Laneway Housing: Berryman Street & Barton Myers revisited

 

EDITOR: This is a continuation in our series looking at the laneway housing projects created in a University of Toronto Architecture Faculty's Laneway Housing studio led by Brigitte Shim & Don Chong. This work and text is by Sonia Ramundi , whose bio you can find below.

Berryman Avenue, located in Yorkville is home to the "Myer's Residence" at 19 Berryman, one of the first residential infill projects in our city.  The steel frame house, designed by architect Barton Myers, allows for large spans that provide an interior courtyard, making natural light a prominent feature of the house.  Inspired by the idea that a structural system or technique can control the presence of natural light, a site was chosen for this project on the same street and with the same orientation to the sun, but with an additional constraint: a small Victorian house at the front of the lot.

 

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My City Lives: David Miller on Redefining Citizenship

The most recent TedxToronto featured a wide range of speakers discussing topics pertaining to "redefining." Among the speakers was David Miller who had an inspiring speech on redefining citizenship. Miller focused his speech on how the citizens within Toronto can commit to making the kind of city they believe in and how together we can redefine the government to meet those needs.

One week until Spacing’s new issue release party!

WHAT: Spacing release party for Summer 2012 issue
WHEN: Tuesday, May 29th, 7:30-midnight
WHERE: Evergreen Brick Works, BMO Atrium
COST: free! (mag costs $5  ///  discount subscriptions at the door)
RSVP: Check out the event listing on Facebook or email us

What would Toronto look like if a disaster hit our city? What would an earthquake do to our buildings? Are tornadoes a part of our future? What about an extended fuel shortage or a drought in the farmlands of Ontario? And what would happen if the CN Tower fell over? The Americans wouldn't invade us for our water — would they?

In Spacing's most cynical and apocalyptic issue ever, our contributors examine all the big, bad scary things that could rock the foundation of Toronto. And what better place to have it than along the edges of the Don River at the Evergreen Brick Works, one of the many places hit hard by floods during Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

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Urban Planet: Subway System Patterns

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

Given the complexity and contentiousness of subway network design, it is tempting to think that there might be a science behind network development. An article published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface looks at hundreds of subway systems worldwide and defines some key patterns that the systems share. The paper suggests that networks can be divided into a core and branches, with the core often lying beneath the city’s center and the branches extending outwards. Branches tend to be about twice as long as the width of the core and roughly 20 percent of the stations in the core link two or more lines. (Scientific American)

Image from Fat Panda Productions

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

LORINC: More travellin’ blues for Ford (Environics poll, pt. II)

While Christmas is a long way off, Mayor Rob Ford decided to dangle a shiny bauble in front the eyes of North York and Scarborough voters, pledging during his radio campaign commercial, uh, show, that privatizing garbage collection east of Yonge will be on his to-do list for the 2014 election.

This obvious diversion tactic must be considered in the light of a pair of new polls that offer some key insights into the changing complexion of voter attitudes towards the city’s most vexing problem, which, it must be said, is not garbage.

Last week, Stratcom (whose principals worked on George Smitherman’s mayoral campaign) released a poll showing that Ford’s approval ratings fell sharply in both Scarborough and North York since February. In North York, his numbers plunged from 56 to 40%, while Scarborough’s approval rating dropped from 48 to 41%. Just over a third of Toronto respondents overall felt he is doing a good job — a figure that nudges up against David Miller’s all-time low of 29%, during the garbage strike. (Stratcom’s poll of 954 voters is accurate within 3.2%, 19 times out of 20.)

Voters in those parts of the city, it would be reasonable to surmise, may be growing weary of Ford’s empty and undeliverable transit promises. Indeed, according to a new Environics survey of GTA residents, Ford looks to be on the wrong side of one of the region’s most top-o’-mind concerns: transportation.

The Focus GTA poll results, which Environics generously agreed to share with Spacing Toronto readers, reveal that the number of respondents who cited transportation as the GTA’s single most pressing issue jumped sharply, from 22% to 38% between last fall and this spring. Six in ten found commuting to be stressful or very stressful, although that figure is somewhat smaller (52%) within the 416. (Environics’ results are based on 1,436 responses to an online survey.)

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Tuesday’s Headlines

GETTING AROUND
• AutoShare comes to the burbs [Toronto Star]
• Pearson’s cable-propelled transit LINK is TTC rider’s dream [Toronto Star]

CP STRIKE
• GO Transit disruptions possible if CP Rail strike takes place [Toronto Star]
• CP strike would disrupt Milton GO service [The Sun]

BUILDINGS
• Hume: Is Toronto having a mid-rise crisis? [Toronto Star]
• Neighbours ‘going to war’ over plans for University of Toronto residence [Globe and Mail]
• Affordable housing: It’s not just for government anymore, roundtable report says [Toronto Star]

STREETS
• The Fixer: Someone needs to draw the lines on Sherbourne St. for pedestrians, drivers [Toronto Star]
• Cabbies gripe about T.O.'s streets [The Sun]

OTHER NEWS
• Art of the Danforth: Paintfight turns street into messy human canvas [Toronto Star]
Portraits of a PaintFight [National Post]
• Environment minister’s office urged bureaucrats to blame media for recycling controversy [National Post]
• Past Pieces of Toronto: The Mynah Bird [Open File]

STREET SCENE: Old Cars Come Out To Play

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist
Jerry Waese.

Monday’s Headlines

G20
• Police under attack — the flip side of G20 misconduct [Toronto Star]
• Toronto police chief vows to pursue charges against G20 officers [Globe and Mail]
• Toronto police should move ‘as quickly as we can’ to deal with G20 misconduct allegations: Bill Blair [National Post]
• Police make first move in G20 report review [The Sun]

GARBAGE
• Ford makes trash collection promise [The Sun]
• Mayor Rob Ford won’t outsource garbage collection east of Yonge this term [Toronto Star]

FORD
• James: Can Ford burn on or will he burn out? [Toronto Star]

CASINO
• Architect Hendrik Op’t Root on Toronto casino plans: If you build it, it better be grand [National Post]
• Gambling on the waterfront: Casinos around the world that could serve as inspiration for Toronto [National Post]
• Kelly McParland: Casino dream has visions of Las Vegas dancing in Toronto heads [National Post]

JAMIE BELL
• Mike Holmes lends a hand to rebuild High Park playground that was torched in March [National Post]
• Mike Holmes to rebuild High Park playground’s wooden castle [Globe and Mail]
• How the Jamile Bell Adventure Playground will be rebuilt [Open File]

OTHER NEWS
• U of T and its neighbours in conflict over secrecy surrounding planned highrise residence [Toronto Star]
• Toronto councillor looks into bid for Expo 2025 [Toronto Star]
• Councillor wants Expo 2025 in Toronto [Globe and Mail]
• 300-unit YWCA residence opening for low-income women [Globe and Mail]
• How the Toronto Islands came to be [Open File]
• Levy: Putting the TTC on the right track [The Sun]

Sim City: Transit for Change

People have jobs. The "slum" we discussed last week has begun to come around and seemingly, it was an easy fix. This particular neighborhood had a couple bus stops, usually with only a 30% usage. But after noticing a few empty corners with no bus shelters or transit, we added a few more. That worked. Within a couple sim days the no jobs logos disapeared and transit boosted its use to something we now don't know how to handle.

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New Shawn Micallef Toronto + GTA column every Friday in The Toronto Star

Hi Spacing readers. I'm pleased to announced that while continuing write and edit Spacing things, I've just started a new weekly column over at the Toronto Star exploring how and where we live in the GTA. I'll wander from downtown to wherever the farm fields start (and maybe, once in a while, hang out there too). The first one went up today, looking at Mississauga City Centre. Thanks for coming along for the walk all these years.




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