Arts & Culture

The town of Halton Hills is a layered landscape of small and large urban settlements and crossroads communities, rural agricultural landscapes, river valleys and hills, with the Niagara Escarpment running through its northwestern corner. Nestled between the urban municipalities of Milton to the south and Brampton to the east, Halton Hills is a town on...

The 100-acre Anderson-Brighthouse farmstead contains a farmhouse and barn built in 1867, a series of out buildings, and an eight-acre clearing nestled amongst a dense forest. After a successful interior renovation of the farmhouse, the owners engaged ERA as lead architects to convert the barn into a 100-person multi-purpose event space, that, according to the...

What started as a hops farm in 2009, evolved eight years later into the GoodLot Farmstead Brewing Co., and with that came the need to adapt some of the existing barn buildings. With sustainability at the forefront, ERA led the renovation of one of the barns on the 28-acre farmstead property, converting the vacant building...

Relic Linear Park is a community-led vision developed by The Grange Community Association in partnership with the City of Toronto and Campbell House Museum. Guided by the Grange Green Plan and the Relic Park Prospectus, the Relic Linear Park System is an innovative public realm enhancement project in the Grange Park neighbourhood that upgrades existing...

plazaPOPS is a non-profit organization that facilitates the transformation of parking lots and other under-invested spaces through temporary “pop-up” installations. Designed as free, safe, and accessible gathering places, these pop-up experiences build on and complement the vibrant cultures, communities, and businesses in the surrounding neighbourhood. Largely working along suburban main streets, plazaPOPS partners with local...

Opened in 1984 in Agincourt, Scarborough, Dragon Centre was North America’s first indoor Chinese mall. Its developers — brothers Daniel and Henry Hung, originally from Hong Kong — adapted an old roller-skating rink into a mall serving the Greater Toronto Area’s growing Chinese-Canadian population. Combining Hong Kong’s dense commercial markets and the big box North...

Grange Park, a two-hectare public open space south of the Art Gallery of Ontario, is a rare surviving example of an early 19th century former residential estate. Although the grounds have evolved considerably, the terraced, axial and irregular elliptical layout in the Picturesque-Gardenesque style retains a high level of integrity. Today the park serves as...

Situated in the heart of the nation’s capital on Confederation Square, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre (NAC) displays a robust Brutalist geometric form, evoking the image of a fortress for the arts. Built between 1964 and 1969 as one of the federal government’s centennial projects, the NAC was designed by Fred Lebensold of the Montreal-based architecture...

  “Toronto is beginning to redefine itself through its concrete heritage – the fabric of our post-war growth – the architecture of our schools, universities, libraries and mass housing. Many are developing a cult following as a new type of landmark; and some are finding a second life through new investments and restorations. However, most...

Flag Field is a public work by artist Josh Thorpe, located at Maple Claire Park in Toronto. Flag Field consists of fourteen custom flags on flagpoles ranging from 25 to 50 feet high. Thorpe designed the flags as simple drawings of cats and dogs, stripes and polka dots etc. — images associated loosely with the...

A landmark in Toronto’s industrial Junction Triangle neighbourhood, the Tower Automotive Building was designed by architect John W. Woodman in collaboration with C.A.P Turner. Completed in 1920, the Sterling Road building is an early example of flat slab construction in Toronto, with ‘mushroom’ columns, whose distinct appearance are integral to both the design of the...

In April 2013, the Gladstone Hotel held the first annual Grow Op: Exploring landscape and place, an event curated by landscape architect Victoria Taylor, OALA. Representing the Friends of Allan Gardens, a team from ERA Architects contributed an installation called “Hoarding Suggestions.” The exhibit used materials from the City of Toronto Archives to raise visitors’...