Urban Design
-
First Canadian Place: 40 years on top in Toronto
First Canadian Place has been the tallest skyscraper in Canada for four decades now. At 298.1 metres from sidewalk to rooftop, the brilliant white tower...
By Chris Bateman -
How Toronto learned to love the patio
For all the time Torontonians will spend sipping lager and pinot on patios this summer, it would be easy to conclude that the people of this city have...
By Chris Bateman -
PARKS CRISIS conclusion: 10 ideas to help solve Toronto’s parks acquisition crisis
In May 2014, council gave the city’s planning team the green light to embark on a three-year planning exercise, branded TOCore, that’s meant to figure out...
By John Lorinc -
PARKS IN CRISIS part 6: Are privately owned public spaces the answer to parks deficit?
Over the next year, City of Toronto politicians and planners will be faced with an unprecedented challenge: how to create amenable public open spaces in...
By Kimberley Noble -
PARKS IN CRISIS part 3: The perils of cash-in-lieu
By John Lorinc and Alex Steep At its final meeting of the fractious 2010-2014 term, City Council gave its blessing to what will become one of the few new...
By John Lorinc -
PARKS IN CRISIS part 1: All built up and no place to go
By John Lorinc and Alex Steep At a raucous public meeting about the future of Bickford Park last year, emotions ran high. Some residents wanted to remove...
By John Lorinc -
Remembering an Olympic scramble intersection party
As City Council considers removal of the scramble at Bay and Bloor, many issues are up for debate: safety, usage levels and traffic congestion, the...
By Shoshanna Saxe -
Stadia mania: Toronto’s six-decade quest for a civic stadium
The Stadocentre, Metrodome, Astrodome, and Tower Dome: Toronto historically has had no lack of imagination when it comes to dreaming up gleaming...
By Chris Bateman -
REID: Some thoughts on the 1 Bloor West proposal
Last week, the owner of the land at 1 Bloor West (the former location of Stollery’s, plus some adjacent property) unveiled a proposal for a dramatic...
By Dylan Reid -
Stairs to nowhere, trap streets, and other Toronto oddities
There’s a set of stairs on Greenwood Avenue that lead nowhere. At the top, a wooden fence at the end of someone’s back yard blocks any further...
By Chris Bateman -
The transformer next door
The lights are on but there’s no-one home at 640 Millwood Rd. The two-storey suburban home near Bayview and Eglinton doesn’t exactly stand out among its...
By Chris Bateman -
Welcome to your private nuclear fallout shelter
In 1959, the builders of Regency Acres, a 700-home subdivision in Aurora, Ontario, offered something no other homebuilder in the country could: a private...
By Chris Bateman