Tower Renewal

Powers of Towers: New video starring Graeme Stewart and Sabina Ali

by ERA Architects

ERA’s Graeme Stewart and Sabina Ali of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee are featured in a terrific new video by Spacing. The video, which also includes interviews with ERA’s Michael McClelland, is entitled “Powers of Towers,” and profiles the efforts of Graeme and Sabina to transform Toronto’s aging suburban high-rise neighbourhoods into livable communities that...

Arrival City: Bookclub and Webinar, Mar 13

by ERA Architects

ERA’s Graeme Stewart is pleased to be participating in a webinar presented by Cities of Migration and Centre for City Ecology as part of their Citybuilders Bookclub. The Bookclub is global in reach, aiming to foster a deeper understanding of how cities work, and brings together a diverse group of thinkers and writers from around...

After Empirical Urbanism

by ERA Architects

ERA’s Graeme Stewart is participating in the weekend symposium “After Empirical Urbanism” at U of T, Friday Feb. 27 to Sunday Mar. 1. The three-day symposium is organized by faculty members of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, including Dean Richard Sommer, Michael Piper, Ultan Byrne, Roberto Damiani, and Mauricio Quiros....

Tower Renewal crash course, update on “Showcase”

by ERA Architects

Recently ERA’s Graeme Stewart and Evergreen Cityworks‘ John Brodhead presented a webinar on Tower Renewal in partnership with the Social Innovation Generation and Cities for People. The webinar presents an impressive picture of the last eight years of Tower Renewal efforts, and includes discussion of Toronto’s unique built form in relation to other cities, its...

PechaKucha of the day

by ERA Architects

Recently PechaKucha selected a Graeme Stewart talk as a “Presentation of the Day.” We thought, What better reason to repost the presentation? It’s a great crash course in Tower Renewal, an interdisciplinary program that is reshaping how we think about Toronto’s post-war residential apartment tower neighbourhoods. This 7-minute talk covers half a century of Toronto’s history, right up...

Emmy to Short History of the Highrise

by ERA Architects

The NFB project A Short History of the Highrise recently won the “News and Documentary” category of the Emmy Awards. ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) had the pleasure of working with director Kat Cizek on this project, which examines the current conditions and future potential of post-war high-rise living around the...

RAC Zoning Approved for 500 Sites

by ERA Architects

This June, Toronto City Council approved the proposed Residential Apartment Commercial (RAC) zone. Following a process of nearly two years of research, public consultation, policy development, and advocacy in partnership with United Way, City of Toronto and Toronto Public Health, the RAC zoning will take effect by summer’s end, (barring appeal), in nearly 500 Apartment properties...

Michael McClelland at the Getty: Toronto Towers

by ERA Architects

Michael McClelland spoke in 2013 to the Getty Conservation Institute’s “Colloquium to Advance the Practice of Conserving Modern Architecture.” The presentation discussed Toronto’s unique development of tower neighbourhoods in the context of modernist planning principles and modern heritage conservation. ERA advocates for an approach to the conservation of these neighbourhoods through a considered process of...

Jane Jacobs Prize to Graeme Stewart & Sabina Ali

by ERA Architects

The 2014 Jane Jacobs Prize has been awarded to Graeme Stewart of ERA and Sabina Ali of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee. According to the creators of the Jane Jacobs Prize, Ideas that Matter, this honour “celebrates individuals who contribute to the fabric of Toronto life in unique ways that exemplify the ideas of Jane...

New opportunities through zoning reform: Your feedback needed

by ERA Architects

The City of Toronto wants to bring more vitality and convenience to its Apartment Neighbourhoods. In March and April, a number of public consultations will be held to incorporate the ideas of community members. A new zoning type, “Residential Apartment Commercial” (RAC), has been created to provide more amenities and more usable public space in...

Big Idea Forum w/ Christopher Hume

by ERA Architects

Monday March 24th, ERA’s Graeme Stewart will be joining Christopher Hume and guests for a forum on the future of Toronto. The discussion begins at 6:30 pm, Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto. The forum follows up on the Toronto Star’s Big Ideas series, in which local urbanists, activists, researchers, and citizens share their...

The Star’s Big Ideas: GTA’s future in high-rise suburbs

by ERA Architects

Throughout the first part of 2014, the Toronto Star is running a series called “Big Ideas“, asking Torontonians to think big about the future of the region. What type of Toronto do we want to create in the years to come? For our contribution to this series, we discuss Tower Renewal as the key to...

Charrette: Healthy Corner Stores

by ERA Architects

On Saturday January 18, The East Scarborough Storefront hosted a public design charrette with partners United Way Toronto, Toronto Public Health (TPH), Sustainable TO, Architext, and ERA. Saturday’s discussion focused on TPH’s new program “Healthy Corner Stores,” a project that proposes to give suburban communities better access to fresh produce, and other healthy food options,...

Transformative potential of Tower Renewal: Globe & Mail

by admin

Alex Bozikovic, Toronto-based writer on architecture and design, recently provided an update on Tower Renewal efforts in the GTA. The article describes the uniquely Canadian and Torontonian inventory of high-rise post-war tower apartment neighbourhoods, and recent efforts by local architects, not-for-profits, and city departments to rethink these neighbourhoods. With aging buildings in need of maintenance...

Apr. 25 event: T.O.’s Priority Neighbourhoods

by admin

ERA is pleased to be joining the University of Toronto’s Cities Centre and United Way Toronto for “Closing the Gaps,” a special event exploring how we can continue to work together to support Toronto’s Priority Neighbourhoods. This event will examine the journey since 2005, lessons learned, and steps moving forward. Thursday April 25, 2013 Innis...

Micallef: Canada’s identity, modernist architecture

by ERA Architects

If there is a character that unites Canada across its many regions, says Shawn Micallef of Spacing, it could well be our huge stock of post-war modernist architecture. From well-known innovations such as Montreal’s Habitat ’67, Toronto’s CN Tower, or Burnaby’s Simon Fraser University; to the thousands of lower-profile urban and suburban low-, mid-, and...

Canada Screen Award to NFB’s “Highrise”

by ERA Architects

Last week the NFB’s Highrise: One Millionth Tower won a Canada Screen Award for “Original Program Produced for Digital Media, Non-Fiction.” ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) had the pleasure of working with the NFB on this remarkable series, directed by Kat Cizek, which examines the current conditions and future potential...

Graeme Stewart interviewed on The Urbanist

by ERA Architects

Monocle Radio recently interviewed ERA’s Graeme Stewart on The Urbanist, a weekly program on the people and ideas that shape urban life. In this week’s edition, Andrew Tuck speaks with Graeme about Toronto’s modernist legacy and the Tower Renewal program. You can listen to this interview online at Monocle.com #61.

Tower Renewal Panel and Keynote Speaker

by admin

When: Tues., Dec. 11, 2012, 5:30 to 7:30 PM Where: Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue Recently we shared updates on the ongoing work of the City’s Tower Renewal Office, discussing new research in the field, and engaging with our special guest from Melbourne, Dr. Rebecca Leshinsky. The expert panel included: PEDRO BARATA, Vice President,...

Graeme Stewart on “Imagine a City”

by ERA Architects

This autumn, United Way’s Imagine a City blog is hosting a series of guest writers to discuss a number of important programs related to Toronto’s future as a livable city. Recently ERA’s Graeme Stewart blogged on his vision for Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, a program we have been working on in collaboration with partners including the...

Toronto Zoning Reform to Empower Apartment Neighbourhoods

by admin

As part of ongoing work on Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) has been working with partners United Way Toronto and the City of Toronto to establish a new approach to zoning that will enable Toronto’s hundreds of Apartment Neighbourhoods to emerge as more complete and better-served communities. This work...

Health and urban design: Two new reports released

by admin

The Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) is pleased to announce the release of two reports examining public health, urban policy, and neighbourhood rejuvenation in Toronto: Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods, and Toward Healthy Apartment Neighbourhoods: A Healthy Toronto by Design Report In partnership with United...

Health, zoning and urban design: Two new reports released

by ERA Architects

The Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) has announced the release of two reports examining public health, urban policy, and neighbourhood rejuvenation in Toronto: Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods, and Toward Healthy Apartment Neighbourhoods: A Healthy Toronto by Design Report In partnership with United Way Toronto and Toronto...

Youth build decking for Scarborough shade structure

by ERA Architects

Beginning in early July, six youth from the Kingston-Galloway-Orton Park community were hired for a five-week period by the East Scarborough Storefront to continue work on a series of community-oriented landscape improvements. These features were designed as part of the Community Design Initiative (C.D.I.) program, to which these youth have previously volunteered hundreds of hours....

Monocle covers Tower Renewal

by ERA Architects

In the 2012 Quality of Life Issue of Monocle Magazine, ERA’s Graeme Stewart fields a few questions on Toronto’s Tower Renewal Project from Christopher Frey, Monocle correspondent and former Chief Editor for Toronto Standard. To find out more about this issue, see Monocle v.6, no. 55. An article in the Toronto Standard about Toronto’s absence from the Quality of...