I woke up this morning at 5:30 am in a hotel in Ottawa.
I then drove to Brébeuf, Quebec to meet some friends for a ski and snowboard weekend. (It’s beautiful here.)
Upon arriving I was faced with a large hill that my rear-wheel car with all season tires was absolutely not prepared for. So that sucked up about an hour of time.
After we unstuck my car, we then spent the day skiing and snowboarding at Mont-Tremblant. (First day of the season for me.)
At this point all I can think about is a good night’s sleep, so I’m afraid that there won’t be much of a post today on Architect This City.
But please feel free to hijack the comment section and talk about whatever you would like. Maybe we can get some action started there.
I would actually be really curious to see what topics interest all of you.
For those of you from Ottawa, I’m going to be in town this Thursday evening talking at an event put on by the National Capital Commission called Urbanism Online. It’s all about how blogging, social media, and online discussions can and are contributing to the betterment of cities.
The other bloggers include:
- Marc-André Carignan, Montreal, Kollectif.net
- Jillian Glover, Vancouver, This City Life
- Robert Smythe, Ottawa, UrbSite
The event is now full, but email them or tweet me if you’d really like to come and I’ll certainly ask about space availability. I’m sure it’s going to be a great discussion.
I have a bit of a soft spot for Ottawa. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was working on an office building at 150 Elgin Street. (Key tenants include The Canada Council for the Arts, KPMG, and Shopify.)
I haven’t been back since the building was completed, so I’m excited to see how it turned out.
Update: The event will also be streamed on Periscope, here.
This past week I received 2 separate invitations to talk at events about blogging as a form of city building.
The first is a Pecha Kucha talk being held here in Toronto on Tuesday, October 20th, 2015. If you’ve never heard of the Pecha Kucha movement, it’s basically all about rapid fire presentations. Each person gets 20 slides and 20 seconds for each one.
Here are the details for the upcoming Toronto event:
I woke up this morning at 5:30 am in a hotel in Ottawa.
I then drove to Brébeuf, Quebec to meet some friends for a ski and snowboard weekend. (It’s beautiful here.)
Upon arriving I was faced with a large hill that my rear-wheel car with all season tires was absolutely not prepared for. So that sucked up about an hour of time.
After we unstuck my car, we then spent the day skiing and snowboarding at Mont-Tremblant. (First day of the season for me.)
At this point all I can think about is a good night’s sleep, so I’m afraid that there won’t be much of a post today on Architect This City.
But please feel free to hijack the comment section and talk about whatever you would like. Maybe we can get some action started there.
I would actually be really curious to see what topics interest all of you.
For those of you from Ottawa, I’m going to be in town this Thursday evening talking at an event put on by the National Capital Commission called Urbanism Online. It’s all about how blogging, social media, and online discussions can and are contributing to the betterment of cities.
The other bloggers include:
- Marc-André Carignan, Montreal, Kollectif.net
- Jillian Glover, Vancouver, This City Life
- Robert Smythe, Ottawa, UrbSite
The event is now full, but email them or tweet me if you’d really like to come and I’ll certainly ask about space availability. I’m sure it’s going to be a great discussion.
I have a bit of a soft spot for Ottawa. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was working on an office building at 150 Elgin Street. (Key tenants include The Canada Council for the Arts, KPMG, and Shopify.)
I haven’t been back since the building was completed, so I’m excited to see how it turned out.
Update: The event will also be streamed on Periscope, here.
This past week I received 2 separate invitations to talk at events about blogging as a form of city building.
The first is a Pecha Kucha talk being held here in Toronto on Tuesday, October 20th, 2015. If you’ve never heard of the Pecha Kucha movement, it’s basically all about rapid fire presentations. Each person gets 20 slides and 20 seconds for each one.
Here are the details for the upcoming Toronto event:
The second event is being held in Ottawa in the new year. I’ll write more on that closer to the date when I have more information to share.
I haven’t yet figured out exactly what I’m going to talk about at each event, but I am starting to think about a few things.
When I started writing this blog, it was intended simply as an outlet for my own city-related – and also personal – thoughts. Ultimately, the blog evolved into having its own mission, which is to promote the building of beautiful, sustainable, and globally competitive cities. And so clearly in my mind blogging was and is in fact a form of city building.
But writing is vastly different than the kind of city building I do for a living. During the day I worry about things like rental rates, building setbacks, bulkhead locations, parking counts, and a bunch of other fun stuff.
The two are certainly related, but the latter feels a lot more tangible. The result is spaces that people will occupy and buildings that will have some sort of impact on the overall built environment.
But as you all know, city building is a lot more than just bricks-and-mortar. It is political. It is emotional. It is subjective. It is ego-driven. And it is so many other things. Because of this, words do have a role to play in shaping the cities we live in. And hopefully my words are having some kind of positive impact.
At the same time, I see myself as simply part of a larger set of trends that are happening in both city building, as well as in many other sectors. Trends around transparency, decentralization, and the democratization of information.
Technology today allows us to connect at zero marginal cost. And that is empowering people like me to self-publish, people to crowdfund real estate development projects, people to crowdsource community feedback for projects, and to do many other exciting things that weren’t possible before. Without this blog, most of you reading this right now would have absolutely no idea who I am.
So I guess I kind of do know what I’m going to talk about.
The second event is being held in Ottawa in the new year. I’ll write more on that closer to the date when I have more information to share.
I haven’t yet figured out exactly what I’m going to talk about at each event, but I am starting to think about a few things.
When I started writing this blog, it was intended simply as an outlet for my own city-related – and also personal – thoughts. Ultimately, the blog evolved into having its own mission, which is to promote the building of beautiful, sustainable, and globally competitive cities. And so clearly in my mind blogging was and is in fact a form of city building.
But writing is vastly different than the kind of city building I do for a living. During the day I worry about things like rental rates, building setbacks, bulkhead locations, parking counts, and a bunch of other fun stuff.
The two are certainly related, but the latter feels a lot more tangible. The result is spaces that people will occupy and buildings that will have some sort of impact on the overall built environment.
But as you all know, city building is a lot more than just bricks-and-mortar. It is political. It is emotional. It is subjective. It is ego-driven. And it is so many other things. Because of this, words do have a role to play in shaping the cities we live in. And hopefully my words are having some kind of positive impact.
At the same time, I see myself as simply part of a larger set of trends that are happening in both city building, as well as in many other sectors. Trends around transparency, decentralization, and the democratization of information.
Technology today allows us to connect at zero marginal cost. And that is empowering people like me to self-publish, people to crowdfund real estate development projects, people to crowdsource community feedback for projects, and to do many other exciting things that weren’t possible before. Without this blog, most of you reading this right now would have absolutely no idea who I am.
So I guess I kind of do know what I’m going to talk about.
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