This article explores the problems and possibilities of architecture today, and particularly how our systems of development and planning create the everyday urban fabric. How can we rejig our city building machinery to produce the city we want?
Category Archives: Adaptive Reuse
Why Save the Charles Street Transit Terminal?
Although it’s not in immediate danger, circumstances are conspiring that might one day put the Charles Street Transit Terminal in harm’s way.
Thesis in Numero Cinq
My undergraduate thesis exploring the role the Market Square Shopping Centre played in re-imagining the downtown of Kitchener, Ontario has been published by the online literary magazine Numero Cinq! The Struggle for the Centre: One City’s Adventure With Modernity
Old Courthouse / New Courthouse
The New Courthouse Construction of Waterloo Region’s new Mega Courthouse is well underway on the block bordered by Duke, Frederick, Weber and Scott Streets. It will add yet another monumental single-use block to the downtown, which does have a certain urban sexiness to it, especially in those sleek computerized renderings, and I do believe that […]
The Beast on the Hill
It’s strange to think that the rust bucket on the horizon of the photo above will no longer loom over Kitchener’s downtown. The Cedar Hill Water Tower is in the last stages of being torn down, and I can’t help but feel like this was a missed opportunity. It was one of the most distinctive […]
Site Visit: Market Square
Yesterday I made a site visit to the Market Square in Kitchener, Ontario. In my mind it’s the poster-child of my thesis, since it was the first mall of its kind that I ever knew. I was able to get photographs not only of the general mall area, but also of the Goodlife Fitness and The Record. It gives a good sense of the ways that the space can be reused and also alerted me to the stark difference between the mall’s architecture and the architecture of its anchor (once an Eaton’s department store).