I have written before about how Lisbon’s kiosks both anchor and beautify the city’s public spaces. I have also written about how Toronto should have something similar — #KioskTO anyone?

Some of you might remember an expanded street food program that the city piloted many years ago. It was a complete and utter failure. In my opinion (and from what I can remember), it was too heavily regulated. The food ended up being far too expensive and, frankly, none of it was very good.

That’s not how this should work. The entire point of things like food trucks and street kiosks is that they are cheaper alternatives to a conventional physical location. You can also more easily place them in locations where demand is being underserved.

The one pictured here is in Catania, Sicily. I carried my beer over from a panini shop down the street and then we ordered three espressos for a total of 2€. I tried to sit on a crate they had lying on the ground but I ended up breaking it. Sorry, guys. So we stood instead. It was all rather civilized.

Let entrepreneurs figure out what to sell and where. It will be a boon for both small business and for our public spaces.

P.S. I tweeted this photo out earlier today and it elicited a good discussion on Twitter. Toronto wants this.

So it turns out that the narrow streets in Le Panier (in Marseille) are actually far too wide at nearly 13 feet. What were the planners even thinking back in 600? Here’s a street I found in Noto, Sicily at just over 4 feet. I’m not sure if this is considered some sort of tertiary lane or not, but it had a street sign, addresses, and businesses in a courtyard at the end of it. So I’m going to assume it’s a bona fide street. It’s hard to imagine getting much tighter than this. I wonder if Jeff Bezos delivers here.

Back in 2017, when Superkul (architects) first started coming up with concept designs for Junction House, we all decided that it would be nice if we could do something to mark the important view terminus that exists with our site.

We explored a few different ideas and then ultimately landed on a rooftop neon (or neon-like) sign that would read “Junction House.” The idea was to pay homage to the old signage that used to be present in the Junction and to some of the iconic rooftop signs that still exist around the world.

Of course, the goal was never advertising. There is no economic imperative for us here. We just wanted to do something fun that at the same time could mark the entrance to the Junction neighborhood.

After proposing this idea, we quickly learned that these are next to impossible to get approved. But to their credit, the City of Toronto fully got it. We heard things such as, “look, we can’t call this art, but we like the idea and we like what you’re trying to do.” Thank you for that.

The compromise we ultimately struck was to remove the “House” part, leaving just “Junction.” This way it no longer referenced our project and instead referenced a place. By doing this, it became “placemaking.” And that is what is now baked in our site plan approval.

Fast forward to 2022, and we are now getting ready to test our first 1:1 mockup of the sign. I can’t wait to see how this looks on site.