As someone who makes a living by helping people buy and sell real estate, I have to be honest, a lot of the recent developments in our city have left me feeling uninspired. I'm not going to name names, but often it seems that Toronto's collective architectural and development communities have seriously let down our city.

Too many developers seem to be only concerned with the bottom line. The result is threefold: their buildings are ugly or at best boring, their units have unlivable layouts with impossibly small rooms, and no care is taken to ensure their buildings interact well with the surrounding buildings and street.

Enter N-Blox. Designed by Quadrangle Architects, here is a project that I think has the potential to give the Toronto condo game a much needed shake up, and will give new meaning to the phrase it's hip to be square.

N-Blox represents a serious deviation from what we've become accustomed to in Toronto. There are only going to be 8 units, all with their own terraces and direct elevator access. They are being marketed as a house-alternative rather than just another cookie-cutter condo. They will range in size from 1,100 to 2,000 square feet and will be priced starting at about $700,000.

Sure, N-Blox will not be for everyone, but I'm hoping this will be the start of some more creative developments located on some of our city's most creative streets.

Image from nblox.ca.