This is not a post about laneway housing. Okay, it sort of is. But there’s a broader point to discuss. Recently, a local Toronto newspaper ran this article talking about how a bunch of people are upset that their neighbor is building an as-of-right garden… Read More
Google Earth has a feature called Timelapse that combines millions of different satellite images to show you how the world has changed over the last 37 years — sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. It’s a feature that’s been out for a… Read More
This past fall, Goldman Sachs published an important report about “making cities resilient to climate change.” In it, they remind us that the scientific consensus is that the world has already warmed from the pre-industrial era (and will likely continue to do so) and that… Read More
I spent this morning reading an article called: How climate change is rapidly taking the planet apart. Here is an excerpt from the introduction: “According to Naomi Oreskes, a great number of climate change scientists (she interviewed most of the top 200 climate change scientists… Read More
I was looking through my photo archive this past week (which is all on an Apple Time Capsule) and I came across this photo: I took this photo in the winter of 2011 on a snowboarding trip to Lake Tahoe. It’s of the San Francisco… Read More
“We can’t address climate change without thinking about buildings.” -Bryn Davidson, Lanefab (Vancouver) This is a line from a recent TEDx talk by Bryn Davidson, who is one of the founders of Lanefab out of Vancouver. Lanefab is a design and construction firm specializing in… Read More
There are a lot of great architecture firms in Toronto, but one that I’ve been following for years is Solares Architecture. Founded by a husband and wife – Tom Knezic and Christine Lolley – the firm focuses on “environmentally integrated homes”, which is simply their… Read More
In keeping with the recent theme about cities, their brands, and the messages they send, I thought I would revisit an old essay (2008) written by Paul Graham (of Y-Combinator) called “Cities and Ambition.” In it, he talks about the various messages that cities send… Read More
As an architecture and city lover, it’ll probably surprise you that I’ve never been to Chicago. I think it may have to do with the fact that it has always felt like a sister to Toronto–another Great Lakes city of comparable size. And when you… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 