Urban Design
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Smart city in a post-pandemic world: Small-scale, green, and over-policed
On the face of it, the smart city market is bleeding. In May 2020, Alphabet pulled the plug on Sidewalk Toronto, the company’s ambitious smart city...
By Anna Artyushina and Alina Wernick -
Achtung! Go for a German Walk T.O.
Over the summer and fall I was happy to work with a team put together by the German Consulate in Toronto on a series of audio walks exploring...
By Shawn Micallef -
Indigenous youth help redefine landscape architecture
It’s impossible to teach someone how to build a deer-skin drum over Zoom. “Just feel the string,” says Oshkabewis (Anishnaabemowin: helper), Healer and...
By Joseph Wilson -
In memory: Q&A with Michelle Senayah
Michelle Senayah, co-founder of the Laneway Project and a force behind Open Streets Toronto, died suddenly at the age of 36 earlier this summer. In...
By Glyn Bowerman -
LORINC: The case for re-branding urban shade for a world on fire
Given the increasingly dire news about climate change, including the release yesterday of the IPCC latest report on accelerating warming trends, one could...
By John Lorinc -
Fixing Sam’s Road: The urban design disaster of Avenue Road
Avenue Road is the enduring legacy of Sam Cass. Very enduring. Cass was the traffic engineer hired by the new Metro Toronto government created in 1954 to...
By Murray Campbell -
LORINC: The failing of governance of Toronto
The debacle that was last week’s so-called debate over multi-tenant housing, which ended in a stalemate, was quite plainly evidence of a grievous failure...
By John Lorinc -
The Un-Avenues: Integrating new intensity for housing, open spaces, and streets
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ...
By Kim Storey and James Brown -
Anishnawbe Health finds a new home
On Indigenous People’s Day, June 21, Anishnawbe Health Toronto held its ground-breaking ceremony for the Indigenous Hub that will stand at Front and...
By Mnawaate Gordon-Corbiere -
Shining a light on Toronto’s streetlamps
Street lighting is an important, yet overlooked, part of any city’s standard infrastructure. For over seventy years, Toronto’s streets were...
By Sean Marshall -
LORINC: Why Toronto’s urban design needs a lesson on climate and equity
Many Torontonians, including critics, have long bemoaned the absence, at least in recent decades, of a unique architectural character for the city. Beyond...
By John Lorinc -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 056, Rail Deck Park and best laid (official) plans
This episode is all about plans: big and small, successful and dashed. First, Toronto Star city hall reporter Jennifer Pagliaro takes us through the story...
By Spacing Radio