The Voyage Brief | October 2020 | Forbes, Frame Lab, Gensler, Bloomberg Citylab, The New York Times, EY Global Real Estate, City Monitor, & The Doyenne Interviews

Required Reading

Oct 21

2020 continues to challenge our current thinking, and drive us to pursue opportunities that have never existed before when it comes to real estate development. Over the last few months, we have been working hard on a few new ideas as BV continues to evolve. We’ll be sharing those in the coming weeks.

Until then, the pieces below provided us with valuable strategic perspectives this month. We hope that they do the same for you.

01 | Forbes

➤ Covid-19 Is Not The ‘Death Of The City’ - It’s The Rise Of The Neighborhood Center

We live in a big city (SF) yet our daily routine mostly consists of what can be found in our neighborhood; as a result of COVID-19, we can’t utilize our city as much as we used to. We now immerse ourselves in our neighborhood ten times more than we ever did before.
Tiffany Chu, the CEO of Remix, a platform to empower and guide cities to create the best possible transportation system, strongly makes the case as to why cities are NOT “dead,” and why cities (really, any locale) must invest in the “neighborhood trip” and other ways to support the new neighborhood center.
We‘ve always been inspired by the Project for Public Spaces approach - The Power of Ten when applied to cities and placemaking endeavors. Take ten neighborhoods in a city or locale, have ten micro-destinations in the neighborhood, and from each, ten things to go and see or experience. Who wouldn’t want to live there or come back again and again?

READ ➤

02 | Frame Lab

➤ Why Bryony Roberts wants to rethink residential streets for play and childcare

In urban locales, our streets have become more multi-purpose than ever. They are essential for housing parklets for restaurants in addition to being utilized as slow streets for running, cycling, and play. How else can we think about reimagining them, particularly when it comes to children?
Frame Lab and Bryony Roberts take us through some of this new thinking, centered around childcare and play in this concept, “City for Children.” Replete with bright patterns on the street to encourage social distancing positively, areas noted for little and big children, and basic structural elements to encourage play, this encourages us to think about how to utilize our streets even more.
Children strongly benefit from outdoor play when it comes to their well-being, as there are both mental and physical benefits. This is also a great way to consider Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) goals. We all know that a lack of open spaces, safe places to play, and accessible childcare hinders all kinds of growth for decades - this approach can even be utilized as a temporary solution as longer-term measures are put into (literal) play.

READ ➤

03 | Gensler

➤ The Hospitality Industry Seeks to Reinvent Itself With the Adjacent Space

The hospitality industry is still heading towards even a partial recovery; we have been fielding requests from hospitality firms that are thinking about incorporating residential offerings in some way to avoid becoming a distressed asset. Could the future be the “aparthotel” or serviced apartment?
Gensler’s Tom Lindblom takes us through questions that hospitality offerings should be asking about what the redefined guest experiences could be, along with three case studies. Cheval Collection, The Accor Group, and Cube City are all responding, adapting, and pivoting in smart ways that will likely protect their bottom line.
We are fatigued by “living at work” and have seen our mental health decline as a result. Could a serviced “adjacent space” close to home be the answer? Also, people will begin to travel again for business, but we predict with a higher level of efficiency than before; so spaces that offer greater flexibility will be more in demand.

READ ➤

04 | Bloomberg Citylab

➤ What We Actually Know About How Americans Are Moving During Covid

The data shows that there are a healthy amount of moves from one city to another. One city’s loss is another’s gain - Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and Tampa are just a few that are seeing a trend towards population growth. The pandemic may have accelerated some of these moves, but they were likely already being considered given the high cost of living and their ability to purchase a home + associated costs in ultra-expensive locales.
Marie Patino asks how much will cities once considered secondary, or tertiary stand to gain from these moves, particularly when it comes to companies allowing their employees to work remotely? This means for developers, there are opportunities to design, market, and build resilient products that will attract and more importantly, retain these future residents for decades to come.
The John Burns Company has been extensively tracking moves in the United States; their report “The Great American Move Accelerates” supports the thesis that more people are moving between cities than leaving them altogether, not “fleeing to the suburbs.”

READ ➤

05 | The New York Times

➤ Denver Wants to Fix a Legacy of Environmental Racism

If you live in a wealthy neighborhood, you often notice the abundance of trees, parks, and fields. If you live in a poor neighborhood you won’t see many, and your health will suffer from not only the lack of green but also the heat that the concrete absorbs. Denver is making one of the strongest concerted efforts to change that historical inequity.
Climate Fellow Veronica Penny takes us through the city’s ideas, along with some of the hurdles that they have to encounter - many from current residents concerned that they will be pushed out. Historically, cities do not have the trust of their poorer residents. This means that is essential for the buy-in of these residents to allow and empower them to take an active role in leading and running the initiative.
This approach seems to be working - adding a .25% environmental tax has successfully begun to raise the money. Yet, Denver is also realizing the need to establish benchmarks, parameters, and weights to ensure that more trees are planted where they are needed most, and not distributed “equally” (which is anything but equal). We believe that every single real estate development team needs to think more about the trees, and how having more of them positively impacts every single person who interacts with the community that they are in.

READ ➤

06 | EY Global Real Estate

➤ How commercial real estate firms use technology to secure a future

When it comes to technology, we are willing to venture that the last eight months have advanced development five years ahead when it comes to using new technology-based tools. What that has taught us is that technology is not seamless, but with some best practices in place, it can be remarkably efficient and effective to save teams time and money.
Mark Grinis and Henry Stratton from EY take us through the basic framework of developing a strategy when it comes to technology, building a path to actually implement it, and how to develop a sourcing plan. Development teams that build a strategy for technology today, and embrace some of those new technologies will be at a competitive advantage to those that don’t.
When it comes to technology whether IoT, software to ensure utility efficiencies, sustainability initiatives, etc…it is necessary to have a targeted strategy and focus areas to ensure that your development team is targeting technology for specific needs. Otherwise, you will waste time on demo calls overwhelmed by the myriad of options, and more importantly not structure your team’s time successfully to implement these technologies.

READ ➤

07 | City Monitor

➤ The case for prioritising multigenerational housing

More millennials and Generation Z are choosing to live at home in 2020 and beyond. Many in the Boomer generation and older, along with those that are considered higher-risk when it comes to COVID-19 are finding themselves physically and socially isolated, which is detrimental for the mental health of all involved. Could one potential solution to new needs be sets of connected residences created for multiple generations?
Southern Living also published a piece on multi-generational living last month, helpful takeaways from that are that buyers are looking first for significantly more space and that homes must now fulfill a larger set of needs than ever before. Multi-generational living has been a choice of families in Asia and America for a long time.
We believe that the stress brought on by COVID-19 will leave scars for years to come. Is it worth having to get on a plane or take a long drive to see our loved ones again? Or should we look at options to have separate spaces for the same family within the same compound?

READ ➤

08 | The Doyenne Interviews (podcast)

➤ Julia Gamolina | Global Movement + Claire Martin | Landscape Considerations

Victoria, Australia-based architect Bridget Nathan created The Doyenne Interviews to connect with and inspire women from the art, architecture, and design worlds.
A recent favorite is a podcast with Julia Gamolina, the founder of Madame Architect, which exclusively focuses on the perspectives of women in architecture across the globe. Another highlight was Claire Martin, an Associate Director and Landscape Architect at the D.C. + Melbourne based Oculus, whose work we love.
Podcasts like The Doyenne Interviews and resources like Madame Architect are excellent resources to not only listen to and learn from different perspectives but to answer the challenge of finding talented collaborators and design consultants. With more locales implementing strong women-owned or minority-owned business (MWBE) mandates, we will see a strong business case for knowing how to find talented women in the industry.

LISTEN ➤

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.

P.S. BV Journal readers in the United States, don’t forget to vote or take a break to protect your mental health when needed.

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