News & Events
125th Anniversary of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at U of T
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Architecture Students, 1969, U of T Archives This year the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design will celebrate a landmark 125th anniversary. 125 years ago, in 1890, the University of Toronto became the first school in Canada to establish an architecture program. In honour of this, a few events will take place. May...
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What’s on This Week: The Ward Book Launch, Toronto the Good, TCLF Conference, and Doors Open Toronto
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Lots of exciting events taking place this week! Here’s a sneak-peek: The Ward: Wednesday, May 20, 7pm, you’re invited to join us for the book launch of The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood at the Church of the Holy Trinity, 10 Trinity Square. See our previous post here. The Cultural Landscape Foundation...
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ERA Heads to the Yukon!
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From the Gold Rush to present-day film festivals, from traditional First Nation livelihoods to contemporary eco-tourism, the architecture and natural landscape of the Yukon has a plethora of stories to share.The Klondike region of the Yukon holds a central place in Canadian history due to these stories. The Klondike-Tr’ondëk site is now up for nomination for a UNESCO...
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TCLF Presents, Second Wave of Modernism III: Leading with Landscape Conference
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As part of The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s conference series, Second Wave of Modernism III: Leading with Landscape will take place this May. The conference will tackle numerous issues including those that deal with the city’s identity – what does it mean for a 21st century city to be historic and modern at the same time?...
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The Ward: A new book, UPDATE
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ERA is excited to announce our new book all about Toronto’s St. John’s Ward. The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood, launches May 20th. See our previous post here. A number of events lead up to this exhilarating new release. The Ward will be presented in the Pages UnBound Festival, an annual mixed...
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Toronto the Good Celebrates the City’s Parks & Trees
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Toronto the Good is a party thrown each year by ERA Architects (and friends) to celebrate Toronto and contemplate its history and evolution with fellow architects, designers, thinkers, and urban-minded people.This year Toronto the Good in partnership with The Cultural Landscape Foundation will present the Second Wave of Modernism III: Leading with Landscape conference. Join us...
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Inspiring City Builders of Tomorrow: ERA & Jane’s Walk
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This spring ERA helped Jane’s Walk with the School Edition Program, a five-week curriculum designed to create student-led walking tours in two schools’ neighbourhoods. The program helps kids to get engaged in thinking about – and interacting with – their built environment in new and exciting ways. ERA’s Sara Jazaeri and Jasmine Frolick joined a...
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The community that could: The Storefront shares its story
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Recently the East Scarborough Storefront published a report documenting a number of aspects of their path to neighbourhood renewal. Since the Storefront’s approach has proven so successful, this report is very valuable for other communities interested in making some positive changes to the neighbourhood. Since the late 1990s, the East Scarborough Storefront has been facilitating...
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Iron man: Meet Joe Orsi
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As part of our regular series of professional development sessions in the ERA office, we recently hosted a presentation by building conservation and wrought iron expert, Joe Orsi of Orsi Contini Consultants. Joe completed his blacksmith apprenticeship in the early 1970s, applying his knowledge to a range of heritage projects from there on, and eventually...
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Lieutenant Governor’s Award to Allandale Station
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ERA is proud to announce that Allandale Station has received a 2014 Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation. A new category this year, the award recognizes exceptional work in conserving Ontario’s cultural and/or natural heritage resources through the completion specific projects. ERA and the City of Barrie were recognized for Allandale station,...
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Arrival City: Bookclub and Webinar, Mar 13
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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...
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After Empirical Urbanism
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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....
Read More The Ward: A new book, coming 2015
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ERA is excited to announce a new book all about Toronto’s St. John’s Ward. The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood is a collaboration with Coach House Books, John Lorinc, Ellen Scheinberg, and approximately 50 local writers. St John’s Ward, bordered by Yonge to the east, University to the west, Queen...
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Ontario Place in docomomoUS
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Recently ERA’s Michael McClelland collaborated with Ottawa-based architect James Ashby on an article on Toronto’s Ontario Place, for docomomoUS. The article reviews the history of this unusual site, discusses the significance of its iconic design, and reminds us of the opportunity we now have to enrich our understanding of how to approach modernist architecture as part of...
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ACO Awards to Don Jail and Taylor House
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Recently at the annual Awards of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO), both Bridgepoint / Don Jail and Sisters of St. Joseph / Taylor House were honoured with prestigious awards. The John F. Taylor House at the Residence for the Sisters of St. Joseph won the Peter Stokes Restoration Award, which recognizes “the exemplary restoration of significant...
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Brownie award to Bridgepoint Don Jail
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The Don Jail was just awarded a CUI Brownie Award for “Rebuild: Excellence in Project Development, Building Scale.” This project, which involved a huge team including +VG, KPMB, Stantec, Diamond Schmitt, HDR, Urban Strategies, and many others, transformed an 1864 historic Toronto jail into the new administrative offices for Bridgepoint Active Healthcare. Kitchener’s Lang Tannery...
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Taylor House wins at Heritage Toronto
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Taylor House at Sisters of St. Joseph was just awarded a Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence. The William Greer Architectural Conservation Award recognizes conservation and craftsmanship in heritage. The jurors called it “a text book example”. The project, a collaboration with Shim-Sutcliffe Architects (who designed a wonderful, Governor-General award-winning new facility) adapts and conserves an...
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University Ave.: A heritage landscape of value?
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The summer edition of Ground Magazine features an article by ERA’s Michael McClelland and Brendan Stewart on the history and design of Toronto’s University Avenue. When it was first designed in 1829 the Avenue was hailed as “one of, if not the finest in the Dominion.” Over the next century, the tranquil tree-lined promenade fell...
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Allan Gardens Harvest Festival
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On September 28, the Friends of Allan Gardens (FOAG) hosted its first Urban Harvest Festival in one of Toronto’s most historic parks. Three hundred people joined us to celebrate autumn amid the colouring trees and early-20th century greenhouses of Allan Gardens. With the generous support of TD Bank, FOAG collaborated with Food Forward, a food...
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Emmy to Short History of the Highrise
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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...
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Awards for Don Jail, Taylor House, and Gemini!
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On October 3, 2014, in Charlottetown, PEI, the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP) and Heritage Canada The National Trust (HCNT) announced their annual winners. ERA was privileged to work on three of the awarded projects. The Don Jail was awarded an HCNT Ecclesiastical Cornerstone Award for Adaptive Reuse. This award recognizes “projects that demonstrate...
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Holcim Award to 1 Spadina Cresc.
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Recently the Holcim Foundation Awards recognized 1 Spadina Crescent under the category “Heritage Reframed.” ERA is working with the University, NADAAA, and Adamson Associates to repair and refurbish the spectacular gothic revival building from 1875, and redevelop the site to accommodate a new addition designed by NADAAA to be occupied by the University’s Daniels Faculty...
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Toronto the Good: Great!
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Toronto the Good 2014, our tenth annual public party, was a big success. We had attendance exceeding 1000 people, and, according to accounts, a good time was had by all. Beer and wine flowed, music spun, people danced, and a great deal of urban-minded mingling occurred. ERA has been privileged to host and co-host this...
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Façades & cornice revealed on Yonge
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As the scaffold has been coming down over the summer, Torontonians might have noticed a new-old building at the corner of Yonge and Temperance: the last remaining of a row of historic buildings once known as the Elgin Block. As part of the redevelopment of the Bay-Adelaide site (with KPMB, Adamson Associates, and Brookfield Properties)...
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Sky-o-swale and sports pad unveiled in Scarborough
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On Wednesday, June 24th ERA joined hundreds of friends and community members at the East Scarborough Storefront to celebrate the launch of two new landscape features: the Sky-o-swale shade-water structure, and the MLSE/Jumpstart Sports Court. The accomplishment of these two new site features is the result of a great collaborative design-build effort between the Storefront,...
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