The Voyage Brief | July 2020 | Brookings Institution, Bloomberg CityLab, Design Anthology, EY, Archinect, Sarah Ichioka + MIT’s Real Estate Innovation Lab
Difficult times offer companies + industries the opportunity to evolve and thrive. To do so in residential real estate development, we must challenge our current thinking, expand our knowledge base + actively seek out new perspectives to make decisions about existing and new assets.
The pieces below provide us with valuable strategic perspectives. We hope that they do the same for you.
01 | Brookings Institution
Thoughtful design can create high-quality affordable multifamily housing.
Affordable housing does not need to look + feel cheap. Instead, it should be redefined as something most people can afford, whether condo or rental product.
With value engineering, supply chain disruptions, and increased absorption time, this piece offers insights that will save you time and money by taking it back to the basics.
With the onset of new technologies and increased material costs, understanding moments for efficiency + scalability are necessary to allow for gracious design, materiality, and marketing elements in your budgets.
02 | Bloomberg | CityLab
The Dying Mall’s New Lease on Life: Apartments
Shifts in consumer behavior have been gnawing away at the classic enclosed suburban mall format for many years. Yet, we have these already-built spaces. Is a more suburban/urban development model in our future?
In Lynnwood, a suburb of Seattle, Avalon Bay Communities + Brookfield Properties are partners on a wide swath of a 41-year-old shopping center that is being converted into Avalon Alderwood Place, a 300-unit apartment complex.
Understanding this model alongside knowledge of higher than average corporate + personal attrition from highly-populated locales is key for the future of real estate development.
03 | Design Anthology (podcast)
The Design Dialogues : Yabu Pushelberg
Development teams often get to know designers during the more formal pitching process; this is an educational + fun way to get a sense of the Principals as people and understand what drives them creatively.
Editor-in-Chief Suzy Annetta takes a very human approach guiding Yabu Pushelberg through their journey. Glenn + George (YP) are delightfully candid about how their iconic practice was born, and how they overcame past challenges and are rising to meet current challenges.
They thoughtfully discuss how the current landscape will require the industry to pivot, and how their verticals + best business practices have adapted both locally and globally.
04 | Ernst & Young
COVID-19: Why this means farewell to a golden age of real estate
EY asks: to what degree is 2020 likely to be a turning point for real estate? The most far-sighted are already planning how to switch their focus while transforming operations and technology to survive and thrive.
The work from home experiment is not an experiment anymore; it is here to stay. Office environments are not dead, but companies are evaluating their real purpose and adapting to company + employee needs.
Discusses current + future implications for residential and placemaking developments.
05 | Archinect
Discovering a Black Aesthetic in Architecture
Demar Mathews is a thought-leader and we predict his star will only rise. In this piece, he explores his interpretation of the Black aesthetic. His words and accompanying imagery will make you think differently about how the simplest Black design can have a highly nuanced approach.
Too often, real estate development moves into a minority (often predominantly Black) neighborhood and builds another sterile set of glass buildings. This piece demonstrates how it doesn’t have to be that way.
You CAN build something that commands benchmark pricing yet also honors its locale. A must-read for those of us exploring what the next evolution of the built environment looks and feels like.
06 | Sarah Ichioka
Raising Our Ambitions For Placemaking
Placemaking conjures scenes of clever murals on construction site hoardings, of alfresco fitness classes, of planter boxes and shopping bags, of wholesome parties in temporarily car-free streets, of attractive couples in well-groomed parks. It is often found in the company of words such as ‘vibrant’, ‘activation’, ‘unique’, and ‘community’.
Our environments can be designed and programmed to exclude or signal to belong; to hide ‘undesirables’ or enable interactions of dignity. Singapore’s levels of inequality are high by global metrics. Could practices of placemaking be part of the solution?
Ichioka thoughtfully asks: "What lasting value does this create? What (and who) are places like this made for?”
07 | MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab | (UN)Real Estate
(un)Real Estate : Exploring the Value of Virtual Real Estate
There are over 2.2 billion gamers in the world and a subset of them are buying and selling goods and real estate online. What is the value of virtual land, and how did it come to be?
Virtual real estate and its value seem so obvious once you learn more about it. Made us think that with the onset of gamification, how long until it comes to (real) real estate development design + marketing?
Three Podcasts that cover The Reality of The Virtual, the virtual Economy, and (un)Real Land. For those that want to read, Medium.
Butterfly Voyage hopes that these pieces inform, inspire, + educate you about ways in which to navigate the adventure that 2020 is proving to be. We will continue to curate, discover, and share.
A thank you to Butterfly Voyage contributor Basma Rajper. Her valuable research, insights, and support were a key part of making this piece come to life.