Architecture
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Lost heritage on Queen West
According to a recent CBC News report, the gable-roofed wooden commercial storefront at 520 Queen Street West was about 170 years old when its new owner...
By Peter MacCallum -
Field notes from a parks conference
From green roofs on new buildings, to quantifying visitors (beyond counting toilet paper rolls), to how much to mow, here are some notable ideas to emerge...
By Ian Darragh -
Farewell to Malabar, Toronto’s former costume emporium
Malabar Limited, the famed costume emporium, closed in March 2022. Although it had been a fixture of downtown Toronto’s cultural landscape for 99 years...
By Peter MacCallum -
LORINC: Can the Ontario Science Centre save Ontario Place?
Here’s a strange little detail about the 20-car pile-up that is the Ontario Place redevelopment scheme: Shortly before Christmas, the province...
By John Lorinc -
As is: Photographs of Ontario Place, 2021- 2022
In advance of Spacing’s upcoming issue focused on Ontario Place, we are sharing some of photographer Steven Evans’s images of the site. See...
By Steven Evans -
Photographing Toronto’s suburban strip malls
With an essay by Orly Linovski. A documentary project focused exclusively on the architecture of suburban strip malls: this idea occurred to me while I...
By Peter MacCallum -
Will Bill 23 kill heritage protections?
The Ontario government has proposed new legislation called the More Homes, Built Faster Act (Bill 23). But I’d prefer an act called More Affordable Homes...
By Michael McClelland -
Monumental success: Toronto’s Stone Distillery has stood the test of time
The Stone Distillery, which anchors the southwest corner of the Distillery Historic District, is a noble backdrop for thousands of photos and videos every...
By Sarah B. Hood -
The emergence of the “Toronto Special” Modernist walk-up apartments
The “Toronto Special” is a distinctly urban home that emerged during a post-war period associated with the rapid expansion of suburban...
By Eric Sehr -
REID: Shadows and light – a longstanding debate
It’s an argument, it turns out, that has been going on for centuries. When new tall or mid-rise buildings are discussed, one of the issues that always...
By Dylan Reid -
Finding the Missing Middle in Unexpected Places: Cornwall, Ontario’s Permissive Zoning
Urbanist discourse of recent years has commonly turned to reviving the Missing Middle as one means of remedying the skyrocketing cost of housing in Canada...
By Alex Gatien -
From Sunlight Park to East Harbour, Part 2 of 2
This second part of my feature on Lever Brothers soap and detergent manufacturing in the lower Don Valley will examine the eight-decade history of Plant...
By Peter MacCallum