
Canada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...

The bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
The story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...

Canada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...

The bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
The story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
The submission documents for 1200 Bay Street -- the supertall being designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Quadrangle Architects -- are now publicly available through the City of Toronto's development applications website. I went through the plans today out of curiosity. Below are the typical residential floors. The three tranches shown here are floors 19-46, 48-79, and 81-84. Note the side elevator core and the east-west shear walls -- both of which I was expecting to see.

And here are some of the main project stats:
Site area after laneway widening: 890.1 square meters
Total gross floor area (residential & non-residential): 54, 898 square meters
Floor space index: 61.67
Building height (excluding mechanical penthouse): 324 meters
Number of residential suites: 332
Vehicular parking spaces proposed: 0
Bicycle parking spaces proposed: 673
As a rule and out of professional courtesy, I do not comment on other people's projects on this blog (other than to occasionally point out awesome and ambitious projects). But I do enjoy going through drawing sets to see what others are doing and to see what I might learn. And I am similarly happy to collaborate with others who may want to learn from what we are doing.
If you'd like to download a copy of the submission package, you can do that by entering the address over here.
The submission documents for 1200 Bay Street -- the supertall being designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Quadrangle Architects -- are now publicly available through the City of Toronto's development applications website. I went through the plans today out of curiosity. Below are the typical residential floors. The three tranches shown here are floors 19-46, 48-79, and 81-84. Note the side elevator core and the east-west shear walls -- both of which I was expecting to see.

And here are some of the main project stats:
Site area after laneway widening: 890.1 square meters
Total gross floor area (residential & non-residential): 54, 898 square meters
Floor space index: 61.67
Building height (excluding mechanical penthouse): 324 meters
Number of residential suites: 332
Vehicular parking spaces proposed: 0
Bicycle parking spaces proposed: 673
As a rule and out of professional courtesy, I do not comment on other people's projects on this blog (other than to occasionally point out awesome and ambitious projects). But I do enjoy going through drawing sets to see what others are doing and to see what I might learn. And I am similarly happy to collaborate with others who may want to learn from what we are doing.
If you'd like to download a copy of the submission package, you can do that by entering the address over here.
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