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ERA Architects

Projects

University of Toronto St. George Campus

...foundation, the University retained Urban Strategies Inc. to develop policies and guidelines for the new Secondary Plan. Responding to institutional requirements, municipal objectives, and the area’s heritage character, the creation of this new policy framework culminated in a formal application submission for a new Secondary Plan and Urban Design Guidelines in 2018. In 2022, the City Council adopted the new...

University of Toronto: Landscape of Landmark Quality

...College Circle lawn. The HIA includes complex heritage policy review integrating the University’s current secondary plan update process. Through analysis of the site’s historic context and its patterns of use, circulation, and space, ERA’s assessment of the Landmark Project highlights the design strategy as a sensitive, contemporary response to the area’s role as a ceremonial landscape that predates the automobile....

Bombardier Centre for Aerospace and Aviation

...from development pressures. In 1996 when CFB Downsview was closed, the city had matured around the site for almost 60 years. In 1999 the property was designated Canada’s first urban national park, with an international competition launched in 2000, won by OMA’s Tree City entry. In 2012 the Downsview Secondary Plan was created, introducing a modified street network, and defining...

Concrete Toronto Map

...the material during rapid post-war development and its role in defining the City and surrounding suburbs to this day. Pinpointed projects stretch across the Greater Toronto Area– from Etobicoke to Scarborough. In partnership with Blue Crow Media, and with original photography by Jason Woods, the Concrete Toronto Map joins a family of international city guide maps which feature distinct local...

Concrete Toronto

Toronto is a concrete city. International landmarks, civic buildings, cultural institutions, metropolitan infrastructure and housing from high-rise to the single-family home: much of Toronto was born of an era of exposed concrete design. Underappreciated and misunderstood, Toronto’s concrete architecture represents an exciting era of cultural investment, city building, and design innovation. Concrete Toronto reconsiders these buildings from the perspective of...

Hamilton Downtown Built Heritage Inventory

The Downtown Built Heritage Inventory (DBHI) is a pilot project that proposes a new, Hamilton-specific methodology to understand, characterize, and map Hamilton’s downtown heritage resources. Inspired by emerging international best practices in heritage planning, this methodology aligns with the Ontario Heritage Act and Planning Act, but also utilizes other strategies for evaluating historic resources, such as the “historic context statement.”...

The Carlu

The former Eaton’s College Street contains one of the finest Art Moderne interiors in Canada, the Carlu. It was commissioned by Sir John Craig Eaton to be the flagship for Eaton’s department store. Opened in 1931, the Carlu was an impressive and grand complex that was home to refined social and cultural events, hosting several international performers including Duke Ellington,...

Crangle’s Collision

Crangle’s Collision (the former International Harvesters’ Building) has been an Art Moderne accent at the corner of Bathurst and Wellington since its construction in 1940. This two-storey commercial building, designed by architect Neil A. Armstrong, served as headquarters for the American producer of agricultural equipment, and more recently as an auto body shop. A listed heritage property, ERA was retained...

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons

One of the earliest European settlements in the Province of Ontario, Sainte Marie among the Hurons is a site of national heritage significance and international interest. The challenge of assembling a conservation plan for three fireplace ruins at this important historic site offered an opportunity to approach conservation by first asking how to best interpret and present these artifacts to...

View of barn doors and public art of metal bars arching Artscape Wychwood Barns

...Joe Lobko Architect, and provided a suite of architectural services including preparing a Conservation Plan, working drawings for the alterations to the Barns, and the Heritage Easement Agreement. Additionally, ERA worked with Gottschalk+Ash International on wayfinding and site interpretation and with David Leinster and the Planning Partnership to convert the remaining land on the site into a new public park....

Stories

Gander International Airport Lounge

by ERA Architects

Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe were broadcasting from Gander, Newfoundland this weekend, and opened the show with a description of the International Lounge at Gander International airport. Once an essential stop-over for refueling planes traveling from New York to London, the Lounge has been almost magically frozen in time. A 2005 New York Times article on the lounge describes...

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Tower Neighbourhood Renewal article in the APT International

by ERA Architects

ERA is featured in the summer edition of the International Journal for the Association for Preservation Technology (APT), in an article examining the Tower Neighbourhood Renewal initiative. From the introduction: In 2008 the City of Toronto initiated its Tower Neighborhood Renewal program. The program looks at the significant impact of post–World War II construction in the city and proposes a...

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