So each year Europe runs a program called the European Capitals of Culture. The objective is to celebrate the richness of European culture and presumably drive throngs of tourists to its various locales. They do this by choosing a set of cities, designating them "capitals of culture", and then running events and programming all throughout the calendar year in those places.

When the program was created in 1985, it was originally called the European City of Culture, as there was only one city being chosen at a time. In the first year that city was Athens. But the program has since evolved and now multiple cities are chosen each year. For 2022, the European Capitals of Culture are Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg), Kaunas (Lithuania), and Novi Sad (Serbia).

I was reading about Kaunas in FT this morning and I was fascinated to learn that this city of approximately 300,000 people has some 6,000 modernist buildings. Some are apparently in disrepair, but many remain in good form and, as part of the festival, visitors can book stays in some of the restored ones.

There is, of course, an interesting story behind these buildings.

This collection of modernist buildings is the result of a relatively narrow window of time and a specific set of circumstances. Lithuania gained independence from the former Russian Empire in 1918, following WWI and while Russia was busy fighting with itself. But at the time, its capital city Vilnius, which remains the capital today, was mostly occupied by Poland.

So Kaunas became its temporary capital city from 1920 to 1939, the latter date being when Vilnius was returned to Lithuania. This temporary designation created a tremendous need for new buildings, both public and private, and it just so happened to line up with the flourishing of European modernist architecture.

Kaunas didn't get any modernist "icons" from architects such as Le Corbusier, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Kaunas instead created its own varietal of modernism, one that incorporated elements of Art Deco and one that you could argue is now deeply symbolic of a very important moment in its history: A peaceful period of interwar freedom and optimism.

Image: Kaunas 2022

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its latest climate change report. Available here. As a follow-up to this report, Dezeen spoke with Hélène Chartier of the sustainable urbanism network C40 Cities. And she makes some very good points about the importance of cities in combatting climate change.

In fact, she goes so far as to say that sustainable living is only really possible, at scale, in cities. Because to live a more sustainable lifestyle, you need the right kind of infrastructure in place. And to have the right kind of infrastructure in place, you need density.

This crucial point is often forgotten (though never on this blog). If you are truly concerned about climate change, then you should be for urban density. And if you are out there fighting against urban density, then your actions are undermining this global imperative.

Chartier rightly points out that "architects have a huge responsibility" when it comes to addressing climate change. And this is entirely true. Their job is the built environment. But with all due respect to architects, the problems that need solving are ultimately much broader. Architects can only do so much if they're hamstrung by dumb land use policies and angry neighbors, among other things.

This needs to be a coordinated effort. We all have a huge responsibility.

Photo by Kaspars Upmanis on Unsplash

If I were to make a broad generalization for the way that we typically design the structural systems for residential buildings and office buildings here in Toronto it would be as follows: office buildings tend to have a big structural core with perimeter columns and residential buildings tend to have a smaller core accompanied by both columns and shear walls (long structural walls essentially). There are a myriad of other differences, but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to run with this broad classification.

When something is typically done a certain way it often means that it is generally what the market wants and it is a cost effective solution. In the case of office buildings, this sort of structural system is essential for maintaining open plans and future flexibility. You can't have shear walls interrupting your floor plates. And because big office buildings also tend to have a lot of elevators, the structural core is usually what provides lateral stability to the building (or at least this is what the structural engineers tell me).

But this same imperative for open plans isn't usually there for residential buildings. In this case, the unit demising is often fairly fixed and the individual resident/tenant spaces tend to be smaller than in office buildings, which makes frequent structural elements a lot more palatable. And since the elevator cores also tend to be smaller (fewer elevators), there is usually a need to introduce other structural elements that can provide the building with lateral stability. (Again, this is what the engineers tell me.) So enter all the shear walls.

But every now and then, somebody in Toronto will ask: Is this the right way to be building? Other cities don't build their residential buildings with all of these shear walls and so should we really be limiting the future flexibility of our multi-family housing supply by constructing in this way? These are good questions. The short answer is that it tends to be easier/cheaper to build this way. Our market is used to it. And generally end-users are just fine with it.

However, this method of building isn't necessarily a universal truth. The structural system for One Delisle, for example, is far closer to that of an office building than it is to that of a typical residential tower. Much of this was driven by the building's architecture and its continually changing floor plates. I have also heard of instances where purpose-built rental developers are choosing to go column over shear wall so that there's greater flexibility in the future. There's certainly a case to be made for this.

As developers, it is impossible to know all there is to know about any one discipline. You need the right team in place for that. But we do have to look at the bigger picture, weigh all of the constraints, and then hopefully make a reasonably good decision. This is one example of that.

Image: Bay-Adelaide Centre North, Toronto