When I was very young I went a Montessori school here in Toronto. If you’re not familiar with Montessori education, it’s basically a very open ended and independent form of learning. Students choose what they want to do.
Because of this, many have argued that a Montessori education is actually great training to be an entrepreneur. Instead of being told what to do, you as a student need to figure it out on your own. See the parallel? Both Google founders went to Montessori school.
When I was there (< grade 4), my absolute favorite thing to do was draw maps. I remember them having these large scale maps of the world where you could physically remove each country so that you could then trace it and create your own maps. I spent a lot of time doing exactly that.
To this day, I still really love maps. And I remember many of my friends in architecture school being the same way. So perhaps it comes with the territory.
In any case, I recently started playing around with a product called cartoDB. And one of the things you can easily do with it is connect it to Mailchimp (the service that manages the ATC email newsletter) and anonymously map the location of each subscriber. I couldn’t resist giving it a try.
Below is what that looks like. Not surprisingly, the highest concentrations of subscribers to this blog are in Canada and the US.
So here’s a zoomed in version:
I’ve been trying to branch out from talking about Toronto all the time. And that seems to be working somewhat. But I could still do a better job of creating more global content. I’ll try harder.
One of my absolute favorite things to do is travel to cities, explore, and take lots of pictures. When I’m in a new place, I can’t help but examine everything about the built environment. That’s the architect in me and it’ll never go away.
When I was in undergrad I had a refurbished digital SLR camera that I used to use. But now I just use my iPhone. As the saying goes: the best camera is the one you have on you.
Seeing how I was just in Philadelphia, I’ve been posting a lot of new city related photos to my Instagram. And since about 10x more people follow this blog than follow my Instagram, I’m going to plug it here: follow me on Instagram :)
The world cannot find a cure for cancer soon enough. Earlier today Quadrangle Architects here in Toronto published the following news release. For those of you not from Toronto, Quadrangle is one of the most important architecture firms in the city.
It is with great sadness that we share with you that Brian Curtner, our co-founder, colleague and friend, passed away from cancer on August 15, 2015 at the age of 64.
As an architect, Brian has been widely recognized for exemplary designs that include the award-winning BMW showroom at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway, Corus Entertainment’s state-of-the-art headquarters on Toronto’s waterfront and 130 Bloor Street West in Yorkville – all innovative responses to complex urban challenges. Equally important to his projects was Brian’s unique ability to build long-term working relationships and turn them into friendships that spanned decades.
Balancing entrepreneurship and commitments to family and friends, Brian was instrumental in creating a highly successful architecture practice, combining business acumen with design excellence, technical expertise and client service which continue to define Quadrangle today.
Together with his family, we will honour Brian’s life and achievements with a memorial celebration in the near future. We will communicate more details as soon as arrangements have been finalized. In the meantime, Brian’s family welcomes donations to either the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care at Mount Sinai Hospital or Sunnybrook Hospital’s Odette Cancer Centre, in his memory.
In the coming days, please visit our website for additional information. Details will also be available regarding a website being created in memory of Brian.
For any inquiries please connect with Elle Fitzpatrick.
Top image from Quadrangle’s Instagram; bottom image from here.