Towards the end of last year I received a one line email from a reader asking me what I thought about Porter (the airline that operates out of Toronto’s island airport downtown).
I followed suit and responded with one line: “I’m a big fan.” I then pasted a few links to posts I had written where I talked about Porter, the island airport, and why I think they are good for Toronto.
It turns out that was the right answer ;)
Because today I’m excited to announce a fun collaboration between Architect This City and Porter Escapes. This weekend I get to explore Québec City and do something I love to do, which is photograph cities, think about cities, and write about cities. (And eat poutine.)
Here are my travel essentials for the weekend (I wish it was a better photo):

The first thing I should tell you though is that Porter Escapes is different than simply Porter. Porter Escapes is their “packaged vacation” company, so it’s designed for people who want a simple way to book entire getaways (flight, hotel, activities, and so on).
In my case, I’m going to be staying at the Château Laurier. I also have a bunch of activities planned out for Saturday during the day. Stay tuned.
I had initially planned to squeeze in some snowboarding at Le Massif and try out the nicely branded train that goes from Québec City right to the mountain. But my back and shoulder are still tender from my spill in Banff.
Still, I hope you’ll follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, and using #PorterEscapes. And if you happen to be in Québec City this weekend, let’s grab a pint and poutine.
I’ve also been told that Porter Escapes will be launching a special promotion over the next few days for escapes specifically to Québec City.
Note: I’m supposed to tell you that it’ll be at a price point that you should never expect to see again (i.e. it’ll be a steal).
Happy Friday :)
Monocle magazine is launching their first ever conference this spring in Lisbon and it’s dedicated to quality life in the world’s greatest cities. It’s going to take place Friday, April 17th to Saturday, April 18th, 2015.
You can click the image above for a video synopsis (there’s great urban eye candy), but if you don’t feel like doing that, here’s the text version:
MONOCLE invites you to a weekend of peerless hospitality, great debates and in-depth conversations about the forces shaping the world’s great cities. Join our editors, correspondents and key thinkers in discussing topics ranging from architecture to independent retail, city planning to national branding.
It sounds like a wonderful event and very much inline with some of the topics discussed here on Architect This City. If I had a conference budget that needed to get spent, I would be the first to sign up. If you’re interested, you can “register your interest” by clicking here. Tickets are €1,500.
Towards the end of last year I received a one line email from a reader asking me what I thought about Porter (the airline that operates out of Toronto’s island airport downtown).
I followed suit and responded with one line: “I’m a big fan.” I then pasted a few links to posts I had written where I talked about Porter, the island airport, and why I think they are good for Toronto.
It turns out that was the right answer ;)
Because today I’m excited to announce a fun collaboration between Architect This City and Porter Escapes. This weekend I get to explore Québec City and do something I love to do, which is photograph cities, think about cities, and write about cities. (And eat poutine.)
Here are my travel essentials for the weekend (I wish it was a better photo):

The first thing I should tell you though is that Porter Escapes is different than simply Porter. Porter Escapes is their “packaged vacation” company, so it’s designed for people who want a simple way to book entire getaways (flight, hotel, activities, and so on).
In my case, I’m going to be staying at the Château Laurier. I also have a bunch of activities planned out for Saturday during the day. Stay tuned.
I had initially planned to squeeze in some snowboarding at Le Massif and try out the nicely branded train that goes from Québec City right to the mountain. But my back and shoulder are still tender from my spill in Banff.
Still, I hope you’ll follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, and using #PorterEscapes. And if you happen to be in Québec City this weekend, let’s grab a pint and poutine.
I’ve also been told that Porter Escapes will be launching a special promotion over the next few days for escapes specifically to Québec City.
Note: I’m supposed to tell you that it’ll be at a price point that you should never expect to see again (i.e. it’ll be a steal).
Happy Friday :)
Monocle magazine is launching their first ever conference this spring in Lisbon and it’s dedicated to quality life in the world’s greatest cities. It’s going to take place Friday, April 17th to Saturday, April 18th, 2015.
You can click the image above for a video synopsis (there’s great urban eye candy), but if you don’t feel like doing that, here’s the text version:
MONOCLE invites you to a weekend of peerless hospitality, great debates and in-depth conversations about the forces shaping the world’s great cities. Join our editors, correspondents and key thinkers in discussing topics ranging from architecture to independent retail, city planning to national branding.
It sounds like a wonderful event and very much inline with some of the topics discussed here on Architect This City. If I had a conference budget that needed to get spent, I would be the first to sign up. If you’re interested, you can “register your interest” by clicking here. Tickets are €1,500.
In this month’s issue of Monocle magazine (#80) they profile an interesting prefabricated and affordable housing project in Knivsta, Sweden.
A collaboration between architect Andreas Martin-Löf and developer Junior Living, the project contains 124 single occupancy units, each of which has 32 square meters of interior space (that’s about 344 square feet).
The way it was built is quite simple. The modular housing units were fabricated off-site and then inserted on-site into a prefabricated concrete frame. Think bottles going into a wine rack. Here’s a diagram showing how it works:

What’s truly amazing about this project though is how quickly it was built and how cost effective it actually was for end users. Construction started in January 2014 and residents started moving in about 3 months later. The sale prices ranged from €50,000 to €87,000 per unit. That’s roughly $62,000 to $98,000 in US dollars.
Finally, here’s a shot of one of the interiors:

What do you all think of this project?
Photography by Åke E:son Lindman via Andreas Martin-Löf Arkitekter
In this month’s issue of Monocle magazine (#80) they profile an interesting prefabricated and affordable housing project in Knivsta, Sweden.
A collaboration between architect Andreas Martin-Löf and developer Junior Living, the project contains 124 single occupancy units, each of which has 32 square meters of interior space (that’s about 344 square feet).
The way it was built is quite simple. The modular housing units were fabricated off-site and then inserted on-site into a prefabricated concrete frame. Think bottles going into a wine rack. Here’s a diagram showing how it works:

What’s truly amazing about this project though is how quickly it was built and how cost effective it actually was for end users. Construction started in January 2014 and residents started moving in about 3 months later. The sale prices ranged from €50,000 to €87,000 per unit. That’s roughly $62,000 to $98,000 in US dollars.
Finally, here’s a shot of one of the interiors:

What do you all think of this project?
Photography by Åke E:son Lindman via Andreas Martin-Löf Arkitekter
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