Stories/

Technique & Material

Ghost wall: casting a heritage façade in concrete

by ERA Architects , March 14, 2014

As part of the development of the Bay Adelaide Centre East Tower, ERA is working with KPMB, Adamson Associates, and Brookfield Properties to conserve and refurbish two facades of an impressive four-storey masonry building constructed in 1850 and heavily renovated in 1910. Part of the interpretation of the history of this site involves making moulds...

The Red Mason

by ERA Architects , November 6, 2012

Recently, as part of ERA’s ongoing interest in preserving and applying traditional building crafts, we were happy to be involved in heritage masonry workshops led by Dr. Gerard Lynch. Dr. Lynch is an internationally acclaimed historic brickwork consultant, master bricklayer, educator, and author. He is considered the world’s leading authority of gauged brickwork, and affectionately...

Conference in Charleston

by ERA Architects , October 24, 2012

Recently Andrew Pruss and Jan Kubanek traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to attend the Association for Preservation Technology International Conference, 2012. Jan Kubanek presented on Sharon Temple, a fascinating project ERA has had the opportunity to work on for several years. Jan’s presentation focused on the importance of working collaboratively with an interdisciplinary team. In...

Polychrome brickwork

by ERA Architects , October 19, 2012

Following up with more masonry-related topics in honour of an upcoming visit by our friend Gerard Lynch, today’s post is on a distinctive masonry tradition used internationally: polychrome brickwork, the use of usually two, but sometimes three, colours of brick, generally red with buff accents (but the opposite in the image above). Except for a...

Heritage Masonry with Gerard Lynch

by admin , October 16, 2012

Oct. 23 to 31 – various one- and two-day courses. Masons, heritage professionals, architects, historians, and all interested parties are invited to join us for a series of very special courses in brickwork. Learn from scholar and master mason Gerard Lynch about traditional limes and mortars, traditional binders, historical forms of pointing and jointing, causes...

Tuckpointing: a note on detail

by ERA Architects , October 11, 2012

This month we are posting on a few masonry-related topics in honour of an upcoming visit by our friend Gerard Lynch, who is leading heritage masonry workshops at Evergreen Brickworks, from October 23 to 31. Today’s post is on an ingenious but little-known art called tuckpointing. The term tuckpointing is often used today as a...

Heritage masonry courses with Gerard Lynch

by admin , October 5, 2012

Amendments to Heritage Policies in Toronto’s Official Plan

by admin , October 3, 2012

The City of Toronto has just brought forward draft Official Plan Amendment No. 199 regarding Public Realm and Heritage policies. In May of this year, a staff report recommending the adoption of revised heritage policies was brought forward, and a public open house was scheduled. Prior to the public open house on September 10th, ERA...

Stone Engravings at Soldiers’ Tower

by ERA Architects , September 13, 2012

One of the projects we have been involved with for several years is the ongoing masonry conservation of Soldiers’ Tower, a monument built just to the west of University of Toronto’s Hart House. An interesting aspect of the project has been to catalogue and document hundreds of lines of engraved text on several stone faces...

News & Events

Proposed Heritage Policies in the ‘Toronto Official Plan’ Review

by admin , September 10, 2012

As part of the current review of the Toronto Official Plan, new heritage policies have been drafted and presented to City Council for public discussion. Over the past months, we here at ERA have thoroughly reviewed the proposed municipal heritage policies. We are concerned that a great opportunity may be lost, for three key reasons: 1. The proposed policies primarily address regulatory and process issues rather than goals and objectives, 2. They don’t significantly advance us beyond the status quo, and 3. They show no sense of strategic implementation. Simply stated, why do we want to protect heritage resources? With an awareness of what we are not doing well, how can we do it better?

Brickwork course w/ Gerard Lynch: postponed

by admin , June 15, 2012

Postponed until October, we apologize for the inconvenience… Masons, heritage professionals, architects, historians, and all interested parties are invited to join us for a series of very special courses in brickwork. Learn from scholar and master mason Gerard Lynch about traditional limes and mortars, traditional binders, historical forms of pointing and jointing, causes of failure...

East Scarborough Storefront: Wood Inventory Part II

by ERA Architects , May 10, 2012

As we have mentioned previously on this blog, ERA Architects is collaborating with ArchiTEXT and Sustainable.TO on the exciting Community.Design.Initiative at East Scarborough Storefront. Over the course of an intensive 19-week mentorship semester we worked with community youth on the design of a kitchen garden and patio, a unique green-roof pavilion, a bee and butterfly...

East Scarborough Storefront – WOOD INVENTORY

by Graeme Stewart , April 9, 2012

Starting in January 2012, ERA and partners ArchiTEXT and Sustainable.TO have been leading the 5th semester of the Storefront’s Community.Design.Initiative (CDI), a weekly mentorship program for youth in the Kingston – Galloway – Orton Park (KGO) neighbourhood of East Scarborough. This semester the team is working with the youth to design a shade and naturalization...

Lime Mortars for Traditionally Constructed Brickwork

by ERA Architects , August 12, 2011

ERA, in cooperation with Historic Restoration Inc., hosted one- and two-day workshops for Heritage Professionals and Masons, titled Lime Mortars for Traditionally Constructed Brickwork, lead by Dr. Gerard Lynch. The workshops, held at the Evergreen Brick Works, included both theoretical and practical components, and covered such topics as; binders in historic mortar, historic forms of...

The Red Mason at the Brickworks

by admin , August 2, 2011

ERA Architects, in cooperation with Historic Restoration Inc., is hosting one and two day workshops for Heritage Professionals and Masons, titled Lime Mortars for Traditionally Constructed Brickwork, lead by Dr. Gerard Lynch. Dr. Lynch is an internationally acclaimed and highly respected historic brickwork consultant, master bricklayer, educator and author, considered the world’s leading authority of...

On mapping

by Michael McClelland , July 5, 2011

With any exercise in mapping there are a whole series of interesting Borges-like adventures that reveal themselves. There is the story or stories the map-writer wishes to tell, but to the map-reader there are countless other stories which may appear as unpredictable discoveries beyond the intentional. As a child, playing the game of ‘connect the...

Wellbeing Toronto

by ERA Architects , June 30, 2011

The City of Toronto has just launched ‘Wellbeing Toronto‘, which, in their own words, is: a new web-based measurement and visualization tool that helps evaluate community wellbeing across the city’s 140 neighbourhoods. Using geographic information software, Wellbeing Toronto allows you to select, combine and weight the significance of a number of indicators that monitor neighbourhood...

New Bloor

by ERA Architects , June 17, 2011

Marcus Gee has an article in the Globe today discussing the public realm improvements to the ‘Mink Mile’ along Bloor: The sidewalks have been widened by four feet to accommodate the bustling street life of Canada’s ritziest retail strip. The tired concrete of the old sidewalks has been replaced by Quebec-quarried granite paving stones of...

Building a ship in a bottle

by ERA Architects , June 15, 2011

The exterior masonry restoration work at MLG is progressing well, and will be complete by the end of the summer. Work has begun on the restoration of the historic Carlton marquee, which will be a wonderful public face to this adaptive reuse project. Inside, the floor slabs are almost all poured, and the internal spaces...

Auchmar Estate

by ERA Architects , June 13, 2011

Since 2006, ERA has been engaged in a series of conservation and repair projects at Auchmar Estate in Hamilton, Ontario. Most recently we have been examining and recording the finishes on both the exterior of the house and on the interior walls of the main front hall. Working with specialist paint analysts, we have identified...

Canada Hair Cloth

by ERA Architects , May 31, 2011

ERA is currently working with DSAI to convert the former Canada Hair Cloth factory in St. Catharines, ON, into Brock University’s new school for the performing arts. We’ve been down to site a few times to survey the conditions of the existing buildings – the oldest of which dates to 1888 – in order to...

Restoration of Spirit of John A. Locomotive Underway

by ERA Architects , May 31, 2011

Work is now underway on the relocation and restoration of The Spirit of John A locomotive in Kingston’s historic downtown. See the City’s website to follow along with the restoration of this unique landmark on Kingston’s waterfront.

Brick work

by ERA Architects , May 23, 2011

Andrew and Philip took a group of recent ERAers out for a quick tutorial on assessing the existing conditions of a masonry building, and on how to better understand Toronto’s nineteenth-century architecture. They discussed the various styles of brick treatment of the period, and the differences between the 1860’s style and 1880’s style. They also...

The animals of the Coliseum

by ERA Architects , January 28, 2011

As one small component of the interior restoration of the East Annex vestibule in the Coliseum Complex at Exhibition Place, ERA was asked to remove the wooden wall assembly and install new stair handrails. We considered a number of options and found that the most economical and appropriate for the space was a steel handrail...

Stripping

by ERA Architects , January 2, 2011

Work continues through the winter out at Allandale Station in Barrie, and Alana returned from a recent site visit with this evocative photo of the paint stripping in process.