I took a class during my undergraduate degree about the material culture of the Victorian era. I took it mostly for fun and because I found the lessons relevant to architecture. But it also allowed me to write papers about things like gin (though I… Read More
This morning I woke up and decided that I could go for a bagel with lox and cream cheese. I figured, it’s the weekend, I’m going to treat myself. So I walked across the street to St. Urbain Bagel Bakery (see above photo). My Montreal… Read More
Arup, the global consulting firm, has an interesting publication out called Cities Alive: Towards a walking world. The report highlights 50 benefits of walking and then 40 actions that city leaders can take today to transform their cities. The entire study was informed by examining… Read More
Yesterday my friend Sachin Monga published a really great article on Medium called, 2014: My Year in Review. It was broken down into a few sections that included everything from his favorite blog posts of the year to all of the images he posted on… Read More
One of the most interesting things about cities is that as they grow their “urban metabolism” also tends to increase. People become more productive. Economic output increases. It becomes easier to hail a cab (which is a test I like to use). And, according to… Read More
Recently in the comment section of ATC, Lloyd Alter of Treehugger shared a great article talking about the 8 principles of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). “TOD” is one of those buzzwords (or buzz acronyms?) that gets thrown around a lot in city building and real… Read More
Earlier this week, a friend of mine shared this TED talk on my Facebook wall talking about the state of climate change in the world. The talk is by Nicholas Stern. And at one point he talks about the incredible urban transformation that has taken place… Read More
“We shape the cities, and then our cities shape us.” That’s one of my favorite lines from the documentary The Human Scale, featuring Danish architect and urban designer Jan Gehl. I like it because I don’t think many of us think enough about the way… Read More
Right now the Toronto International Film Festival is going on in the city. It’s actually one of my favorite times in Toronto. There’s so much going on and the city generally does things that it doesn’t normally allow, but that it should do all throughout… Read More
In today’s post I’d like to focus on the second tweet I embedded in yesterday’s piece about downtown Toronto. Specifically, the fact that almost 75% of downtown residents walk, cycle, or take transit to work, leaving drivers firmly in the minority. For me, this then makes… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 