 407 - Brill on Housing Innovation
Image courtesy of our guest
Kyle Brill is an interdisciplinary designer and systems thinker born and raised in Toronto. He studied architecture at the University of Waterloo, graduating with his masters in 2016 with honours. Kyle began his career working at architecture and product design firms in Toronto, London, and New York City and became passionate about housing issues and urban development. He has a keen interest in understanding the social, economic and political dimensions of how we build, and thinks architects and designers should take a much more active role in developing our cities, which is what we're going to talk about today. Outside of his professional life Kyle is an avid home cook, photographer, and writer, with a mild obsession with history and science fiction.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2024 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
RVLTR:
Again, thank you for being on the show. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
Kyle Brill:
Yeah, thank you Arnaud. Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure.
RVLTR:
Can you tell us what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?
Kyle Brill:
Yeah. You already gave a pretty great introduction there, but I'm Kyle Brill. I'm first and foremost a designer, architectural and urban. And I also work as a real estate entrepreneur, really focusing for the past few years on developing strategies to rethink how we build in our neighborhood context in the GTA, and thinking of new strategies for low-rise intensification.
RVLTR:
That's great. Let's start at the beginning. How did you find yourself working as a housing developer?
Kyle Brill:
Well, I was really just generally fed up with watching all these issues unroll from the sidelines. People have been talking about housing issues in Toronto and the GTA for a long time now, as you mentioned in the intro. And I wanted to really understand what really was behind creating this inadequate or challenging housing landscape that we're all facing. And I thought a great way to do that would just be to dive in. And I combined forces with two great colleagues of mine and we did just that.
RVLTR:
And so what would be your views on housing and developments?
Kyle Brill:
Just generally or ...
RVLTR:
Yeah.
Kyle Brill:
Amazing. Well, yeah, I think we're really facing a nexus of a lot of different problems right now. And there's really no one silver bullet to solve all of the problems that we're facing. I think there's a lot of layered issues and predominantly a lot has to do with I think, negligent planning on the side of the city, and some pretty complex and ineffective policy that have led us to this position. And we just need more housing, more variety of housing, not so much one type over the other. Everything has to come together holistically for us to have a more sustainable future.
RVLTR:
Yeah. I think that's a great point. And as a quick aside, I was reading an article in Azure, it was an interview of Peter Kluze, the principal at Architects Alliance. He's been probably the foremost condo builder in Toronto for the last couple of decades. And he had some really good points about why housing was so challenged in Toronto and possible solutions to it. And the two that stood out to me were that one, the zoning and planning policies are completely out of date. They date back from an era where Toronto was basically a ... I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but a backwater town not anyone's radar, not the major metropolis it is today, where he was using as an example that it was a town where the bars closed at six on weekends, which is far from what it is today.
And also another solution that stood out to me is that instead of trying to build affordable housing, because let's face it, governments are not really good at doing anything, they're more inefficient than the private sector by and large. Instead of trying to build affordable housing, they would be better off giving financial subsidies to people who can't afford market housing, because you would have to put that money out anyway. But if you just give that money out to people who need it instead of trying to build stuff and manage it, it's a lot less complicated and there may be efficiencies there. I thought those were interesting points, but I digress a bit. Before my next question, is there anything you want to add to that?
Kyle Brill:
Yeah. I think Peter Kluze's comments are interesting. I think Toronto in a lot of ways, at least I like to think of it as being a city that's going through its adolescence or coming out of its adolescence, coming into its own, it's dealing with a lot of growing pains and we're trying to figure out the best way forward. And I think a lot of the planning and zoning issues that we really see come from the history of Toronto being an amalgamation of many different individual municipalities. And the way we consider zoning and planning is so site by site and so individually oriented to each individual case that it creates a ton of inefficiencies and just it's a bureaucratic nightmare to get anything done, which is why the government is so glacial with making any changes it would seem. There's just unneeded complexity there. And I think we're coming through a very difficult period trying to understand who we are as a city and where we want to go and how we want to live and build up. It's a very interesting time.
RVLTR:
In preparing for this interview, you mentioned circular design. Can you tell us what it is and why it's important for addressing a housing shortage?
Kyle Brill:
Yeah, for sure. Circular design just in general is really a methodology or approach to providing products or services that are suited to a circular economy. What I mean by a circular economy is one that's composed of modes of production that are really built around reuse, repurposing resources and regenerating value over time, and to not have such a linear or extractive mode of production. And so when you apply that to housing, that really starts to speak to housing that creates new forms of value over time, whether that is a use, reuse, things that last longer, things that are not just single use or transitional ... There's a very common concept known as the housing ladder. You start in an apartment, then you move into a condo, then you move into your first family home, et cetera, et cetera.
And that would be an example of a linear housing model where you start at one point and there's an end goal and you're moving to different types of housing throughout the whole process, but in reality, what we're trying to do at proof and a lot of our thinking is around bending that ladder, creating a circle, making housing that can operate and change over time to suit our changing needs and means as your life changes, effectively. I think that's a very different approach to the way people think about intensification, think about development. We think about meeting a certain number of units per year but we don't think about how those buildings necessarily will work in alternate densities or 10 years, 20, 30, 50 years from now. And that's just the general gist of that thinking.
RVLTR:
And there's a great precedent for that. And it's just one example but one that to this day stood out to me, although it's not in Canada unfortunately, it's the several housing projects by [inaudible 00:04:17] in Chile where they built half a house for the ... I think it was social housing if I'm not mistaken.
Kyle Brill:
It was disaster relief as well. There was a component ...
RVLTR:
Yeah. They built half a house, with the other half basically only having walls and a roof. And then that gave occupants the ability over time to expand their housing as they saw fit, both from a budget perspective and from a need piece perspective. And I like this idea because it also takes ... Although here we like to think that everything has to be built by builders and professionals, and you could very realistically build a shell that's structurally sound maybe with all the roughings for the services, and then let people finish the floors and the walls and put in their own kitchen if they're handy enough. Anyway, that's a bit of a digression, but I thought that was an interesting segue to your idea of housing that evolves with people. And maybe there's other models I'm not thinking of.
Kyle Brill:
Yeah, there's a few.
RVLTR:
Or modular housing that's pre-designed to accept future models that can just plug in as needed. I think there's ways to deal with that, but unfortunately we don't see any of it here. And a point that comes up in many conversations I've had about housing too, a limiting factor is the way things are funded. And I think new housing typologies almost require new ways of funding it, new financial models, because the ones we currently have are not conducive to allow people to innovate. What do you think of that?
Kyle Brill:
I think that's a really astute point. I think the current way in which we finance housing, both from a development perspective and from an ownership perspective, are tuned to particular ways of building and particular types of housing. The mortgages that we have for personal homes these days, those are a relatively modern invention that I want to say has its roots in the 1950s in government backed personal mortgages. Those were financial instruments and products that were designed to facilitate the ownership of a particular house. If the house works differently or if we want to build something differently, it's not necessarily going to evenly fit in the box of the mortgage products that we have and the debt products that we have today. That's why I say it's not a silver bullet solution, and it's not necessarily a building design or construction related solution to deal with all these housing challenges, it's every layer of the system, from financing to construction, to policy. I would tend to agree, I think we need to innovate across the board.
RVLTR:
In that context, what do you think are the most promising innovations or models that you've seen or played with or maybe you've seen elsewhere in other countries that we should try to emulate?
Kyle Brill:
Financial innovations or just general innovations?
RVLTR:
In general, financial or the way we build or anything else you can think of.
Kyle Brill:
Amazing. And I've been very inspired by this notion of co-ownership or fractional ownership, and I think that approach, we're seeing some uptick in it in North America. It's certainly more common elsewhere.
RVLTR:
Can you describe what it is?
Kyle Brill:
Basically co-ownership is the idea that you don't have to own an asset by yourself, a housing asset by yourself, you can enter a mortgage effectively with partners. It's like having roommates but instead of paying rent, you're all paying into the same mortgage. And it helps reduce the financial load that a first time home buyer let's say, would have in putting down a down payment and making payments. And instead of having tenants in their house as an example, to help them with their mortgage, they would have co-owners in their house that they would live with. That poses challenges from the actual building design perspective because not all houses are designed very well to be shared amongst multiple owners. That's something that I think is interesting from a financial perspective. It also ties into new trends around fractionalization of assets in the crypto space, for example. People are talking about that, tying digital currencies to real estate, but that's a bit above my pay grade.
Other innovations really from a building design perspective, there's a lot of work in the Netherlands that's happening right now, specifically around this idea of adaptability around housing that can change. There's a whole movement out there called the open buildings collective, with a bunch of architects and building and housing developers, which they're basically investing in housing as an infrastructure, something that could last the test of time. And the interiors of those buildings are designed to shift and change as tenancies and tenures would change. And it's really a structural innovation, structural system innovation in the way we consider building utilities. And if you can actually produce an open free plan and give the owners the agency to change the space as they need to, it unlocks some really interesting solutions. Those are two innovations that really come to mind. But you're also seeing a lot of people get involved in co-ownership from a ... Let's call it more corporate perspective. You have co-investors who they'll buy the asset and then you pay them to gain equity over time. That's another version of that.
RVLTR:
Would that be the Our Borough model?
Kyle Brill:
Yes. Our Borough is really more to do from my understanding with down payment assistance. They would own a certain percentage of the home and you would effectively make your mortgage payments but they help you get into it at the onset. There's other models, there's a company for example, called Key Living, where I believe that they own the asset outright and then you rent it from them over time and access equity in it over time, and they're your co-owner partner in that relationship. There's a lot of interesting models coming out and it's all in response to how unaffordable everything is. And so there really is a lot of market innovation happening.
RVLTR:
Those are innovations to alleviate the insane cost of housing, but I think we need to talk about what needs to be done to reduce the cost of housing by ... Reduce maybe not but at least preventing it from getting any higher at supply. I'd like you to point fingers a little bit because I think ... The reason I'm asking you to do that is because I think knowing where the problem comes from and holding the people responsible, accountable is probably the first step in the right direction. Who in your mind is responsible for the insane cost of housing? And I know it's a very complex problem, so there may be more than one answer but I'll let you answer that as you see fit. But I think it's important to talk about as well.
Kyle Brill:
For sure. Yeah, it's really hard to point fingers at one person. And obviously there's more than one group, but I think there's obviously bad actors in every component of the housing problem. But I think if I were to point finger very broadly, it really comes down to policymakers, and the amount of control that I think local politicians have over what housing gets built and where. I'm not saying that there should be no regulation around what we build, but there seems to be from my general observation, a large degree of decision making that's happening amongst groups of people that are not necessarily professionally equipped to make those decisions. And I think they might have very well intentioned political and policy motivations, but they're having counterintuitive effects ... Or not even counterintuitive effects, they're having negative effects, just generally negative effects on producing the housing that we need. Basically, the policy we have is so complex and so layered and requires so much analysis for even something so small to be approved that you end up creating a process where the market will move, will create certain kinds of housing that is more financially feasible than others.
What I mean by that is it shouldn't be as complex to build a seven-story building as it is to build a thirty-story building, but the whole process is effectively the same. And many other people in the industry would say the same thing as am right now, the policy landscape, it's too complicated, it's glacial in how fast it moves, and we can be doing so much better. It also extends beyond the local politics. From a federal perspective even, investing in training the trades, investing in construction innovations publicly. We have a supply issue largely to do with land constraints and zoning but a lot of that has to do also with hard costs going up. There isn't enough people to build the housing that we need. And so there needs to be a lot of investment. I'd say that's probably a federal investment in training programs for new building trades and for modernizing the construction industry to help ease that labor gap.
RVLTR:
That's a very good point. Yeah. And I think the policymakers, the issue is that ... And it's a very broad generalization but I think it's largely true, their incentives are not aligned with the public's incentive. And if we're talking about elected politicians, they're only looking for the next few years until the next election and to get re-elected. And again, not saying all of them are that way but most of them would be. And so I think as long as their incentives are not aligned with the public's incentive, we're going to have the same problem. I don't know how you align those two, that's the real challenge and the real question that needs to be answered. And maybe the solution is to not let those policy decisions in the hand of elected officials. Maybe it's professionals like planners or whatever that actually know what they're talking about. I don't know, I'm just talking out of my ass here. But I think that's the key, is to align the incentives because as long as they'll have self preservation as their primary motive ... They can say whatever they want about caring for their constituency but I look at what people do, not what they say. And you just look at their actions and you see that's not aligned.
Kyle Brill:
Absolutely.
RVLTR:
If you ... Sorry, go ahead.
Kyle Brill:
No, I just had one more thought that popped into my head as you were discussing that. I've talked about this with my colleagues as well. I think in Canada and maybe even in the North American context, we don't even necessarily have a discipline around urban design properly as it's done in other contexts around the world. I'm thinking again about the Netherlands, where it's a professional discipline of urban design. We have planners and they do work in urban design issues but they're really considering risk mitigation over the long term. How do you manage growth over time from a resource allocation perspective, from a tax-based perspective, environmental concerns, etc? But they're not looking at it as a comprehensive design exercise that would necessarily involve many different stakeholders, both public and private, to create a more comprehensive vision that by the way, should be paid for by the government. The government should be funding these kinds of studies to actually comprehensively provide a clear vision forward that everybody can get behind. And I think that is a vehicle, probably a very good one, that could help align everybody's interests, because design is really an exercise in communication. And if you can't communicate your vision effectively, which I don't think anybody in the city at a local constituency level has ever done, then you're not going to solve any problems. You're just going to ...
RVLTR:
Yeah. I don't even think they have a vision, to be honest. Or the vision is ... Yeah, stay elected as long as they can. This might be unpopular but it's true, if you take a city councillor, they make let's say a hundred grand a year, might even be more than that, and so that's a pretty cushy gig. Even though a hundred thousand dollars is not what it used to be, it's still a comfortable wage. It's not to say they don't deserve it, that's not what I'm saying, but if all you got to do is get reelected every four years or whatever it is to keep going, it's a good cushy job that probably has a lot of benefits and pays well. Yeah, you'd be a fool not to try and get reelected and continue living on the taxpayer's dime.
Now, that isn't necessarily a bad thing but we have to take that into account. I lost my train of thought. I forget where I was going with this, but anyway, that's the incentive. They need to be paid for the work they do, and that's totally fair, but maybe it comes with term limits [inaudible 00:12:48] to term, so when you're done, you're done, you can't continue. And so you have less of an incentive to pander to the people that are going to keep you elected and maybe instead do actual things that are beneficial for the city. But if you look at other political bodies like the New Hampshire State Assembly or whatever it's called, they don't pay their members, they get paid a hundred bucks a year.
Kyle Brill:
Purely voluntary.
RVLTR:
Yeah, it's purely voluntary. And so it limits the job to people who have the time and/or the means to do it but it removes the financial incentive from the equation. Maybe you only get retirees or independently wealthy people but they don't do it for the money, they don't do it for ... And again, I'm not saying that's the solution but maybe there's another model.
Kyle Brill:
Absolutely. I think people should very well deserve to dedicate their life to public service and get paid for it if that's what they desire. I just think it's tricky how their powers work and how local governance works in Toronto. And there should be more optimizations of how decisions are made. It really is as simple as that, and not getting so much control into an even hyper-localized context when we're dealing with issues that are so intermingled and complex. You can't just look at it from one borough's perspective in the patchwork of boroughs of a larger city, it doesn't work that way. They're going to run into bureaucratic brain damage that way, which I think we're already experiencing, we have been experiencing. It's a really multi-layered problem for sure.
RVLTR:
And I think maybe the ... Another thing that came to mind is the councillors are elected on a very specific geographical area. Maybe it's councillors at large that we need that are not tied to a particular neighborhood, so that they're less incentivized to respond to people in certain neighborhoods and more to look at the city as a whole.
Kyle Brill:
[inaudible 00:14:10]. I tend to agree.
RVLTR:
If you had a magic wand and you were tasked to solve the housing shortage and the insane costs, what's the one thing that you'd do if you could do only one thing?
Kyle Brill:
Only one thing.
RVLTR:
Yeah.
Kyle Brill:
Just because I only have one choice to make, I would probably eliminate restrictive zoning measures. It's insane to believe that we should protect the typology of housing and prioritize pre-existing character in the face of a changing city. I think that's irresponsible, from a civic perspective and also from an environmental perspective.
RVLTR:
Yeah. And I can't agree more because we have literally thousands and thousands of those Victorian narrow homes with the big window in the front. They're literally the same in the entire city and they're all more or less protected, or a lot of them are from a heritage perspective. But the reality is they're a dime a dozen. They're commodities. Maybe you want to preserve the most significant examples of it because it's important, but to ... Yeah. And that's just one issue. But to want to preserve all of them for the sake of preserving them, I think is foolish because first of all, they're not that pleasant to be in. They're very dark and narrow.
And the city is supposed to evolve. We need to tear down stuff to build bigger and higher and more dense. And I've used that example many times but when I first moved to Toronto, it was almost 18 years ago, 2005, I lived in Chinatown. No, first I lived in Kensington Market and then Chinatown, either side of Spadina. And it was baffling to me. I did not understand at the time that you could have entire neighborhoods of single family detached homes in the downtown core. It just did not make sense. Now I am more used to it because it's been a long time, but it still doesn't make sense. That's the place where you'd want to have density because that's where everything's happening, is where you have the jobs, where you have the entertainment, it's where you have everything.
Kyle Brill:
In the center of a globalizing international city, all power to you. But in some senses, that has to become a more expensive choice, whether it's a ... Because what's the opportunity cost for the city of protecting your right to have access to that house where it is? It should cost you more, whether it's property taxes, which is definitely an unpopular opinion, whether it's property taxes, other forms of taxation, restrictions on how much you could resell it for, I have no clue, but it should definitely cost you something to maintain that lifestyle at the expense of others who can access the vibrancy of the downtown in a densifying internationalizing city. It seems clear to me.
If you were to up zone everything, obviously you can't necessarily do that just as you wish, there needs to be some phasing of that process. But if you're worried about your land value going down because density is going to somehow impede that, that's also just not true. If your neighbor's lot can support an apartment building, it means your lot is more valuable because it has more utility. Somebody would be willing to pay more for your land because they can get more out of it. If all they care about is maximizing the value of their asset, then up zoning is actually in their best interest. Now, that has to be controlled, particularly because if you just let it happen, like I mentioned before, all land just becomes incredibly expensive. And then there's issues even more so than we're seeing now. And then there's issues that would come about as to who has access to it, who can buy, who could develop it. There's a whole other slew of problems that would emerge from a simple up zoning exercise like that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be thinking that way. Yeah, that was just my 2 cents on what you were saying.
RVLTR:
Yeah. And I think it makes sense because the ... And that's a very north American ... Actually, maybe not but I think it's very North American maybe more so than elsewhere, although real estate assets are usually where people stash their retirement. I think the balance, and I'm going to play the devil's advocate, is that you don't want to make it so that it makes their assets less valuable. But like you pointed out, the common tendency is to think that increased density reduces the value of the land, when all facts point to the exact opposite. When you have higher densities, land value increases. I think to make it fair, because ... Say you've gone into the market 40 or 50 years ago, you bought a house for whatever, 50 grand, and now it's worth two and a half million, even if you account for 50 years of inflation, you're still way ahead of the game, you're doing really well. And I think there should be a way to create incentives that push people to cash out.
And I don't know how you do that, that's something economists and other smart people should think about, and give up that land for more productive uses. Whatever that looks like, maybe it's no capital gains even on second or third properties, or a tax credit if you sell your property in certain conditions or whatever the case may be, because you do want to free up that land and push people who don't necessarily need or want to be downtown, to cash out from their investments and give it up for other people to try and take advantage of the growth the same way they have. The problem we see is that ... And that's the nimbus basically, is that they want to preserve the neighborhood because they think that if they do, again, contrary to all the evidence, their property is going to keep going up. It might but it will go up more if you increase the density. There's also a lack of understanding of how economics affects the whole market, and I think that's probably a conversation for another time, to be honest.
Again, we're talking about incentives. And it also leads me to the next question I had for you about expectations. My favorite Canadian journalists always talk about the Canadian public having the wrong expectations on many topics, not necessarily just housing, but I think that applies imminently to housing because people ... Again, it's a broad generalization but people want to buy a single family home, make that their retirement fund, cash out when their kids are out of the house, and they can downsize to a nice condo and use the rest of the money to live off for the rest of their final years. But are those expectations reasonable for everyone to have a detached home with a backyard, especially in a city as big as Toronto? Because if you really want that, you can go live in Peterborough or King City or somewhere a little further out where there is plenty of room and land is widely available, but to me it doesn't make sense anymore to promote that as the main housing technology in a city this big and this pressure for housing.
Kyle Brill:
I think that absolutely we need to realign our expectations. I think in most areas, not all ... There's some areas in Toronto that could perhaps arguably be protected at their current scale, they have historic value, etc. But I think largely speaking, we do need to reorient our expectations around how we live. I think that's naturally going to happen, and it is already happening as the way we live changes. Housing always evolves and adapts to suit external pressures, whether that's economic, environmental, etc. The Victorian houses that we're trying to protect were mass housing in large part for a working class at some point in time. And it just has to do with how society functions is reflected largely in the housing that we produce. And if society is changing at large, if we're going through all sorts of economic environmental transitions, the way we live and our expectations around how we live in a society also has to change.
Is it an expectation shift around typology? Is it an expectation shift around density? I'd say it's more around density than typology, because you can still live ... For example, there are cities around the world where single-family homeownership is still common next to much more dense forms, think of Tokyo as an example. That's a great example of a city that has ... A large percentage of people in Tokyo live in single-family homes where they own their properties. Do they have backyards? No. There's a much denser population base, and people are also ...
RVLTR:
They're also way more flexible on the uses allowed. And you can have single-family homes with a tiny cafe on the ground floor and you live above it. It's much more flexible in the usage that's allowed and actually more mixed too. It's not you separate housing from everything else, which doesn't make any sense for a vibrant city anyway.
Kyle Brill:
Yeah, absolutely. I think what we're starting to experience too is the conflation of domestic and work environments, more and more people working from home, people running side hustles out of their house, people renting it to other people to use in different ways. It goes against a lot of the modern planning principles that try to neatly put everything into little buckets like, "This is where offices go, this is where houses go, this is where towers go."
And I think that, let's call it regime, that planning regime, is not suited for the complexity of the society that's emerging currently. And I think there's going to be a need for a lot more blending of uses and types to allow for a much more, let's call emergent form of urbanism that is dictated by the way society works, which is something that you see in Tokyo as an example.
RVLTR:
Or many other cities in the world. And you used to see it in Toronto to an extent because you had a lot of those little corner stores that have been grandfathered in. If you're lucky to own one, you can still use it as commercial space, but you try to get it zoned as such today from scratch. Good luck with that.
Kyle Brill:
Impossible. And some of them have been converted to be great restaurants or community amenities of that type. And we love them but we can't build them, it makes absolutely no sense.
RVLTR:
No, it's nuts.
Kyle Brill:
It's contradictory. Yeah, I think we need to reorient our expectations, absolutely. I think people need to realize that density is the problem, especially in a city like Toronto, that you want to be popular and remain popular for many years. And that's an economic center. To think that I can have my little tomato garden in the backyard that never gets overshadowed by a high-rise building for the rest of my life, and my children will have that right, et cetera, et cetera, that means that Toronto has not changed. And again, like I said earlier, that's irresponsible for a variety of reasons.
RVLTR:
Yeah, I'm going to refrain from commenting on that because I have neighbors that some of them are really stupid and I had to deal with them on The Committee of Adjustment matters, and the shit you hear is just crazy. But we've all been through that I'm sure. We've covered a lot of ground. I think it was very interesting conversations, and I think you answered all the questions I had for you. Is there any final thoughts you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap up?
Kyle Brill:
Yeah. I would really encourage people, if you care about housing and you care about the future of the city, to get involved in as many capacities as you can, join a group, join the Urban Land Institute or any other variety of groups, attend a Committee of Adjustment hearing if it's in your area, if you're pro-housing, just go out and speak up. It's important that pro-housing voices are heard and that a different future is possible. Amongst my colleagues, we like to say that the future is not what it used to be. The actual models that we have in our minds don't necessarily apply anymore. They might've seemed like great ideas 10, 20 years ago but it's not the case anymore. And I think a new better future is possible, I'm hopeful for that. And I think it takes people getting involved in standing up for what they want to see to make better reality. I would encourage everybody to do that if you care, and we can build a better future together for sure.
RVLTR:
Yeah. And I've done some of that, particularly going to community adjustments to support neighbors, and it was a very enlightening experience. And I'll just leave it at that. But I encourage people to do the same thing. If we have all become a little more civic minded, then you can make a change at a small scale. But if enough people do that, then it adds up.
Kyle Brill:
Absolutely, I believe in that one hundred percent.
RVLTR:
Well, thank you very much, Kyle. It was a great conversation, and hopefully the first of many.
Kyle Brill:
Yes. Thanks so much, Arnaud. It was great to talk to you today.