The Marilyn Monroe towers on Absolute Drive in Mississauga have a fairly small ground floor footprint. The interior lobbies were finished with lots of spit and polish and glitter, all expressed in round shapes. The perimeter elements were granite; the core reflective materials. Note in the above photo the womb chair in the background.     Like the building above, the lobby was extreme, all furniture being thematically linked to curves.   Circular lobbies aren’t my forte, and I found myself continually almost bumping into shiny things. Could it be better outside the doors?   The exterior landscaping continued … Continue reading Inside Marilyn Munroe

Too many developers claim that their podiums (the part under the “slim” tower above) contain townhouses. They rarely do. They sometimes contain two storey apartments at the ground floor. But most often the podium is simply more apartments, but the balcony being at ground level can have a walk-up feature. Many of these access features are cosmetic and do not contribute to liveliness on the street. A recent example of developer bumpf regarding townhouses is Taggart claiming they are building townhouses along Norman Street when it looks like, reads like, talks like, and indeed is simply an apartment building with … Continue reading Townhouse Podiums

Older apartment and condo buildings reflect the design, technology, and economic trade-offs of their day. Newer buildings offer features like higher ceilings and much larger windows. Apartments in older buildings are often cheaper than new ones, on more spacious sites. Ideally, one could buy and older unit and get the benefits of new designs. But there is only so much a new kitchen or bathroom can do. Structurally, the buildings are locked in place. But not all the buildings, all the time. There is a high rise out along the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway and Richmond Road, originally marketed as Olympic … Continue reading Can an older condo building compete with new?

  With all the brou-ha-ha and controversy about the routing of the WLRT along the old CPR corridor adjacent the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway, the complainants frequently raise the issue of “property values”. Supposedly they will be harmed by the provision of rapid transit near their homes, even if underground. Much of this reasoning follows the “I don’t like it so I’ll think up arguments against it” school of reasoning, since the potential offsetting savings in property taxes isn’t mentioned. However, if property values go up, someone is sure to complain their taxes will too, since logic is being supplanted … Continue reading Western LRT and the Best Time to Sell

  While in St John’s a few weeks back I noticed their bus system had a neat slogan: Get On, Be Moved.  Does OC Transpo have one? If so, what is it? If not, do you want to suggest one (serious or facetious)? If OC had to think up one, I’ll bet it would be painfully obviously the same in both official languages. Continue reading Does OC have a customer slogan?

When the NCC first proposed the Fallen Firefighters Monument on Wellington Street at Lett (near the Mill Brew Pub) I predicted it would be a dreadful isolated lonely spot, a dead spot on Wellington: https://www.westsideaction.ca/dead-spot/ Since the monument was completed, I’ve made a point of cycling by it frequently   often  occasionally   once in a while.  It’s  always … dead. Except once, I actually saw signs that someone might have visited:   Notice that the visitor seems to be a fan of the 100 m diet; and also that the bench has a divider on it designed to prevent someone … Continue reading Monument of Death

Continue reading Sign Challenged

  These overhead lights in the Santa Monica Place (a shopping centre, you saw it in the Day After Tomorrow when the characters fall through a snow bank on the skylight) in California show the availability of parking spaces in the garage, so you don’t have to drive down an aisle looking in vain. The lights align nicely so it is really easy to both drive the end aisle and scan the side aisles looking for a space. Ain’t technology wonderful? Continue reading Finding a parking place

Continue reading Another quirky sign

Mr Beaver, eating lilly pads: Continue reading Beaver tales on the parkway

  Upon departing my local train at Freiburg main station, I spotted this circular building, labelled Radstation (bike station). Each of the three levels connected to a different street (ground, second floor exits to the right of the picture, third floor exits to the bridge overhead through the left of the picture, and there was another bridge on the far side of the structure.   The bike garage was on the second level. The building is like a donut, hollow in the centre with criss-crossing staircases.   There were 300 bikes there that day; of a capacity for 1000. The … Continue reading Radstation Freiburg

Dildo, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland:  This weekend past marked Dildo Days here in Dildo, Newfoundland. A dildo is a wooden object about six to eight inches long, cylindrical in shape, about one and half inches in diamenter, inserted into a round hole til it jams. You wap your hand around … The oar  attached to it, and presto, you have a second class lever, like this: Surely you didn’t think it was anything else? Alternatively, the town is named after a Captain Dildo. A boat parade is an essential part of community fun. Saturday morning, as the overnight rain and fog clears, … Continue reading Dildo Days

This photo was taken from the pathway on the north side of Dow’s Lake, along the Queen Elizabeth Driveway. With the forest of high rises Mr Watson wants to put at the Preston-Carling intersection, late evening summer sunsets will just be a memory. Instead, the sun will set an hour earlier, and you’ll have to crane your neck looking up to see it. Continue reading Last call for sunset at Dow’s Lake

Cyclists along the Ottawa River pathway pass by this Aboriginal medicine wheel laid out on the grass.     It looks home made. Or hand made. No fifty thousand dollar concrete pad. No careful manipulation of space by a Registered Landscape Architect. Just some rocks, some paint. Definitely not a NCC approved installation. There is an interpretive sign though:   The sign has all the ancient and modern conveniences: Continue reading Will the NCC take their medicine (wheel)?

Ottawans love grass.  The NCC sometimes seems all about grass. Fortunately, their fetish about frustrated hayfields along the Parkways is yielding to economic pressure and the grass grows more naturally longer. West siders can easily identify large grassy areas that seem somewhat hopeless. There’s the Centennial School playground (even when re-sodded courtesy of a developer, and watered with an irrigation system, it quickly got tramped to death), or Devonshire, or Hillson School where some locals refer to the lawn as “concrete”. Plouffe Park suffers hugely from wear and tear, and was extensively reworked recently. Will it last? Will any of … Continue reading Time to say goodbye to the green green grass of home?

  My tree recognition ability runs to a half dozen tree types. I didn’t realize there were as many ash trees in the city until they all started dying. This parking lot behind Archives Canada is all ash trees, and no matter how you view it it’s a death bowl. But it’s not just the ash trees. I see dead and dying trees everywhere. This oak tree is about 20 years old. There used to be a mate on the right side of the doorway, but it (the tree, not the door) died off six or seven years ago, and … Continue reading It’s not just the Ash trees

Continue reading Danger zone on Bronson

The City is currently seeking confirmation for their suggested new names of Stations along the Confederation LRT line. See www.OCTranspo.com. The only one that really bugs me is the Tunney’s Pasture renaming. It might be more accurate to call it Tunney’s Desolate Wasteland. But to simply shorten it to Tunney’s strikes me as wrong for several reasons. First, the historic reference (presumably to an early settler) is obscure. Second, Tunney’s has an apostrophe, which runs into issues with our other official language. Remember Eaton? Or Tim Hortons? Let’s just avoid apostrophes completely. Third, OC transpo claims their first choice is … Continue reading Renaming LRT Stations

I cycled out to Carleton U this week to “inspect” the platform changes at the station there, and to see if there was trackwork of interest. The station platform is getting a new leading edge, like the other stations. The new parking garage on the north side of campus has pile-driving going on. These piles are on both sides of the OTrain track. The eventual garage structure will extend over the track. The track is covered with a tarp, presumably to keep dust and dirt out of the ballast, since it wouldn’t protect the track from impact damage.   I … Continue reading OTrain and new parking garage at Carleton U