1. DON'T MISS-APRIL 7 Toronto School Buildings AT RISK: A Symposium in Three Parts
ACO Toronto

Lord Lansdowne School, architect Peter Pennington and Frederick C Etherington, rusting away

This symposium is presented by ACO Toronto, but the issue applies across Ontario. 

A full quarter of Toronto’s schools are in critical condition and require extensive renovations or replacement of core systems. Leaking roofs, broken boilers, and other symptoms of general neglect such as mold, rust, and asbestos are commonplace. While the city’s school buildings crumble, chronic underfunding and poor policy have caused a repair backlog of $3.7 billion, quickly increasing to a staggering $6 billion by 2020.

2. City of Toronto Moving Ahead with Main Streets Listings
Catherine Nasmith

College Street: A Study Part !, Steve Russell and Alec Keefer

The City of Toronto Heritage Preservation Services department is to be applauded for its current program of looking at larger areas, particularly along Toronto's main streets, and adding a large group of properties to the City's Heritage Register at a time. 

At the recent Toronto Preservation Board a large group of properties along College Street between Beverly Street and Bathurst Streets were added at once, along with a survey of Broadview Avenue. This is not the City wide survey that councillors have been asking for, but I hope it represents first steps in developing the methodology. Both of these surveys were undertaken in association with Secondary Plan processes. The reasons for studying them as a group, as well as some general statements of their significance are included, as well as a Statement of Significance for each property.

ACO Toronto, (I am the current President) is very enthusiastic to see several of the properties researched and published by us in Alec Keefer and Steve Russell's book College Street, as well as several properties along College we had researched and posted to TOBuilt. ACO Toronto wrote in support of the College Street listings, both for their architectural significance and their importance as home to many small businesses that would be unlikely to be found in the new out of scale re-developments that are rapidly encroaching. College Street is also one of the important edges of both Kensington Market and the Harbord Village neighbourhoods, both part way through the process of becoming Heritage Conservation Districts.

ACOToronto developed the TOBuilt database as a place where citizens from across Toronto could post in a central place all that they know about Toronto's buildings.  It is our hope that TOBuilt will become an important part of the process in identification, recording and conserving Toronto's architecture. 

Congrats to the city staff for this terrific advance. 

3. Dan Schneider's Blog, OHA+M moves to Heritage Resource Centre
Michael Drescher

Established in 1980, The Heritage Resource Centre (HRC) was founded in the Faculty of Environment to promote a better understanding of natural and human heritage for the improvement of planning management, and public policy through research, education, and extension work.

As part of this mandate, The University of Waterloo’s Heritage Resources Centre (HRC) and heritage consultant Dan Schneider have announced that the HRC will now host Dan’s heritage policy blog OHA+M.

The move of the blog to the HRC’s website occurred in mid-January. Dan started the blog almost three years ago, during Heritage Week 2015, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Ontario Heritage Act and the tenth anniversary of the 2005 overhaul of the act.

With new articles every 2-3 weeks, the blog boasts more than 70 posts to date on a wide variety of issues. OHA+M has become a respected source of information and commentary on Ontario’s legal and policy framework for cultural heritage as well as current public policy initiatives and issues. In October 2017 Dan received a Heritage Education and Scholarship Award of Excellence for the blog from the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals.

Since 1984 the HRC has conducted research and offered education on heritage themes and worked with government at all levels on a broad range of heritage initiatives. Michael Drescher, Director of the HRC, says the collaboration on OHA+M, “will expand the HRC’s role as ideas generator and centre for the discussion and debate of heritage legislation, policy and issues.”

For his part, Dan says, “The commitment of the HRC to house, manage and promote OHA+M marks a major turning point for the blog. I’m really looking forward to seeing what we — together — can do here.” Please follow this link to read the OHA+M policy blog at its new home on the HRC website: https://uwaterloo.ca/heritage-resources-centre/blog

4. Lieutenant Governor's Awards for Heritage
Ontario Heritage Trust

Each year, the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Awards celebrate individuals, groups and communities for exceptional contributions to cultural and natural heritage conservation, environmental sustainability and biodiversity.

 Recipients:

 Lifetime Achievement

• Mi Young Kim (Toronto)
• Anna Maria Nanowski (Bradford West Gwillimbury)
• Lawrence Turner (Cambridge)
• Myno Van Dyke (Clarington)

 Youth Achievement – Individual (also receiving the Young Heritage Leaders scholarship)

• Jessica Linzel (Lincoln)

 Youth Achievement – Groups

• Eye Was Not There (360) Project – Grade 11 Communications Technology class, St. Patrick’s Catholic High School (Sarnia)
• Immigrant Belonging Podcasts – Sociology class group project at the University of Toronto Scarborough
• Kensington Market: Hidden Histories – students in the Digital Tools in a Canadian Context course at the University of Toronto

 Excellence in Conservation

• Brockville Railway Tunnel Committee for restoration and reopening of the Brockville Railway Tunnel
• ERA Architects for rehabilitation of Casey House, Toronto
• University of Windsor’s Department of History and Leddy Library, Chatham Sports Hall of Fame, and the Harding Family for Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” and the Chatham Coloured All-Stars
• Friends of the Penitentiary Museum for In Our Own Words: the Links Between Kingston’s Heritage and its Penitentiaries
• 4elements Living Arts and their community partners for Billings Connections Trail: Nature. Art. Heritage. (Billings)
• Geraldine Govender for the Moose Cree Dictionary (Moose Cree First Nation)
• Journalists for Human Rights, Indigenous Reporters Program (Toronto)
• Red Sky Performance, Miigis Project (Toronto)
• Township of North Glengarry’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Committee for the Glengarry Routes Heritage Tour and Community Improvement Plan
• Jason Dickson and Vanessa Brown for London: 150 Cultural Moments (London)
• Alderville First Nation for restoration of the Alderville Black Oak Savanna
• David and Faith Clarkson for Applegarth Farm watercourse restoration, a partnership with Credit Valley Conservation (Caledon)

 Community Leadership

• Alderville First Nation for restoration and expansion of the Alderville Black Oak Savanna

 Special Achievement

• Bruce Trail Conservancy for its 50-year commitment to the creation, stewardship and promotion of the Bruce Trail

The Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Awards are administered by the Ontario Heritage Trust, an agency of the Government of Ontario dedicated to identifying, preserving, protecting and promoting Ontario’s heritage.

5. Toronto Star: Minister of Education stops Project for Cultural Reasons
Andrea Gordon

Province halts Toronto Catholic board's controversial land deal

Columbus Centre

 

 

Opponents to a redevelopment that would have housed a Catholic high school and the Columbus Centre under one roof worried the proposal would mean the demolition of the centre.  (ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)

Editor's Note:
This is an interesting decision, and suggests that some of the messaging ACO has been making about the need to consider cultural value in real estate decisions has been getting through.....or...community noise....or upcoming election....

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6. BlogTO: Design Competition for George Brown College
Lauren O'Neill

Toronto is getting a Stunning new building made of wood

Entry by Shigeru Ban and Brook McIlroy

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7. Globe and Mail: Eugene Janiss Architect
Dave LeBlanc

The Janiss genius: An architect who made his mark on Toronto

Apartment Building, Graydon Hall

Latvian-born designer Eugene Janiss was known for his bold visions that often challenged traditional sensibilities 

The original lobby of 123 Edward St., Toronto, designed by architect Eugene Janiss. 

VIJA JANISS TRIPP 

 

It's just an oversized waiting room now: Knapsacks tossed on benches and expectant stares directed at the trio of elevator doors. Body language here says: "Hurry up at your appointment so we can leave."

 

123 Edward St., photographed in 1969. PANDA ASSOCIATES COLLECTION 

But in 1964, the newly minted lobby of the Toronto Professional Building at 123 Edward St. was all about lingering. To wit: a curved, second-floor balcony serviced by twin floating staircases; a "flying saucer" information desk; by the window-wall, a shallow, burbling fountain; overhead, a complex, metal latticework of triangular domes featuring soft, hidden lighting; walls dressed in gorgeous purple and blue tile with gold accents; shiny floors of speckled blue terrazzo. 

It was, says Steve Russell, co-author and editor of books published by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, "a marvellous space.

 

"Very healing, water sounds. Beautiful."

Save for the terrazzo floors and the tile around the elevator doors on the second floor, it's all gone now. So perhaps it's better I can't ring up architect Eugene Janiss (1911-2004) to get his opinion. "He was very fussy about everything," confirms his only child, 75-year-old Vija Janiss Tripp. "Everything had to be just so."

At least the handsome, pleated curtain-walled exterior won't change; then again, in development-crazy Toronto, who knows?

Architect Eugene Janiss completed his doctorate in architecture and planning in Germany in 1947. 

VIJA JANISS TRIPP 

That Dr. Janiss  while he received his bachelor's degree in his native Latvia in 1943, his doctorate in architecture and planning was completed in Germany in 1947  turned to fine art later in life is understandable, since no two buildings that sprung from his fertile drafting board were alike. All, however, were lovingly crafted as if formed out of sculpting clay. "He really admired the Guggenheim Museum in New York," Ms. Tripp says. "Everything that was kind of far out like that." 

His churches were far out indeed. Viewed from above, Hilltop Chapel in Etobicoke is an abstracted fish, complete with tail; viewed from the sidewalk, it's a series of soft curves and recesses in brick, some now dressed in ivy. At Our Lady Queen of the World in Richmond Hill, Ont., the façade represents two praying hands (today, an expanded foyer obscures this). And, like a true artist, Dr. Janiss designed the furniture and light fixtures. 

Hilltop Chapel in Etobicoke is shaped like an abstracted fish, complete with tail.

 

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8. Globe and Mail: Peter Dickinson at Centennial College
Dave LeBlanc

Dickinsonian vibe still alive at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre

They're just a series of interlocking hoops and a few balls – likely meant to represent electrons and their orbits – held aloft by a swoopy arch over a reflecting pool, but they represent so much more.

The ball-and-hoops sculpture, designed by Peter Dickinson, was reproduced when the original rusted out. 

It was "a very optimistic time in North America, nuclear power, the war was over, things were changing for the better," agrees Nate Horowitz, dean and campus principal of Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, where the sculpture has sat since 1954. But it also shows the commitment the college has demonstrated to one of Toronto's almost-forgotten Modernist gems, which they took over in 1978.

Built as the Toronto Teacher's College, the design for both sculpture and building was penned by Peter Dickinson, a larger-than-life, British expat who chain-smoked and partied his way into the hearts of the postwar city before his untimely death in 1961. Indeed, his was the only architect's mug featured in Toronto '59, the booklet that commemorated the city's 125th anniversary. Mr. Dickinson, as aficionados know, was one of a handful of unlikely heroes who reset the staid course – or perhaps turned it upside down and vigourously shook it – of Toronto architecture. Raise in London, where he'd worked on a water feature for the Festival of Britain after graduation from the prestigious Architectural Association, Mr. Dickinson arrived in 1950 ready to build the future.

As chief designer at Page and Steele, he'd began with the Yolles and Rotenberg Building at 111 Richmond St. W. (designed 1950, opened 1954; recently restored and now home to Google), and Benvenuto Place Apartments for the Yolles family in 1951. By 1952, at the tender age of 26, he'd sketch out the Teacher's College as a long rectangle with a quadrangle for a tight, residential site at 951 Carlaw Ave. He'd place a flying, boisterous concrete canopy over the front door and dress it in a rhythmic curtain wall on both the street-facing and the quad-facing façades. And to really make the composition dance, he'd curve one of the quad's walls inward, randomly place turquoise and chartreuse spandrel panels throughout and give a simple tool shed a butterfly roof.

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9. Globe and Mail:Gordon Adamson's Hobb's House, Rosedale,
Dave LeBlanc

Hobbs Sun House brought International Style to Toronto's Rosedale

 

The Hobbs Sun House in Toronto, c. 1945. UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY, The strikingly modern, 3,000-square-foot home was designed for the president of Hobbs Glass

To architecture buffs, firsts are important. Which villa was Andrea Palladio'sfirst? Could we pinpoint the very first Queen Anne home? Since Art Deco existed before Paris's 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs, which buildings defined the style? Were the exhibition homes of the Weissenhof Estate in 1927 Stuttgart the very first International Style homes?

While there are no Palladian villas in Canada, we can claim a rich history with many architectural movements, including the International Style. Honest, stripped of ornament, and with walls of sheet glass made possible by 20th-centurytechnology, it was born in 1920s Europe and given its name by architects Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock for their groundbreaking 1932 Museum of Modern Art exhibition in New York.

While the International Style's Canadian heyday was certainly the post-Second World War period, a handful of progressive Canadians were thinking about it before the war; most consider the first soul brave enough to turn it into bricks-and-mortar to be artist Bertram Charles Binning. A 1932 graduate of the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, in 1939 the art teacher designed a small, open-concept home in North Vancouver that, according to Donald Luxton & Associates in a 2017 conservation report, acted "as a catalyst for the Modern movement in Canada." (Indeed, in 1997 the house became a National Historic Site of Canada.) He moved in in 1941.

In Toronto, while the 1922 Ashley-Crippen house in Moore Park may have been first to reject ornament, its massing and punched windows keep it firmly rooted in the Art Deco realm. To find floor-to-ceiling glass, such as Binning's, we must travel to Rosedale for the 1944 "Hobbs Sun House."

The Hobbs Sun House was designed by architect Gordon Sinclair Adamson for Clare F. Wood, president of Hobbs Glass.

 

Editor's Note:
Dave LeBlanc is really on a roll lately, 3 excellent carefully researched articles. When the Rosedale HCD district was done, there were not resources to do detailed research on every property, which is why such an important house was given a C rating. The C rating often means "we just don't know".

Click here for Link

10. Heritage Resource Centre: Missing Heritage Property Tax Class
Dan Schneider

A Tax Class for Heritage Gets the Cold Shoulde

Artscape Youngplace, a culture hub on Shaw Street, Toronto

 

Picking up from last time:The City of Toronto and the province are joining forces to address the tax squeeze in which a number of Toronto properties find themselves.

 

About 20 arts/culture hubs, aka creative co-location facilities, will get slotted into a new property tax subclass and be entitled to a 50% reduction in taxes. Whether, as Toronto tax assessments continue to climb, this will be enough to preserve these facilities in the long-term — or be effective only for a few years — remains to be seen.In case you were wondering, it does seem like the province is open to letting other municipalities in on the act. Hamilton and other GTA cities are or soon will be facing similar pressures on their creative hubs.  Ottawa too?Certainly, it is not just culture facilities like 401 Richmond that are at risk from rapidly escalating tax assessments. Heritage buildings in the commercial and industrial tax classes are particularly vulnerable, and very, very few of them will qualify for the new creative co-location facilities subclass.As we saw last time, Toronto’s January 2017 appeal to the government asked for help with the property assessment predicament for not just culture hubs, but heritage properties more broadly. That part of the council motion read:

City Council request the Government of Ontario to work with municipalities to examine property assessment for listed and designated heritage properties, including tools that would support the conservation of heritage properties and Municipal Property Assessment Corporation property-assessment tools and processes.

While the culture hubs request has gotten traction, the heritage properties request landed with a thud.  The province seems to think this has been addressed. Has it?

Click here for Link

11. Toronto Star: New Interactive Map to Historic Toronto pics
Edward Keenan

Travel through time across Toronto with help from Googles Sidewalk Labs

Editor's Note:
This is a great addition to Toronto's historic resources, thanks Sidewalk Labs and Toronto City Archives.

Click here for Link

12. Toronto Star: Ontario's First Salmon Hatchery
Carola Vyhnak

Its no fish tale: Samuel Wilmot started Ontarios first salmon hatchery in his basement

Samuel Wilmot's House, Replaced an earlier structure

It was an unusual project to do in a house basement: hatch salmon eggs and raise the small fry on a diet of minced liver.

But Samuel Wilmot’s experiment succeeded and in 1868, he opened Ontario’s first full-scale fish hatchery in the Village of Newcastle, 80 kilometres east of Toronto.

By the time the facility closed almost 50 years later, it had produced 155 million baby fish and served as a model for hatcheries across Canada and in other countries.

Wilmot himself earned a global reputation as an accomplished pisciculturist. The Canadian Geographical Journal called his work possibly the “greatest single contribution ever made to the North American fish culture.”

But things didn’t always go swimmingly for either salmon or their would-be saviour, who hoped to restore Lake Ontario’s depleted Atlantic salmon stocks.

Back in the early 1800s, overfishing along with environmental damage from agriculture and industry took a big bite out of the piscine population.

Wilmot Creek, a noted spawning stream named for Wilmot’s father that skirted Newcastle, was a popular fishing spot among early settlers and First Nations people. By the mid-19th century, salmon were headed for extinction after wagonloads were taken by spearing and clubbing. (Nets were prohibited.)

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13. Toronto.com: Redevelopment of School Property at Bloor and Dufferin
Justin Skinner

School will be demolished

Erella Ganon, a resident in the Bloor-Dufferin area, is concerned about the 30,000-square metre redevelopment at Bloor and Dufferin streets. - Justin Greaves/Metroland 

Click here for Link

14. Canadas Tentative List for World Heritage Sites
Parks Canada

Wanuskewin, one of the Tentative List for World Heritage Sites

42 Nominations for sites from across Canada were whittled down to 8 that will be going forward, which join an additional 6 that remain from the last update in 2004. The nomination process will be closed for 10 years. There is a list of the 42 applications which you can review, but no detail of the submissions. There is no information on the internal decision making that led to the final list. Most of the successful nominations are for very large and impressive natural sites or places of Indigenous significance. The exception to that is from Newfoundland, Hearts Content Cable Station, which is also a provincial historic site. 

Click here for Link

15. CBC News: Heritage Ottawa issues 'call to action' against Château Laurier expansion - Group says new designs still not good enough
Staff

A view of the proposed design from Majors Hill Park. (Larco Investments)

An Ottawa heritage advocacy group wants the entire country to tell Ottawa city council that the new proposed design for the Château Laurier's addition simply isn't good enough.

Heritage Ottawa put out a "call to action" Tuesday asking all Canadians to tell Ottawa city councillors to reject the proposed design for the expansion of the hotel.

"We can do better. The architects can do better and that's what we want to see," said the group's co-chair Leslie Maitland.

Click here for Link

16. Globe and Mail: Guelph's Petrie Building
Dave LeBlanc

After decades of neglect, the rebirth of a Guelph heritage building

Before Restoration

 

The Petrie Building, with its unique stamped-zinc façade, after restoration. 

"Every person that walks up or down Wyndham St. cannot fail to admire the handsome new building," wrote the Guelph Mercury in 1882. Designed by "our own townsman," Mr. John Day, the newspaper declared the slender, four-storey building to be "one of the finest in the Dominion."

 

An original etching of the building. TYRCATHLEN PARTNERS 

Financed by pharmacist Alexander BainPetrie (1842-1921), the building was also one of the Dominion's most unique: Using a system developed in the booming U.S. Midwest, the highly ornamented, stamped-zinc façade was mail-ordered from Ohio firm Bakewell& Mullins. It arrived in sections and was hammered into place. Local tinsmiths added their own bits and bobs and then it was "painted and then treated with a coated sand when it was tacky to give it the imitation of a brownstone," says Kirk Roberts, a man who has put a great deal of thought into Petrie'sbuilding for the last few years. "So it was a really rapid way to build a building that looked like stone."

However, by 2014, the Petrie Building no longer looked like stone. With a naked metal façade riddled with rust, a pestle absent from the gigantic ornamental mortar on top, boarded windows on three floors and a greasy spoon operating on the main floor, it took its shameful place on National Trust for Canada's "Top 10 Most Endangered Places" list. Add that those three floors had been unheated and unoccupied for decades – the second since the 1920s, the third since 1906 and the interiors of the fourth having never been constructed – and it was "becoming a victim of demolition by neglect."

Thankfully, Mr. Roberts and his wife/business partner, Peregrine Wood, were ready for another restoration challenge in early 2015. After getting their hands dirty on a Queen Anne home, an 1847 boarding house and an old Gooderham & Wortsgrainery with their Tyrcathlen Partners (which they'd created after a job transfer brought the couple from Toronto), the Petrie didn't seem so daunting. And, quite serendipitously, as they conducted online research from their living room couch, they realized that they were sitting in the same stone house A.B. Petrie himself had lived in a hundred years ago: "Small towns," Mr. Roberts says with a chuckle.

 

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17. Globe and Mail: Laser Technology and Recording Heritage
Ivan Semeniuk

Restoration, modernization of Parliament Hill buildings will give them an extraordinary second life

CARLETON IMMERSIVE MEDIA STUDIO

Blown away by the sight, his first reaction was to turn to his girlfriend (now his wife) and ask her how to say, "That is a beautiful building" in French.More than 30 years later, Dr. Fai is director of Carleton University's Immersive Media Studio. It is a digital playground where architectural dreams can be conjured up out of the ether of virtual reality – and where the Canada's Parliament Buildings have found an extraordinary second life.

With the Centre Block due to shut down this fall for a decade-long makeover, and the House of Commons and the Senate moving to temporary digs in the West Block and the nearby convention centre, respectively, preparations are well under way for the mother of all renovation projects. But even before the contractors get to work, Dr. Fai and his team have been busy with a suite of high-tech tools capturing every detail of the building so it can be recreated as a digital model that will serve as a reference for the project.

 

 

"It really is creating an 'as found' record as a starting point for the whole rehabilitation team," Dr. Fai said.

Carleton University professor Stephen Fai adjusts a 360-degree camera in the Library of Parliament. DAVE CHAN/THE GLOBE AND MAIL 

 

 

In practice, the effort means that every detail of Canada's most iconic building – both inside and out – is scanned and documented in a three-dimensional database known as a building information model. Since the advent of computer-aided design, such an approach has become standard practice for new buildings. Starting nine years ago, with his involvement in a refurbishment project for the West Block, Dr. Fai pioneered the method as a way to aid in the restoration and modernization of heritage buildings. The approach includes using lasers and cameras that can scan and capture every architectural feature and detail, including those that are rarely seen up close. Using these data, Dr. Fai has developed what is essentially a digital representation of the building and all its parts. That representation, in turn, is a visual index in which every element is tagged so that engineers know what the element is made of, what it connects to, where it came from and – in the case of moveable objects such as paintings – where it is stored. Asked if the model is accurate enough that, in theory, someone could use it to reconstruct an entire life-size copy of the Parliament Buildings elsewhere, Dr. Fai said, without hesitation: "Yes."

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18. Globe and Mail: Patkau Architects
Alex Bozikovic

The quiet genius of Vancouvers Patkau Architects

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19. Heritage blog OHA+M relocates to UWaterloo
Dan Schneider

OHA+M Moves to Waterloo

In The Blog Takes a Bow late last year I signalled that OHA+M would be relocating to the website of UWaterloos Heritage Resources Centre. Well, cest arrivé!

The hosting of the blog by the HRC was announced January 15 at the HRCs annual general meeting in Waterloo.

It goes without saying that I am thrilled by the move and the opportunity it represents.

I launched the blog three years ago, during Heritage Week 2015, with an article marking the 40th anniversary of the Ontario Heritage Act and the tenth anniversary of the 2005 overhaul of the act. With new articles every few weeks, the blog now boasts more than 70 posts on a wide range of topics. The focus from the start has been Ontarios legal and policy framework for cultural heritage as well as current public policy initiatives and issues.

Lets face it, serious discussion of heritage policy can be a bit dry and technical analysis of legislation, in particular, can make the eyes roll. While I try to keep things engaging  and occasionally take a break from the heavy stuff altogether  OHA+M is not for all tastes. A friend (?) recently referred to the blog as bigyawn.com! Haha.

Okay, it is a blog for heritage policy wonks. And, within that niche audience, the reception has been very gratifying. OHA+M has come to be seen as a respected source of information and commentary. Last October the blog earned its blogger an Award of Excellence for Heritage Education, Awareness and Scholarship from the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals.

The new association with the Heritage Resources Centre is a great fit for OHA+M.

Many of you will be familiar with the centre and its former director, Robert Shipley. Robert retired last year, although continues to be involved with the HRC. The new director, Michael Drescher, is committed to strengthening the HRCs mandate. That mandate, according to the website, is to promote a better understanding of natural and human heritage for the improvement of planning management and public policy, through research, education, and extension work.

Michael says the collaboration on OHA+M will expand the HRCs role as ideas generator and centre for the discussion and debate of heritage legislation, policy and issues.

For my part the commitment of the HRC to house, manage and promote OHA+M marks a major turning point and takes the blog to a whole new level. Im excited to see how this works out.

What will change, besides a different address and new look? Not much from the reader's standpoint. But we do expect the commenting function will be friendlier, making it easier for readers to share their thoughts. If youve never commented on something you liked, didnt agree with, or thought something more could be said  why not give it a try?

What you need to know: The old blog at the blogspot address will continue to exist but will essentially go dormant. This will be the last post to that site. From now on new posts will go up at this address, where all previous posts can also be found.

To continue to receive new posts, followers and subscribers of the blog (or me) will need to re-subscribe using the RSS Notifier app (at the upper right on the new home page).

Please re-subscribe  we dont want to lose you. And if youre not a subscriber, theres no better time!

Click here for Link

20. Oshawa This Week: Former McLaughlin House at Risk
Reka Szekely

Heritage Oshawa wants home associated with industrialist Robert McLaughlin preserved

OSHAWA -- Jane Clark and Heritage Oshawa are asking that the home at 195 Simcoe St. N. be designated as a heritage property. The house was once home to Robert McLaughlin, who founded the McLaughlin Carriage Company that later became General Motors Canada. February 12, 2018. - Ryan Pfeiffer / Metroland  

 

Click here for Link

21. Saving Places: The Women who loved and Worked for FLW
Carson Bear

Where Does Frank Lloyd Wright's Genius Come From

Martha Mamah Borthwick

Editor's Note:
The video in the article is really worth a look, it has information on 100 women apprentices. Now women make up more than half of architectural graduates, but the profession still loses many from practice.

Click here for Link

22. Stratford Beacon Herald:Demolishing the Columns on the White House
Jonathan Juha

Stratford heritage advocates worried about permit to demolish White House columns

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23. Treehugger:Heritage Reno achieves Passivhaus standards
Lloyd Alter

Passivhaus isn't just a standard of energy, it's a standard of luxury

© Prewitt Bizley Architects

Prewett Bizley show how going Passivhaus increases comfort and quality for people who don't worry about energy costs.

Passivhaus, or Passive House, was originally all about saving energy and sets strict limits on heat loss and air infiltration. The very rich people in this world don't worry much about energy costs, yet more and more of the nicest houses in the world are being built to Passivhaus standards. One incredible example is this Bloomsbury Town House in London, renovated by Prewett Bizley Architects.

 

© Prewitt Bizley Architects

 

Originally built in 1820 and previously used as office space, the architects, working with interior designer Emily Bizley, restored it to single family glory. It also had "the added ambitious target of pushing its energy efficiency towards Passivhaus Enerphit standard."

Enerphit is a standard developed for renovations, and slightly relaxed from the Passivhaus standard. It's still tough, and even though it appears that they missed the airtightness test by just a bit, the results are still spectacular.

 

 

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24. Daily Mail: Restoration of Chatsworth House
Richard Kat, Thanks to Margie Zeidler for the forward

Chatsworth goes bling!

Not since the Windsor Castle fire has there been a makeover of one of our national treasures on such a scale. Indeed, the restoration of Chatsworth House has cost only a few million pounds less than the £37 million lavished on the castle.

However, the facelift of Chatsworth, in Derbyshire — where Keira Knightley’s heart as Miss Bennet first fluttered over the brooding Mr Darcy in the big-screen version of Pride And Prejudice — was prompted not by adversity but because its owner, the Duke of Devonshire, had no wifi.

That became the trigger for the biggest, costliest and longest refurbishment of his family seat, garden and surrounding parkland for almost 200 years.

 

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