Skip to content

ERA Architects

Stories/

Town & Country

Heritage at Home

by ERA Architects

ERA Associate and Architectural Conservation Lead, Jan Kubanek, has managed and consulted on immense, complex projects like the Government Conference Centre in Ottawa and Toronto’s Union Station—and like so many other Canadians has also faced the unforeseen complexities of his own home renovation. It’s hard to find a more capable person to offer advice on...

Read More

It’s Symposium Season!

by ERA Architects

The arrival of spring heralds opportunities to get out and enjoy engaging discourse on topics near and dear to the hearts of heritage conservationists. As a result, ERA has been branching out and sharing our knowledge with audiences in Toronto and Ottawa over the past weekend, participating in two exciting initiatives. First up, the Toronto branch...

Read More

Big Cities in a ‘small’ Context

by ERA Architects

How do cities grow? Do we limit growth or encourage it? Direct it or simply discover its natural rhythms? While municipal planning, land use policies and settlement patterns have shaped the physical aspect of North American cities, often social, cultural and environmental forces leave a firmer mark on our communities. ERA’s Philip Evans and Heather...

Read More

Re-imagining Prairie Grain Elevators (by guest blogger Ali Piwowar)

by ERA Architects

This past Friday, I was invited to present my master of architecture thesis to ERA Architects. My thesis, titled “Living Heritage: Re-imagining Wooden Crib Grain Elevators in Saskatchewan,” explores the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the iconic wooden grain elevators across the Canadian Prairie. The number of elevators in Saskatchewan peaked in 1938 with...

Read More

Newfoundland field research (by guest blogger Kathryn Douthart)

by ERA Architects

For the past five years, ERA’s Culture of Outports team has been working with rural communities along Newfoundland’s coast to foster liveable communities through research, design, and planning. In the summer of 2014, Culture of Outports worked with Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that builds working relationships between academia and industry by placing research interns with organizations...

Read More

Ardshona in Cottage Life

by ERA Architects

Recently, Cottage Life Magazine published a feature on Ardshona Cottage, summer home to builder David Ballantine and his family. ERA worked with the family to refurbish their wonderful historic cottage and the surrounding landscape at Pointe au Baril, Ontario. Throughout the building, several later, discordant interventions were edited, and the layout was altered to improve...

Read More

Botwood build: complete

by ERA Architects

As part of the Culture of Outports initiative, Andrew Pruss, Alana Young, Jordan Molnar, and Shelley Ludman recently collaborated with six Ryerson architecture students and residents of Botwood, Nfld. to design and build an intervention in the local landscape. The “Viewfinder” is a wood-frame, open-plank pavilion that serves as a shade structure, windbreak, and a...

Read More

Light show on air field: Botwood, Nfld.

by ERA Architects

As part of the recent Culture of Outports project, our team of ERAers and Ryerson students has been collaborating with residents of Botwood Newfoundland for several days. In addition to meals, tours, history lessons, and collaborative design charrettes, the team got together to install dozens of ice candles (made by residents especially for our visit)...

Read More

We’re off to Botwood, Nfld.

by ERA Architects

As part of the Culture of Outports initiative, ERA’s Andrew Pruss, Alana Young, and Jordan Molnar are heading to Botwood Newfoundland from Feb. 15 to 22. Together with a group of Ryerson Architecture students, we’ll be collaborating with the community on a number of events, as well as the design and construction of an intervention...

Read More

Gaspé: Vernacular Architecture Forum

by ERA Architects

This June, ERA’s Victoria Angel and Michael McClelland attended the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s annual conference “The Ebb and Flow of Religion and Economy in Gaspé Cultural Landscapes.” Victoria and Michael were part of a keynote panel discussing approaches to heritage conservation in smaller communities and rural settings. Gaspé, Québec is located on the northern tip...

Read More

Port Union Community Build

by ERA Architects

The Culture of Outports program has just concluded its third year of “community build” projects in Trinity Bay North, Newfoundland. The project uses planning and design thinking to bring new ideas and energy to outport communities experiencing economic and social change post-fisheries. This year ERAers Andrew Pruss, Alana Young, Shelley Ludman, Douglas de Gannes, traveled...

Read More

ERA in Nfld.: Update

by ERA Architects

This week in Trinity Bay North, Newfoundland, the 2013 Culture of Outports project got a great start on its community build process. The community is fantastic and we’re having a great time. In its first week the team has toured the local landscape and architecture extensively, held several community engagement meetings, mounted a historical slide...

Read More

ERA to Port Union, Nfld. mid-June

by ERA Architects

The Culture of Outports program is about to begin again, this time in Trinity Bay North, Newfoundland. Culture of Outports is a series of projects that uses research, design, and planning to engage and help support livable communities undergoing economic and cultural change after the decline of the Northern Cod Fishery. This year our student...

Read More

Fundraiser for Kenyan school a success

by ERA Architects

Recently, ERA Architects sponsored a silent auction and evening of drinks and hors d’oeuvres to raise funds for the continued construction of  Oleleshwa Primary School in Kenya. The January 2013 fundraiser garnered over $14,000, making the total raised-to-date over $50,000, not including labour and in-kind donations, which have also been significant. The project is one...

Read More

ERA in Port Union, Nfld.

by ERA Architects

ERA has begun consultations with the William Coaker Foundation and Port Union, Newfoundland, as part of the Culture of Outports program, and will be leading an exciting on-site project there in June 2013. Culture of Outports is a series of projects that uses research, design, and planning to engage and help support livable communities undergoing...

Read More

Repurposed junk: A chicken coop

by ERA Architects

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk” –Thomas Edison. One thing that attracted us to rural living was a sort of environmental frugality: You try to figure out how to accomplish what needs doing with what you’ve managed to save.  (This notion applies to the practice of heritage conservation as...

Read More

Community project in Brigus, Newfoundland

by ERA Architects

Recently Alana Young and Andrew Pruss returned from Brigus, Newfoundland where they worked with a group of Ryerson students to study the interaction of culture, place, history, and landscape. This project was part of an ongoing initiative by ERA and Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) called Culture of Outports, which investigates how architectural...

Read More

ERA goes to Brigus, Nfld.

by ERA Architects

We are pleased to announce the second installation of our Culture of Outports project, developed in collaboration with the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal. ERA’s Andrew Pruss and Alana Young have just arrived in Brigus, Newfoundland, which, dating from 1612, is one of the oldest European settlements in North America. Over the next two...

Read More

The Donald Standard Chemical Building

by ERA Architects

Rural architectural heritage extends beyond farm houses and small towns. Last summer, ERA helped the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario in support of the Green Step Project, an initiative to rehabilitate an abandoned industrial site east of Bancroft as showcase for environmental stewardship, heritage, and building technologies. A Nationally Significant Historical Site built in 1909, the...

Read More

Culture of Outports _ Burlington design/build

by ERA Architects

As part of the Culture of Outports project, ERA taught an intensive two-week design/build course in the small outport of Burlington, Newfoundland. The course was run through Dalhousie, and began with a lengthy road-trip from St. John’s, where students had the opportunity to study and immerse themselves in the local and material culture. Then, working...

Read More

ERA and Dalhousie Complete Newfoundland Free Lab

by admin

As part of the Culture of Outports project, ERA Architects taught an intensive design/build course with six Dalhousie University School of Architecture students in the small outport of Burlington, Newfoundland. A filled-in pond is currently serving as the only public site on Burlington’s waterfront, allowing for camping and social gathering. The studio course engaged with...

Read More

Culture of Outports: Burlington Freelab

by ERA Architects

ERA’s Culture of Outports project, through the Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal, and sponsored by TD Canada Trust, is now taking shape in Newfoundland. The team includes Principals-in-charge Michael McClelland and Philip Evans, Project Architect Will MacIvor, and Assistant Laila MacDougall-Milne, as well as six students from Dalhousie University’s School of Architecture in their...

Read More

Out East

by ERA Architects

Philip and Will recently took a trip out to Halifax, to give a public lecture at the Dalhousie School of Architecture and to introduce the Culture of Outports Free Lab project to the students and faculty. ERA has coordinated and will be leading an intensive two-week design/build studio in the outport community of Burlington, Newfoundland. ...

Read More

Picton Main Street

by ERA Architects

Meandering this morning through the Archives of the Ontario  I came across these  great pictures of Picton’s Main Street at the turn of the century. Parade (1905) H. B. Wright & Co. storefront (between 1898-1920) Picton Methodist Church and tourist office (between 1898 and 1920)

Read More

Hidden Architectural Gems

by ERA Architects

As part of our exploration of the County and surrounding areas, we recently had the opportunity to visit a few true architectural gems – Otto Roger’s artist studio by architect Siamak Hariri and the Bata Residence (in Batawa) by architect John B. Parkin. The Bata residence (currently being documented by Carleton University students) is a...

Read More