Globizen

Check out the pool. The first picture looks as if the walls of the pool were removed and the water forgot to move.

Images: Guz Architects via Contemporist

f you’ve read anything on our current economic crisis, you’ve no doubt heard about mortgage securitization: the process of pooling mortgages together so that they can be sold off to investors. Many believe this is the root cause of the crisis; by selling off mortgages to investors, lenders had little incentive to make good loans. They had no “skin in the game.” Not surprisingly then, a debate has emerged surrounding the value of securitization.

But like a lot of things, there are both positives and minuses to securitization. And one could actually argue — as Ed Glaeser does here – that securitization made the crisis less severe domestically (that is, within the U.S.):

“If we end up in that middle-of-the-road consensus, then securitization looks pretty good, because it did much to mitigate the costs of the crisis. Plenty of lenders would have gotten caught up in the exuberance of the boom even if they were holding onto the loans — as the savings and loans did 20 years ago. When the bubble burst, without securitization the banks would have been in far worse shape, because they would have been holding all the risk themselves. Securitization meant that the downturn in the American housing market was felt from Stockholm to Shanghai, which sounds bad except that it would have been a lot worse for us, and for our banking system, if the entire seismic shock had struck only banks in the United States.”

In all likelihood, securitization isn’t going to go away. It’s just going to change.

“I didn’t like the Fannie and Freddie model before the bust, and I don’t like it any more today. If these agencies are to continue, they need to be far more conservative, charging high fees and taking few risks, and they need to be purely public agencies. Securitization has a role to play, but that role doesn’t merit vast public support.”

Image: Flickr

The London Cycle Hire program launches with much fan-fare this week. Similar to the Velib in Paris and the Bixi in Montreal, the new system allows city dwellers to access approximately 6,000 bikes parked in 400 locations across central London. Registration opens this week and the bikes will be available for use at the end of the month. With the concurrent opening of cycle superhighways, new bike lanes that connect the outer city to central London, the cycle hire program is seen as another step forward in promoting environmentally-friendly transportation in the city.

The program is not free from criticism. The BBC reported teething problems with the online registration, as a few people were unable to register due to a technical glitch that Transport for London is currently addressing. A recent article in the Guardian criticizes the cycle scheme as yet another example of corporate branding and the Mayors cozy relationship with major corporations. The cycle scheme is sponsored by Barclays bank, which has provided 25 million to have its name attached to the project (Barclays Cycle Hire). The mayor argues that the partnership will allow the city to recoup a portion of the 140 million of the schemes costs.

Ultimately, the final word on the project will be determined when the bikes become available for hire on July 30^th. 6,383 people had registered as of yesterday evening, the first day the website became available to the public. If registration numbers are any indication, there is certainly public interest in a cycle-share program. Much of the success of this program, however, lies with the citys ability to handle the logistics and operations of its latest transportation initiative.

Image: Flickr

Situated on a seaside cliff in Sorrento, La Minervetta was fairly recently (2003) returned to the hands of the Cacace family and remodeled (with some great colours). It was originally built by Don Giovanni Cacace in the 1950′s as a restaurant.

Images: Mr and Mrs Smith via Apartment Therapy

London has just opened up two “cycle superhighways” running from the burbs into the city centre. In an attempt to stop cars from encroaching on the new 5-foot wide superhighways, the lanes have been painted bright blue, which is supposed to represent freedom (Did you chuckle? Because I did).

Jokes aside, London cyclists seem to be enjoying the new lanes and the colour, I think, gives them a greater sense of legitimacy. I hope we do the same and colour code the new Jarvis bike lanes here in Toronto.

Images: GOOD

The New York Times recently featured a very cool stone and glass cottage on the island of Guernsey (off the coast near Normandy, France). What’s special about it is the opposition of old (15th century stone) and new (glass). Preserving the past while embracing the future always makes for interesting architecture.

The double height room with glass railing (pictured above) is also a great space and we’re currently designing a similar setup for one of our properties.

Images: Ed Alcock for New York Times

Harvard economist Ed Glaeser recently blogged about the Obama administration’s efforts to develop a Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and asked: How much consumer regulation is appropriate given that regulators, just like the average consumer, make mistakes too?

The impetus for a consumer protection agency, of course, is largely because of a perceived failure, on the part of the private sector. Glaeser uses the example of home owners and lenders:

“The more obvious consumer error — made by home buyers and lenders alike — was to have wildly unrealistic expectations about housing prices. Karl Case and Robert Shiller surveyed recent home buyers in four cities in 2003. They found that, on average, home buyers in Boston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and San Francisco thought that over the next 10 years prices would rise each year by 14.6, 13.1, 11.7 and 15.6 percent, respectively. These price expectations certainly seem wrong after the fact — prices are lower today in Boston and San Francisco than they were at the end of 2003 (see chart below) — but economists typically thought that these expectations were exaggerated and unrealistic in 2003, as well.”

Hence, the birth of a consumer protection agency. But determining the appropriate amount of regulation is key, argues Glaeser:

“A consumer protection agency, however, is based on the view that a regulator can help offset the errors made by private individuals. In some cases, regulatory agencies really do make things better; I treasure the caloric information available in supermarket aisles. But history has seen plenty of bad regulation, whether in railroads or financial markets, that privileges insiders and restricts innovation. The best way to avoid these missteps is for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to have modest, well-defined goals, like providing clear information to borrowers. Clear, limited objectives will reduce administrative overreach and respect the fact that politicians and regulators are people, too, and make the same kinds of mistakes as lenders and home buyers.”

Image: Flickr

I was riding my bike down Euclid Ave (in Toronto) one evening and I came across an outstanding infill gem just south of College St. Since then I think I drove by 2 another times in an attempt to get a better view. Then, I came across this. Finally, a view inside!

Images: A-Frame Architectural Photography & Levitt Goodman Architects

Toronto Mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson has just announced a plan to fast-track ‘good building designs’ through the cities’ approval process. Other compelling ideas include a ‘design for excellence’ program that would designate — similar to LEED — high design projects and a plan to rethink the zoning of areas designated as high-transit.

I’m obviously a huge supporter of superb design. I also think its an excellent idea to reconsider the zoning along transit corridors. Streets like St Clair Avenue, with its right-of-way streetcar, are perfect examples of arteries that should, at the very least, have European-scaled mid-rise buildings. But due to an arduous approvals process and smaller margins as a result of the smaller scale, developers haven’t really been building a whole lot at the mid-rise level. Streamlining the rezoning and entitlement process would be one way to encourage this type of development.

My only concern with fast-tracking good design is that it has the potential to simply add another layer of subjective bureaucracy. What constitutes good versus bad design? Sustainability, on the other hand, would be easier to identity in a more transparent and clear way. If you’re building to LEED Gold equivalent, for example, you get fast-tracked. But I will reserve full judgement until more info is released.

Image: Flickr

Newsweek asked celebrated architecture firms around the world to posit what our cities will look like in 2030. New York was the first city examined. More recently, Michael Maltzan, Gensler and cityLAB-UCLA were asked to re-think Los Angeles.

Gensler described its vision for the future LA like this:

“In the future, life, work, commuting, and recreation will not be experienced as distinct activities but will blend into one lifestyle. Increased mobility and ubiquitous access to bandwidth for increased global connectivity will optimize use of Los Angeles’ temperate climate to further blur the line between inside and outside. This will expand the spatial boundaries within which multiple activities can occur simultaneously. Individuals will be freer to roam, liberated from the traditional relationship between task and place.” -Gensler

Click here to check out all the proposals.

Image: Flickr

I love the contrast between these modern lightsails and the Austrian landscape. Referred to as a “light space installation”, the lightsails are programmed to respond to the surroundings, both in terms of sound and temperature. More noise and colder temperatures equals brighter colours. What a great way to offset a grey winter.

Image:  Gisela Erlacher © via ArchDaily

According to the New York Times, home construction in the U.S. dropped 5% in June (from a month earlier) to 549,000 units.

“The rate of home building is still up about 15 percent from the bottom in April 2009, though it is down 76 percent from the last decade’s peak in January 2006.”

This impacts the economy in the following way:

“Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes paid to local and federal authorities, according to the builders’ trade group. The impact appears in multiple industries, from makers of faucets and kitchen appliances to lumber yards.”

Image: Flickr

The irony of Miami’s real estate collapse is that it may actually be making the city more urban:

“The 7,000 unsold condos in Miami’s core — a symbol of a building boom that collapsed and dragged the city into recession — are filling up and giving life to neighborhoods that previously closed after dark. New, year-round residents are cramming into restaurants, nightclubs and bars that didn’t exist a few years ago, and enjoying a lifestyle made possible in part by developers and banks seeking to recoup losses by renting luxury dwellings until the market recovers.” -Bloomberg

Imagine that, renter filled buildings occupied by year-round residents are actually better for a city than vacant condos owned by foreign speculators.

Image: Flickr

Photographer Roy Zipstein has spent the last 5 years traveling around the world documenting Apple’s stores. Pictured above is the latest from Shanghai designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Click here for more photos from ArchDaily.

Image: Roy Zipstein via ArchDaily

What will America look like in 2050? Will it be urban, suburban or a mix of both?

Fast Company recently asked this this question and had Joel Kotkin — a (sub)urban historian — and Christopher Leinberger — a developer, consultant and proponent of walkable urbanism — duke it out. The key topics were demographics, housing supply & demand, transport, and density.

While there are compelling arguments for both sides, it’s important to note that decentralized single-use suburban zoning was, in the grand scheme of things, a recent (post-war) phenomenon and a heavily subsidized one at that. The America of today is not the same place:

“In his 2008 book The Option of Urbanism, Leinberger makes a remarkable assertion (one he repeated Wednesday night): by the end of the 1950s, the Big Three auto companies and the industries they spawned or converged with–oil, steel, mining, finance, insurance, repairs, highways, and the construction of a vast suburbia navigable only by car–were responsible for as much as a third of US GDP. Before Richard Florida (a bête noire of Kotkin’s) presented a a similar thesis in The Great Reset, Leinberger suggested suburbia was the urban product of a manufacturing-oriented America–an America that’s long gone.”

Image: Flickr