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Urban Development / Architecture & Design / Innovation

PM#43096012

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building.ca April/May 2018 CDN $4.95

Sidewalk Labs The new Construction Act Accessibility Certification

DENSITY AND VERTICALITY IN CITIES

2018-04-06 9:04 AM

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THE PINK PANTHER™ & © 1964-2018 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. The colour PINK is a registered trademark of Owens Corning. © 2018 Owens Corning. All Rights Reserved. 73% recycled content is based on the average recycled glass content in all Owens Corning fiberglass batts, rolls and unbonded loosefill insulation manufactured in Canada. Minimum 20% recycled content. SCS certified.

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FEATURES

GETTING UP RIGHT As population increases in Canada’s major cities continue to apply pressures on housing stocks, debates persist about managing densities in ways that do not erode living standards. By Rhys Phillips

SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE FUTURE A major revitalization of a historic downtown Toronto icon ensures the building components and technologies are ready for the future. By David Hoffman

FROM GOOGLE HOME TO GOOGLE CITY Sidewalk Labs and its plan to create “a new kind of neighbourhood” on Toronto’s waterfront. By Kristen Gagnon

HARD ACT TO FOLLOW? While Ontario’s updated Construction Act could set the bar for the rest of Canada, many questions still linger. By J. Grant Hillier

ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITY The population is aging, building codes are changing, and Federal legislation is looming. Are you ready to meet the new demands for accessibility? By Brad McCannell

DEPARTMENTS BUILDING.CA EXPLORE Cambie Fire Hall No. 3 Assembly Architecture and S2 Architecture, provide the City of Richmond with a state-of-the-art first responders’ facility.

READ Infrastructure as Enabler Lorenzo De Vidovich discusses how transit networks are key to smart growth in suburbs.

05 06 08 11 12 38 41 44 46

Editor’s Notes Market Watch Legal Briefs From the Bullpen Powers That Be By the Book Site Visit Spec Sheet Viewpoint

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2018-04-06 9:04 AM

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Volume 68 No. 2

Editor Peter Sobchak Art Director Roy Gaiot Assistant Editor Stefan Novakovic Legal Editor Jeffrey W. Lem Contributors Kristen Gagnon, J. Grant Hillier, David Hoffman, Richard Joy, Bruce King, Megan J. Lem, Brad McCannell, Shannon Moore, Ben Myers, Rhys Phillips, Kevin Powers Customer Service / Production Laura Moffatt, 416 441 2085 x104 Press Releases pressroom@building.ca Circulation Manager circulation@building.ca Sales Manager Faria Ahmed, 416 441 2085 x106 fahmed@building.ca Vice President & Senior Publisher Steve Wilson, 416 441 2085 x105 swilson@building.ca President, iQ Business Media Inc. Alex Papanou Design Consultation BLVD Agency

Building magazine is published by iQ Business Media Inc. 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3 (416) 441 2085 x104 info@building.ca www.building.ca SUBSCRIPTION RATE: Canada: 1 year, $30.95; 2 years, $52.95; 3 years, $64.95 (plus H.S.T.) U.S.: 1 year, $38.95 US Elsewhere: 1 year, $45.95 US. BACK ISSUES: Back copies are available for $10 for delivery in Canada, $15 US for delivery in U.S.A. and $20 US overseas. Please send prepayment to Building, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3. Subscription and back issues inquiries please call (416) 441 2085 x104, e-mail: circulation@building.ca or go to www.building.ca Please send changes of address to Circulation Department, Building magazine or e-mail to addresses@building.ca Building is indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index by Micromedia ProQuest Company, Toronto (www.micromedia. com) and National Archive Publishing Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan (www.napubco.com)

Building is published six times a year. Printed in Canada. The content of this publication is the property of Building and cannot be reproduced without permission from the publisher. Funded by the Government of Canada

H.S.T. #80456 2965 RT0001 ISSN 1185-3654 (Print), ISSN 1923-3361 (Online) Canada Post Sales Agreement #43096012

BOLD AND MEMORABLE

THOSE TWO WORDS were at the philosophical core of our initiative to re-launch Building with a clear, striking look to match its equally striking content. We think what you are holding now not only achieves that, but knocks it out of the park. So while we are excited for you to dive right in and devour each new page, I thought a pause to explain a bit of the nuts and bolts of the design thinking behind all this could be illuminating. “Thousands of micro and seemingly unimportant decisions are made throughout the process of redesigning a magazine, all in an effort to establish the brand’s tone, personality, and future,” says Scott Christie, Creative Director at Toronto-based BLVD, the masterminds behind our re-birth. “Besides the new physical size and paper change, improving our readers’ experience with Building was pivotal in every move we made.” And moves were made on almost every single dot on every single page, from the grid to the colours to information graphics and beyond. Three elements in particular deserve special attention, which Scott explains thusly: Logo: “Building is a long word, and when reduced to match social media requirements the impact is lost. By capitalizing on the natural break, we regained small-size impact and introduced a logo that is unique to us, for not all words work in this context.” Cover: “Previously a great amount of time and effort was placed on creating custom cover illustrations that represented the issue’s theme. In order to improve internal efficiencies without losing that unique quality the illustrations afforded us, shape as a vehicle to house imagery was introduced.” Fonts: “Font choice plays an important role in communicating the right message and tone, how readers come to understand a magazine’s position. For example, if Building typeset was in a floral script it would convey the wrong message about our magazine. Aiming to project a modern

Peter Sobchak Editor We welcome your feedback. Send your questions and comments to psobchak@building.ca

tone and reflect the magazine’s purpose while requiring a real workhorse of a font for a variety of needs — text, charts, slugs, headlines, call outs, etc. — we introduced Akzidenz-Grotesk, a nineteenth century san-serif font designed by the Berthold type foundry of Berlin. In contrast to our san-serif and to reflect/support our san-serif choice as well as our sophisticated side, Stix — a truly digital serif font that is freely available online — has been brought in for use on the cover and in feature articles.” In its 66 years, Building has undergone metamorphoses on almost every level, changing owners, headquarters, and even names. But its guiding light has remained constant: a building and urban development magazine reaching key segments of the built environment community. This re-design is one part of an ongoing evolution to stay relevant and in touch with you, our readers: architects; engineers and construction planning; real estate developers and builders; property, facility and building management; urban and municipal planners. We love this new look, and feel you will too. So let us know what you think, and after that, pass it on to a colleague!

BUILDING.CA

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2018-04-06 12:00 PM

market watch Spotlight: Construction

Ontario’s construction industry will have legs in 2018

THE ONTARIO Construction Secretariat’s ( OCS ) 2018 Contractor Survey shows that 32 per cent of respondents forecast they will be busier in 2018 than they were last year, and more than half expect to conduct the same amount of work as they did in 2017. Although the outlook is positive, contractors entered 2018 with slightly less optimism than they had at this time last year. According to detailed regional data from the survey, more than a third of the contractors in each of the four regions in the province forecast an increase in business in 2018. In both the southwest and eastern regions of the province, 34 per cent of contractors are optimistic of added business with Central Ontario (33 per cent) and the GTA (32 per cent) right behind. The only region to show a drop in business confidence for 2018 is Northern Ontario, where 22 per cent expect more business in 2018 and almost a quarter are forecasting less work. The engineering sector has the most optimistic outlook, with almost half (47 per cent) of contractors in the sector forecasting engineering work to increase in 2018, and a further 36 per cent forecasting activity to stay at the same level as last year. Ontario’s institutional and high-rise residential sectors

% OF CONTERACTORS EXPECTING INCREASE IN SECTOR’S CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY COMPARED TO LAST YEAR

INSTITUTIONAL

39%

HIGH-RISE RESIDENTIAL

39% 35%

COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL

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CONCERNS OVER THE NEXT 3 YEARS

47%

ENGINEERING / CIVIL

27%

have similar outlooks for 2018 with 39 per cent of contractors in each sector forecasting activity to increase. In the institutional sector, 45 per cent of contractors expect activity to remain at 2017 levels, compared to 42 per cent of contractors in the high-rise residential sector. The outlook for Ontario’s commercial sector is below the provincial average, with 35 per cent of contractors expecting activity to increase in 2018, and 49 per cent expecting commercial construction activity to stay at the same level as last year. Despite the variation in forecasted activity increases across the sectors, the expected decreases are relatively similar in the engineering, institutional, high-rise residential, and commercial sectors, ranging between 13-15 per cent. Ontario’s industrial sector has the least optimistic outlook, with just over a quarter (27 per cent) of contractors forecasting an increase in construction activity, while five percent less (22 per cent) are expecting a decrease in activity. Just under half (48 per cent) of contractors expect industrial activity to stay at the same level as 2017. Overall, contractors are expecting a 50:50 split between new construction and maintenance work in 2018. Contractors in the

71% 32% OF RESPONDENTS GAVE HIGHEST POSSIBLE RATING

RECRUITING SKILLED WORKERS

51%

AGING WORKFORCE

34%

TRANSITION OR RISK FROM OWNERS TO CONTRACTORS

KEEPING UP WITH NEW TECHNOLOGIES

26%

PROJECT SIZE AND COMPLEXITY

24%

CHANGES TO NAFTA

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Central, Eastern, and GTA regions are also expecting equal proportions of new construction and maintenance work this year. Northern Ontario is the only region in the province where the majority of construction work is expected to come from maintenance projects, making up 57 per cent of construction activity in Northern Ontario, compared to 43 per cent for new construction projects. In Southwestern Ontario, new construction work is forecasted to make up a clear majority of 2018 construction activity. Contractors in the region are expecting 55 per cent of their work to come from new construction this year, compared to 45 per cent from maintenance projects. The 2018 Contractor Survey also sheds light on anticipated challenges over the next three years. Not surprisingly, labour market issues topped the list with recruitment of skilled workers and an aging workforce amongst contractors’ concerns. Interestingly, only 24 per cent of contractors said that they are significantly concerned about potential changes to NAFTA , while nearly a third (32 per cent) gave the lowest possible score, indicating that they are not concerned at all about changes to NAFTA . Narrowing in on contractors’ perceptions of new technologies in the construction industry, the survey reveals that almost three-quarters of contractors believe that new technology is important to the future of their business. One survey respondent commented that “technology can help us improve every aspect of our company,” while another said “if we don’t adopt new

83% EXPECT TO CONDUCT MORE OR THE SAME AMOUNT OF BUSINESS IN 2018 COMPARED TO 2017.

technologies, customers won’t be interested in hiring us.” Owners are a key driver of new technology adoption, with 39 per cent of contractors indicating that meeting client needs or demands is their most significant motivator. Productivity and cost reduction are also important factors, with 20 per cent of contractors indicating that increasing productivity is their most significant motivator, while 16 per cent are primarily motivated by reducing costs. 14 per cent of contractors said that gaining a competitive advantage motivates their firm more than other factors, and another seven per cent indicated that their primary motivation in adopting new technologies is to offer new services. Cost is more of an impediment to the adoption of new technologies than other factors, with 34 per cent of contractors indicating that cost or budget restrictions are the most significant barrier. A quarter

MOST SIGNIFICANT MOTIVATOR TO ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES MEETING CLIENTS’ NEEDS OR DEMANDS

20% 16%

REDUCING COST GAINING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OFFERING NEW SERVICES

MOST SIGNIFICANT BARRIER TO ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES 39%

INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY

14% 7%

(25 per cent) of respondents said that the most significant barrier to their adoption of new technologies is a lack of evidence that the technology will bring a return-oninvestment. Just under a quarter (24 per cent) of contractors consider training requirements associated with new technologies to be the most significant barrier to adoption. Their firm’s lack of awareness of new technologies is the most significant barrier to adoption for a further 13 per cent of contractors. The top three technologies identified by contractors as having both a high likelihood of adoption and high impact on their business are: jobsite data collection; advanced building materials; and automated technology. “We hear a lot about 3 D printing and drones in the media, but it seems the new tools providing high value to contractors are those with more immediate application.” says OCS Director of Research Katherine Jacobs.

34%

COST OR BUDGET RESTRICTIONS LACK OF EVIDENCE THAT NEW TECH WILL BRING RETURN-ON-INVESTMENT

25%

TRAINING REQUIREMENTS LACK OF AWARENESS OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES

24% 13%

BUILDING.CA

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legal BRIEFS Chaos By Design

Manhattan is experimenting with forgoing traffic laws in order to increase pedestrian safety. By Jeffrey W. Lem and Megan J. Lem

Jeffrey W. Lem is Editor-in-Chief of the Real Property Reports and the Director of Titles for the Province of Ontario. The opinions expressed in this article are personal to the author and not attributable or referable to the government of the Province of Ontario.

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Megan J. Lem is a corporate lawyer in the Toronto office of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. This article reflects the opinions of the author alone.

THE DEFINITION OF IRONY is a legal column that discusses proposed lawlessness. That’s right; this edition’s legal column will discuss a New York City initiative that, if successful, is touted by some to revolutionize urban planning and community construction worldwide, forever. While this sounds hyperbolic, the idea that spawns this boast is even more extreme. Consider the problem. Traffic congestion and vehicular-pedestrian accidents are on the rise with the continued densification of urban areas. The problem is chronic and universal and needs little by way of description. Anyone who drives understands. Now, consider the cure, at least the one being proposed in Manhattan: suspend traffic laws; take down all traffic signs and signals; remove all curbs and allow pedestrians, vehicles and bicycles to co-mingle — in effect, introduce vehicular-pedestrian anarchy to the streets of the Big Apple. The idea, as absolutely bizarre as it sounds, is slated for piloting in the Flatiron Plazas neighbourhood of Manhattan (at the intersection of Broadway and 5th Avenue, near New York City’s famous Flatiron Building) in 2018. The New York City Department of Transport calls it “Shared Space.” In a commentary in British GQ, Alice Rawsthorne calls it “Naked Streets.” We can just call in “implausible,” at least as a paradigm-shifting, revolutionary game-changer in urban design. The theory is that drivers have become inured to the constant visual stimuli of traffic signs and traffic signals, and pedestrians have grown unafraid of the vehicles that constantly whiz by them. By removing all traffic signs and traffic signals and essentially forcing the commingling of pedestrians, vehicles and cyclists, the theory is that pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists will become more mindful and aware of their surroundings, their route selection, and their relative position to one another — so much so that the net result will be safer streets, with lower numbers of

collisions and reduced severity of collisions. The original concept has, perhaps not surprisingly, Dutch roots. Rawsthorne attributes the concept to Hans Monderman, a Dutch road traffic engineer who designed various similar neighbourhoods across the Nether lands. Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an English urban planner who is attributed with coining the phrase “Shared Space” after adapting Mon derman’s ideas in Bristol, England, describes the concept as “… moving away from regulated, legislated traffic toward space which, by the way it’s designed, makes it clear what sort of behaviour is anticipated.” The theory is definitely sexy — an urban environment which is devoid of rules, which perversely works because the resulting traffic anarchy forces all stakeholders to revert to sheer survival mode — safety out of chaos. Urban planners are looking to the Flatiron Plaza Project as a sort of litmus test on Monderman’s theories: if it is good enough for Manhattan, well, it must be good enough for any traffic-challenged city in the world. While the thought of a world without the Highway Traffic Act may be attractive, these authors feel that, even if the Flatiron Plaza experiment succeeds, it will not translate into world domination of naked streets. Alas, like many urban design concepts, the problem is an issue of scale. The Flatiron Plaza Project is very small: two blocks long by maybe one block in width. That is small. In Manhattan, that is barely a postage stamp. In fact, all of the applications of Monderman’s ideas have been small in scope, at most typically a few square blocks. The propensity for heightened alertness in the face of a no-rules environment dissipates when extrapolated over a greater area. While everybody may be extra-careful for a few condensed blocks, the same extended alertness cannot be sustained over several miles or entire cities. Furthermore, although the implication is that these Shared Space projects are devoid

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2018-04-06 9:04 AM

NAKED STREETS WITH NO TRAFFIC SIGNS OR SIGNALS, AND NO CURBS OR BARRIERS — UTOPIA OR DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN?

of all rules, there are in fact very strict speed restrictions on vehicles in all of these sorts of experiments, often buttressed by incessant speed bumps and other traffic calming technologies. New York City, for instance, is proposing a mere five miles per hour speed limit for the Flatiron Plaza project. Indeed, true skeptics might suggest that a five mile per hour speed limit, in and of itself, accounts for almost all of the benefits

attributed to the Shared Spaces concept. While perhaps a cool option for certain individual streets or groups of streets, the need for low speeds effectively limits the broader application of Monderman’s ideas. After all, people still need to get places. Finally, the Shared Space concept seems to only really work in environments of narrow streets, naturally low traffic, and relatively high pedestrian density. To date, Monderman’s

ideas have been applied largely in Europe, where this trifecta of conditions comes up far more frequently than here in North America. The NYC Department of Transport is already considering replicating Flatiron Plaza, but only in “narrow, low-traffic streets of the Financial District.” These pre-conditions for success naturally limit the areas suitable for the application of Monderman’s ideas. These authors know the Flatiron Plaza and its surrounds. This experiment will work. Commuter traffic will naturally divert to avoid the area. Even commuting cyclists will divert (there is actually an official diversion bike route built into the Flatiron Plaza plan). Pedestrians will be attracted to the neighbourhood because the Flatiron Building is beautiful and traffic has been limited to five miles per hour. Manhattan will have yet another really cool place for a stroll and a coffee, and the world will unfold as it should. That said, our prognostication is that Monderman’s ideas will never be practical for most neighbourhoods in North America. Time will tell.

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2018-04-06 9:04 AM

from the bullpen Why Can’t We Be Like Paris or London?

The answer is: we shouldn’t try, and instead create our own path. By Ben Myers

Ben Myers is president of Bullpen Research & Consulting, a boutique real estate advisory firm that works with land owners, developers, and lenders to better inform them of the current and future macroeconomic and site-specific housing market conditions that can impact their active or proposed development projects. Follow Bullpen on Twitter at @BullpenConsult or find Ben at www.BullpenConsulting.ca.

IF YOU SPEND MUCH time online reading about new housing development, you’ll hear complaints from urbanists and environmentalists about the ills of sprawling development eating up farmland. You’ll hear even more complaints from suburbanites and wealthy senior citizens about massive “concrete box” condos, their shadows, and their developer’s blatant disregard of the city’s past. You’ll often hear from both sides: why can’t Toronto or Vancouver be more like Paris or London? What they mean is streets lined with two- to six-storey buildings, mostly referencing the affluent and tourist-friendly streets they’ve strolled along while on vacation. These cities were built before the car was invented, before construction and engineering allowed for 20, 30 or 40 storey towers, and before city planning became a lot more restrictive. It should also be noted that homes in many of these historic buildings costs $3,000 to $4,000 per-squarefoot! However, London is now experiencing a high-rise apartment building boom, as they realize the need to build many more units to offset their gaudy real estate prices. I don’t believe Toronto or Vancouver should try to be like these other cities, but create their own path. That path should include a variety of building types and tenures. With that said, mid-rise development, often located in close proximity to single-family neighbourhoods, is often faced with strong opposition from locals that are opposed to change; they want to maintain the low-rise nature of their community. Many developers want to avoid a contentious entitlement process, especially when the floors and square foot being debated often represent the entire profit in the project. Approvals can take longer, and cost exactly the same amount for a 100 unit mid-rise as for a 500 unit high-rise. Several developers I’ve spoken to have told me it’s not worth the risk. In Ontario, expect a lot fewer mid-rise projects in a couple years with the future elimination of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). The lion’s share of appeals occur under the Planning Act for planning instruments, such

as official plans, zoning bylaws, subdivision plans, consents and minor variances. After years of complaints from politicians and NIMBYs that the OMB was developer-friendly, a rewrite of the appeals process via Bill 139 (Building Better Communities and Conserving Watersheds Act) “significantly overhauls the manner in which local planning decisions are reviewed in Ontario, placing greater authority in the hands of elected municipal councils and local planning authorities,” writes Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. The development industry in Ontario, specifically Toronto condominium apartment developers, is extremely worried that this change will significantly increase the time needed to achieve approvals. Several developers have indicated that they will not purchase un-zoned land until they get a better sense of the new approvals process, the expected timing, and the extent to which projects are getting chopped down. I have personally advised clients to consider stacked townhouses instead of midrise apartments from both an approvals perspective and a market perspective. Expect a shift away from mid-rise development anywhere near the so-called “stable” neighbourhoods. We’ll continue to see super tall highrises with expensive tiny units in designated growth areas, and large townhouses and single-detached housing everywhere else. Developers will not pay the same for land in this higher risk environment, and many land vendors will stick to their guns, refusing to sell at these lower values, and ultimately supply will suffer until developers really understand what the post-OMB world really looks like and/or land owners reduce their asking prices. We’re never going to look like London or Paris, unless you’re referring to their real estate values. High demand and fewer units down the road will continue to drive up prices. Many say they want low-rise apartments lining major streets and avenues, but that’s not the type of housing they’re going to get.

BUILDING.CA

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2018-04-06 9:04 AM

powers that be Seeing Development through a Looking Glass

How many times will vocal opponents kill projects before developers realize local voices can save projects as well? By Kevin Powers

Kevin Powers is Managing Principal of Project Advocacy, a Toronto-based public affairs firm that helps project developers facing local opposition. Find him at www.projectadvocacy.ca or email him at kevin.powers@ projectadvocacy.ca

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THESE DAYS IT HAS BECOME so common to see local politicians opposing real estate development in their ward that it no longer has that “through the looking glass” feel to it. In fact, today it would seem more unusual for a politician to grandstand in favour of a development project than against it. But it hasn’t always been that way. Until fairly recently, local politicians were elected on their ability to attract private investment, spur growth and create new jobs. Municipal politicians once fought for new jobs, development and private investment in their communities — that was the yardstick upon which they were judged when seeking re-election. Those days are gone, and today’s politicians have realized that the path to re-election no longer lies in supporting real estate development; it lies in opposing it. At first, this seems counter-intuitive. Not only does real estate development bring jobs and economic growth, but poll after poll show the majority of Canadians strongly support intensification and sustainability. Yet, as we see time after time in project after project across the country, politicians today are more likely to oppose these types of projects than support them. The question is why? Why are local politicians putting narrow, short-term interests above the future needs of the city, the province and the country? The answer lies in the old adage that “all politics is local.” In other words, a politician’s success is directly tied to their ability to understand and influence the issues of concern to the majority of their constituents. If they want to get re-elected, they have to vote accordingly. But knowing exactly what the majority of constituents want has become increasingly difficult. For more than a decade now, project opponents have successfully used online tools to distort the perception of what the majority truly wants. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have made it easy for project opponents to enlist friends, family and neighbours to the cause.

DIY websites give small groups the veneer of size, money and professionalism, and online petitions allow opponents to send form letters to politicians with robotic efficiency. Meanwhile, the silent majority who may support a project don’t take the time or have the inclination to stand up and be counted. They remain just that: silent. Supporting a project that once seemed like a good thing for the community begins to look a lot more like political suicide. Instead, standing with opponents is the politically convenient path. Dramatically announcing your opposition to a controversial development is the right posture for an elected official seeking to maintain office and grab headlines. Without a more balanced view of community sentiment, politicians will be forced to vote against the best interests of their constituencies. As a result, projects that would otherwise bring economic growth and other benefits will encounter costly delays or outright cancellation. In the end, deciding what gets built is a political process that is now dominated by opponents. When supporters are not motivated to attend public hearings or to speak up, their position will remain unrepresented and opponents will continue to shape the skyline, for better or worse. With no remedy in sight, project developers need to update their playbook and think about engaging people who might support their projects before the inevitable backlash begins. They need to help these supporters better organize; sign online petitions; write their politicians and show up at meetings; and show that there is another, more positive side to the development story by countering the inevitable cries of “No” with calls for “Yes.” Until then, Canada will continue to exist through the looking glass, where the minority is the majority and the best development is no development at all.

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GETTING UP RIGHT

AS POPULATION INCREASES IN THE URBAN CORES OF CANADAâ€™S MAJOR CITIES CONTINUE TO APPLY PRESSURES TO HOUSING STOCKS, DEBATES PERSIST ABOUT MANAGING DENSITIES IN WAYS THAT DO NOT ERODE LIVING STANDARDS.

By Rhys Phillips

BUILDING.CA

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Increases in urban

Density versus Verticality A recent Fraser Institute monograph compared densities of major Canadian cities with other “similar” metropoles (Vancouver and Toronto had only one quarter to one half the densities of cities like Paris, London and New York although comparable with Boston and Chicago).

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While higher density marginally correlated negatively with Mercier’s Quality of Living Ranking, the relationship was not statistically significant. While some defend height as an anecdote to congestion and environmental threat, the pro-business think tank’s report does not explicitly advocate greater height for

developers. It may, however, hint at a criticism of NIMBYism, concluding “it is clear that the country’s most desirable urban areas have the physical capacity to comfortably accommodate far more housing units and residents than they now have.” But how useful is this conclusion? The existing built environments of each city

Population Density

CANADA’S LARGEST CITIES HAVE LOW POPULATION DENSITIES RELATIVE TO INTERNATIONAL COUNTERPARTS INHABITANTS PER KM 2

21,067

10,935 7,171 5,493

4,916

4,457

2,112 VANCOUVER

SAN FRANCISCO

TORONTO

NEW YORK

MONTREAL

PARIS

2,468

CALGARY MISSISSAUGA

SOURCE : FR ASER INSTITUTE

concentrations, multiplying ecological threats, productivity numbing congestion and diminution of agriculture lands have mixed with exponential technological advances to reignite interest in the “vertical city.” But what is its definition and what is its relevance to Canadian urban development? According to Thomas Howell on the blog Vertical City, a true vertical city “provide[s] all of the necessary functions that a city typically processes including recreational spaces, free public spaces, social and governmental services, education, energy, and food production.” While a number of famous names from the modern age such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright have taken stabs at this typology, to varying degrees of false starts and impressive multifunctional buildings, no true vertical city exists nor are they part of Canada’s urban intensification agenda. Annely Zonena, Senior Planner in Toronto’s Strategic Initiatives Unit, has seen some developer interest in self-sufficient “vertical city” buildings, but says emphatically, “buildings can foster community but that never relieves them of the obligation of contributing to the public realm outside the structure’s envelop.” Verticality is less an imperative than density, for which height is but a variable.

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VERTICALITY IS LESS AN IMPERATIVE THAN DENSITY, FOR WHICH HEIGHT IS BUT A VARIABLE legislated growth strategy, Vancouver’s geography and agriculture reserves and all cities’ burgeoning economic, health and environmental costs of sprawl are drivers requiring greater density. Canada’s two major metropoles, however, have opted for complexity over utopian vertical cites. As Byron Chard of Chard Development Ltd., a B.C.-based builder of urban mid-rise projects says, diversity of residents and functions defines the successful vertical city, but Canadian’s affinity for the outdoors means “we won’t accept shelter in one structure.” While Toronto now entertains buildings reaching 100 storeys, says Zonena, “we don’t see a vertical city; we see a city composed of a varied morphology with lowrise, mid-rise, tall buildings and areas where we see no buildings like parks and natural area reserves. We look to see tall buildings only where appropriate.”

Rising in a former railyard, the condo towers of CityPlace remade Toronto’s skyline and became home to over 20,000 residents.

is unique, a function of history, geography, economics and culture. It is clear the adverb “comfortably” ignores the complex social impact of densifying existing built environments. Canada’s major metropoles will grow significantly, largely within existing urban territories. Toronto’s greenbelt and provincially

Toronto Grows Up; But How High? An impressive skyline notwithstanding, the city’s intensification is also about public infrastructure supporting towers. Across the city’s lakefront core, at least three models of mixeduse vertical development are underway. The oldest, the central Railyard Lands, are the most vertical. “Although it may appear to be just a bunch of tall buildings,” says Zonena, “it is actually an excellent example of a master planned community where we accept the tall buildings but we secure alongside that a community centre, public schools, a library, a large park and affordable housing.” This includes ZAS Architects’ impressive Canoe Landing Campus and the recently approved

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Rail Deck Park, an 8.8 hectare “Central Park” spanning the adjacent rail corridor. To the east, brownfields along the harbour are being systematically redeveloped with housing, institutional/educational complexes, public amenities and mixed commercial buildings, with varying heights. Key has been establishing the public realm, in part by building parks and amenities first. Further east, along existing boulevards out to Scarborough, a more laisse faire trend sees intensification largely through the insertion of low- and midrise street-based buildings. In their February report, called Growth to Watch For 2018, UrbanToronto.ca highlights 55 such projects versus only three high-rise developments. Further out, areas around transit stations are being developed with towers. “We understand, we promote, we require that when a developer comes forward with a proposal for a building of this magnitude [600 units] that they must look at what a complete community would require,” says Zonena. This includes childcare, schools and a range of community facilities such as recreation centres or not-forprofit space. “That is where public agencies bring that layer of reality to the individual desires of a developer.” With 44 per cent of Toronto families already living in apartments, many in towers-in-thepark holdovers from the 1950s to 1970s, remedial work is required to complete neighbourhoods. They are challenged, says Zonena, by how the loss of a street network produced hard-to-activate open spaces. A market demand to intensify this space is allowing the city to require significant amenity upgrades. Encouragingly, she says, “We are seeing a lot of acceptance of this within the private development industry.” It’s All About the Kids A major cultural shift underlies this activist planning agenda for the vertical city. Once focused on swinging singles, young professional couples and empty nesters, the new premise is a diverse city increasingly centred on families. “We are seeing a natural culture shift where people are not trying to upsize to a home but to find a unit that allows them to make a walkable lifestyle that meets their needs,” says Zonena. A core document is Growing Up: Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities. While still in draft stages, the guidelines were adopted unani-

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mously by city council in 2017 with authority to apply to all developments over 20 units. The Guidelines speak to developers about how their projects need to be designed, but they also speak to civic authorities about public amenities as well as to the evolving interface between public and private spaces. The Guidelines have three sections: neighbourhood; building; and unit. The first lays out the core elements of the public realm. Many, like efficient mobility, parks, childcare facilities, schools and other amenities are civic responsibilities, but other requirements reflect private design. This includes ensuring active street life, fine-grained retail, and all-season design. In the new Amazon world, says ZAS principal Peter Duckworth-Pilkington, a high density of people is required to sustain storefront retail but such active retail also supports community. At the building level, innovative massing to ensure unit variety, larger units pooled at lower floors, suitable amenities where families and children can congregate (including lobbies with washrooms) are prescribed. Private but publically accessible spaces should also be provided. Duckworth-Pilkington believes the form of housing is less important. High-rises can support families if broad, social infrastructure for children, inside and out, is present. “This is new territory in Canada; but it is not new for the rest of the world,” he says When it comes to actual units, the Guidelines call for family-friendly elements to ensure comfortable functionality. But the size and bedroom counts remain problematic. In a

recent interview in Metropolis, Ann-Marie Nasr, Toronto’s Manager of Strategic Initiatives, stated that “60 to 70 per cent of the units [previously built] are one-bedrooms while three- and four-person households represent about 60 per cent of our city’s population. There’s been a disconnect.” But while the Guidelines set 969 to 1,076 square foot minimums for two- and three-bedroom units respectively, the percentages required are only 10 and 15 per cent. When asked about this continuing “disconnect,” Zonena responds that requiring 60 per cent of units to be at the size recommended in the Guidelines would be difficult but low-rise buildings are providing more bedrooms. Most importantly, she adds, there is an emerging market for vertical family housing. “We can regulate; but, if you have a willing partner in the private sector it makes it so much easier to have the desired impact.” That may be happening. The Globe and Mail’s Shane Dingman reported in March on Great Gulf’s 77-unit King West project where 94 per cent of units will be two or more bedrooms as well as the LRT station-based Upper East Village proposal designed by the IBI Group for Diamondcorp and Camrost-Felcorp with 54 per cent such units. In line with the Guidelines, many of the Village’s larger units will be in the lower podium. On the east waterfront, Greenland Group’s street-based Lakeside Residences will include 30 per cent multi-bedroom units along with multiple amenity spaces including an interactive lobby and a children’s playroom. Marketing material emphasizes

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This spread Canoe Landing Campus by ZAS Architects will house a $65-million community recreation centre with green roof, public and Catholic elementary schools and a childcare centre within one 3.32-acre campus.

nearby schools, parks and other family-friendly urban amenities. “Smarter developers,” says Duckworth-Pilkington, “are realizing that they have to differentiate themselves including being family friendly.”

living model. A recent major initiative to go vertical-with-restraint is the Cambie Corridor Plan. Constituting nine per cent of Vancouver’s total area, the plan’s parameters stretch along Cambie Street from 16th Avenue to the Fraser River in the south and is served by the Canada Line. “The predominant urban structure for the corridor plan is the concept of six-storey midrises along the corridor with punctuation at the [transit] stations,” says Susan Haid, assistant director of planning for Vancouver-South. Punctuation means 18-storey and sometimes higher towers around transit stations using 60-ft. podiums to create a humanely-scaled urban environment. This represents a new urbanism for Vancouver, she says, because typologies of a six-storey street wall “rolling up and down like a wave between transit stations has been absent.” At the existing Oakridge mall at 41st Avenue, a dense Municipal Town Centre is planned, a striking new futuristic “Uptown” designed by Henriquez + Partners. Here, up to 42 storeys will be permitted stepping down at the perimeter to slender 18 storeys accommodating necessary density for affordable rental and social housing. Oakridge’s animated narrow laneways and elevated green spaces will build on the city’s towers-on-podium model as a response to critics of tall buildings as street killers. To environmental critics that claim high-rises perform poorly (supported by the city’s own study), Haid responds that the Zero Emissions Building (ZEB) Plan approved in 2016 is moving development toward near zero emissions requirements.

Vancouver Branches Out and Up Hemmed in by mountains and sea, Vancouver proper has obvious geographic limits. Tellingly, by 2016, 62 per cent of Vancouver’s residents already lived in apartments with only 15 per cent in single-detached houses. Outside its boundaries, similar geographic limits and sacrosanct agriculture reserves curtail further suburban expansion. New vertically-based, transit-oriented urban hubs in places like Richmond and Surrey are underway. Building on its world-wide reputation for sensitive vertical living development through tall, podium-based point towers permitting animated streets and strong public amenities, the city is evolving using a more multi-tiered vertical

Family Friendly? Vancouver adopted its own High-Density Housing for Families with Children Guidelines back in 1992, but updating is actively underway. “I think the diversity aspect is critical,” says Haid, but, “the affordability crisis in Vancouver has only been worsening the last few years.” In 2017, the city set a target of 72,000 units designed to “right-size” housing supply with family incomes, with Cambie Corridor implementing a right-sizing plan pushing density toward more affordable housing with 20 per cent of units targeting family incomes between $30,000 to $80,000. Significant publicly owned social housing is planned. “In the Cambie Corridor we see

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the potential for families to start off in a rental unit in a tower, move to a mid-rise over time and then into a townhouse,” she says. For Chard, vertical family living is a market trend because families are becoming more comfortable with a lifestyle where they eschew the long commute to gain family time while seeing their kids acquiring interactive social skills unique to an urban setting. For all rezoned projects, at least 35 per cent of the units are to be family units with at least 10 per cent having three bedrooms. The revised guidelines for families in high density projects will include such requirements as interior play spaces as well as many of the same amenities and unit design elements found in Toronto’s Guidelines. Full integration of such public services as schools and community centres into private structures (something emerging in Toronto) has been limited save for childcare facilities.

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Creating the Vertical City: Chaos or Collaboration If there is one key takeaway for the development sector from the complexity of “verticalization” it is this: certainty requires constructive collaboration. Unprecedented development in both Toronto and Vancouver complicated by evolving market demand means improving times from project conception to completion requires consensus building with both existing communities and governments and planners. Chard emphasizes the need for certainty in defining what the community will accept and what the city wants if developers are “to know what we have to underwrite and what we should pay for the land.” Canadian cities will build up and they will succeed, both for residents and developers alike, if collaboration and not free market chaos is the development model.

This page Henriquez Partners’ plan to redevelop the QuadReal-owned Oakridge Centre into an entirely new sustainable-model, mixed-use community spanning 28 acres off of the Cambie Street Corridor.

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Setting the Stage for the Future

A MAJOR REVITALIZATION OF A HISTORIC DOWNTOWN TORONTO ICON ENSURES THE BUILDING COMPONENTS AND TECHNOLOGIES ARE READY FOR THE FUTURE. BY DAVID HOFFMAN

WHEN THE TD BANK TOWER opened in 1967, it was the first of its kind, and the tallest building in downtown Toronto. It forever redefined Toronto’s skyline, acting as a catalyst for the rapid growth that continues in Toronto’s core today. The final major work of modernist architect heavyweight Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Toronto-Dominion Centre introduced the modern workplace to Canada and pioneered Toronto’s transformation into one of the world’s leading international business centres. But Cadillac Fairview’s TD Centre is also more than 50 years old now. That means we have had to challenge ourselves to continue to deliver value for our tenants, by raising the bar on design and innovation for a modern age, while still maintaining the heritage architectural elements that make the complex unique. This is being done through a strategy of deliberate and consistent investments in the future. The property is currently undergoing a massive $200-million renewal initiative, which has been planned to ensure every detail stays true to Mies’s original design intent, from cleaning and patching existing travertine to matching the paint to the original not only in colour but also in sheen. But the renovations have been about much more than aesthetics. Typically, buildings from the 1960s are neither energy efficient nor built for modern work practices, however through a combination of small- and large-scale initiatives, such as turning off lights and moving to a deep-lake cooling system, TD Centre’s carbon footprint has been steadily reduced, and in 2015 after

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extensive retrofitting and renovation, all six towers achieved LEED Platinum certification. Cadillac Fairview also introduced an Occupant Engagement Program, encouraging tenants to participate and help meet progressive consumption targets. For example, as part of the program, tenants were offered free “midnight” energy audits. Conducted by an external consultant, the goal was to identify potential energy savings that could be achieved outside of business hours, and ultimately uncovered a nearly 500,000 kWh reduction in electrical consumption. While an environmentally sustainable building is beneficial to employees, we know that there are always additional steps we can take to support our tenants’ health and wellness. In 2017 a focus was put on achieving WELL certification, the first standard to integrate human health and wellness in the design, construction, maintenance and operations of buildings. TD Centre’s 222 Bay Street tower became the first existing building in North America to achieve Gold-level WELL Building Standard certification. This means occupants at the property benefit from design and operational elements delivering enhanced air quality, pollutant reduction, water quality testing and thermal comfort, as well as on-site amenities that support physical fitness and accessibility. In addition, TD Centre recently became Canada’s first existing building to achieve Wired Certification, earning Platinum, the highest possible ranking, in all six towers. This is important because, as we move into

the future, businesses will require more and more uninterrupted internet connectivity, consistent cell service, reliable Wi-Fi to support a flexible workforce, open office plans and high levels of streaming data and large files. TD Centre was a pioneer in density and verticality in Toronto, and with more than 4.3 million square feet of space, it remains the largest business complex in the country. Mies originally envisioned the centre as a place to live, work and play complete with large open public spaces, restaurants, shops, services and offices all in one location. Ensuring that the TD Centre is energy efficient, healthy and a leader in sustainability and technology speaks to the continuation of this vision. David Hoffman is General Manager at the Toronto-Dominion Centre.

Retrofitting heritage buildings is no small task, but a more than $200-million revitalization investment preserves Mies van der Rohe’s timeless design while ensuring the building is well-positioned for the future. Image courtesy of Cadillac Fairview

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From Google Home to Google City

SIDEWALK LABS AND ITS PLAN TO CREATE “A NEW KIND OF NEIGHBOURHOOD” ON TORONTO’S WATERFRONT. BY KRISTEN GAGNON

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As technology becomes more prevalent and integrated in our lives, the influence of high tech at an urban scale is increasingly becoming a question of curiosity and concern. Case-in-point: when Amazon solicited proposals to locate a second headquarters, mayors from across the continent, and even a Prime Minister, were whipped into a googly-eyed frenzy, rushing to put together flashy and impressive bids. But while a Silicon Valley North is more of an economic thrill than technological revolution, a new development in Toronto looks to push the line between technology and urbanity further than has been done before. Enter Google. Formed in 2015, Sidewalk Labs is a sister company to Google Inc., under the shared ownership of mega-conglomerate Alphabet Inc. The Lab is operated by both technologists and urbanists, and is “reimagining cities to improve quality of life,” through the integration of technology and cities. So it should come as little surprise that when Waterfront Toronto put out an RFP for a “Funding and Innovation Partner,” Sidewalk Labs had its interest peaked. For its part, Waterfront Toronto, the tri-government organization tasked with overseeing the redevelopment of much of the city’s post-industrial waterfront, initially sought a collaborative partner in March 2017, with Sidewalk Toronto being announced as the successful proponent in October of that year. What has since been announced is a utopian vision of affordable housing, sustainable infrastructure, and technological overlays, spread across a 12-acre, L-shaped site referred to as Quayside. Here Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto would come together to develop a

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mixed-use, mixed-income, people-focused, “complete” neighbourhood that would seek precedent-setting levels of sustainability, affordability, and economic return, while also becoming the new home for Google Canada. Additionally, Sidewalk Toronto would combine urban design with digital technology “to address some of the biggest challenges facing cities,” including passive-house environmental standards, modular building technologies, and self-driving public transit, with technology-enabled intersections. Finally, the industrial ruins of the site’s previous life would be reimagined in creative and playful ways, with an underground city working to sort and separate waste from recyclable materials. The proposal includes all the right buzzwords, from emerging technology, sustainability, public consultation, and urban innovation, to collaboration, co-creation, inclusivity, accessibility, and ‘climate-positive’ development, making it all sound just too good to be true. But is it? Enter Ken Greenberg. Greenberg, a Toronto-based urbanist, has been an advisor to Sidewalk Labs since 2015, prior to their proposal for Waterfront Toronto, and tasked with ensuring that the technological elements of the Lab’s work does not threaten the human or urban environments it would influence. According to Greenberg, Sidewalk’s goal is to explore “the way the city is evolving, [and how this] could be enhanced by the use of technology… to solve the problems of the city and enhancing how we do city building.” As such, Greenberg sees the proposal as an urban and technological ‘test bed’ — one that would work in real-time and real-space

— as it has always been Sidewalk’s intention to have tangible, real-world application, and despite its origins as a more theoretical exercise with no specific sites in mind. Yet while Toronto, and Quayside in particular, could act as a prime potential location for the physical application of this “experimental territory,” as Greenberg refers to the project, it would also need continual monitoring and feedback loops. “Not everything is going to work perfectly,” Greenberg cautions, noting the need to look critically and question all aspects of the proposal from a holistic perspective. This includes questioning the relationship the project would have with all levels of government, and how this thinking could be applied to building technology in relation to zoning bylaws and the building code. Here Greenberg points out that as a testing ground, Sidewalk Toronto could have “more latitude in terms of municipal oversights to not stick so rigidly to the rules that we already have to foster innovation,” in order to create buildings with greater adaptability, use, connection, affordability, sustainability, and accessibility. But it must all first be questioned. People’s sake over technology’s While municipal involvement, or lack thereof, is an important consideration, the most concerning aspect of the proposal has been what Sidewalk refers to as the “digital layer” of sensors, mappings, and account portals. According to the vision statement, Sidewalk Toronto is to be “A place that’s enhanced by digital technology and data, without giving up the privacy and security that everyone

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ULTIMATELY, IT IS NOT SIMPLY ABOUT SAYING YES OR NO TO TECHNOLOGY, BUT RATHER USING IT SELECTIVELY AND THOUGHTFULLY.

deserves.” More technically speaking: “The digital layer allows efficient operation of the neighbourhood by providing a single unified source of information about what is going on… By pushing as much as possible of the neighbourhood infrastructure into software rather than hardware, it increases flexibility and reduces lock-in to outmoded technologies.” To this end, Greenberg again responds by

stressing the need to question whether the technology is enhancing or hindering the city and its residents, and whether we really want to replace human interaction with machines and robots. Ultimately, it is not simply about saying yes or no to technology, but rather using it selectively and thoughtfully. This also leads to questions of online security and privacy, especially in light of concerns

over surveillance and monitoring. Greenberg agrees that this is a very large issue and an important part of the proposal to carefully scrutinize, including how data is collected, who owns it, and how it will be used. Thus the irony of the project is that while the integrated use of technology could make our digital lives more public, reversely speaking, it could make our analogue lives more private. Yet for

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Greenberg, there is a tangential benefit that this project’s tech-based concerns brings, and that is the opportunity and forum to discuss these questions and anxieties, in order to positively integrate technology in a safe and beneficial way within the context of the city, and what that means. “If technology is with us, if its use in our daily lives is becoming more and more pervasive and there is a kind of inevitability to it, how do we use it to our advantage, as opposed to being used by it?” Greenberg asks. “And how can this be ensured, both in terms of enhanced quality of life, urban design and quality of the environment, and in terms of privacy and security issues?” Returning to the urban component of the project, however, a further worry exists with the name-association that comes from a company as big as Google, in terms of how to avoid the urban branding and Disneyfication that has happened in other urban experiments such as Disney’s new urbanist town of Celebration, Florida: in essence becoming a Google-branded attraction or contrived destination versus an authentic, organic and living urban place. Yet Greenberg softens these fears, noting that if Sidewalk had wanted to create their own utopian campus, as many other tech companies have and continue to do, they would have sought an isolated greenfield site, far from any municipal control or government influence. Instead, they have deliberately chosen a relatively small site, in the centre of a mega-city, largely affected by city politics, zoning bylaws, neighbouring developments and required partnerships. Here Greenberg uses the analogy of an open-platform system, explaining his hope for a heterogeneous place free of total control or perfect predictability, shaped by autonomous decision makers and hundreds of decisions, continually evolving as a real part of the city. But where does this all leave Greenberg and the project? Thinking critically, and moving

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past the utopian rhetoric, bucolic renderings and buzzwords of the proposal, what are the greatest opportunities for Toronto? It is clear that what could be considered the biggest opportunities for the project could also be its biggest challenges. From autonomous vehicles and ubiquitous sensors, to warehouse-like buildings and personalized-apps, how and where technology is implemented and used will need to be continually and critically questioned. For now, Greenberg sees the project more as a collection of “embryonic” ideas, with the synthesis of how these ideas come together yet to be resolved. As such, the entirety of 2018 has been put aside for public and stakeholder consultation, using a litany of engagement tools such as public talks; roundtables; neighbourhood meetings; pop-up stations; reference panel on planning and policy guidance; design jams; fellowship program; expert working groups; and even summer camps. Ultimately for Greenberg, the nature of interactions between people is what is most important, and a human-focus to the project should remain top priority over and above any of the flashy technology. Greenberg concludes with a question: “Are we making a good urban place, something that is actually enabling people to lead lives with more opportunity, more chances to be their best selves, [or are we] being swept up into some sort of subservient relationship with technology?” If the answer is yes to a good urban place, Toronto has the potential to position itself on the Google map as a tech hub of urban innovation. If not, then the city may end up with little more than a built-form version of Facebook, an app rendered in concrete form. Because while it is doubtful that there will be streets named Google Drive or Chrome Crescent, one thing is certain: if the city and its Sidewalks get Google-ified, they better not glitch.

This spread Sidewalk Toronto aims to begin implementing their vision in Quayside, located at Parliament Slip, southeast of downtown Toronto, and then bring the neighbourhood innovations to scale across the Eastern Waterfront. The goal: “combine the best in urban design with the latest in digital technology to address some of the biggest challenges facing cities, including energy use, housing affordability, and transportation.”

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Hard Act to Follow?

WHILE ONTARIO’S UPDATED CONSTRUCTION ACT COULD SET THE BAR FOR THE REST OF CANADA, MANY QUESTIONS STILL LINGER. BY J. GRANT HILLIER

The Ontario government’s new legislation to modernize and expand the Construction Lien Act — now to be known as the Construction Act (hinting at its broader mandate) — sets out to improve cash flow efficiency between owners, contractors and sub-contractors by both (a) setting timelines for the prompt payment of invoices and (b) speeding up the resolution of payment-related disputes through an adjudication process. This is the first major update to the Act in more than 30 years and it appears to apply across the board, from relatively small projects to large mega-projects such as the major transit expansions planned for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) in the coming years. It appears the plan is to phase in the new rules: modernization of the lien and holdback process will come into effect first on July 1, 2018, followed by the prompt payment rules and the adjudication process next year on October 1, 2019. Refreshing the Act with the new adjudication provisions is seen as a much-needed step forward that — if done right — will ultimately make it easier for contractors to operate in Ontario, potentially attract new players to the Ontario market, and set the example for the rest of Canada to follow. Other international jurisdictions that have already implemented similar provisions have seen positive effects such as: (a) reductions in payment gridlock; (b) decreases in contractor non-performance issues; and (c) less construction litigation in the court system. At a high-level the Act puts a solid general adjudication framework in place. The devil,

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however, is always in the details. Indeed, additional guidelines would be helpful, including details with respect to: • A re there carve outs for special types of projects, i.e., public-private partnerships (PPP), mega-projects led by the Federal government, unique projects related to the nuclear industry, or other innovative projects utilizing newer technologies (e.g., hyperloop)? • Can the adjudication be limited only to the question of entitlement? What about Quantum? • W hat minimum levels of information are required to support the claim? • W hat about the timing of submissions — both parties need time to respond to each other’s information? What happens if the process is not followed? • While the revised Act is clear that the general rule is that the parties will split the cost of the adjudication (assuming the adjudicator renders a decision), how will the cost be apportioned if the adjudicator fails to reach a decision? Adjudicating a dispute in an ongoing project is not a new concept in Ontario construction contracts. However, a distinguishing feature of the new adjudication framework is the tight timeline for making a decision. In general, the adjudicator will have only 30 days to make a determination after receiving the contract and any supporting materials from a claimant. (This period can be extended under certain circumstances, but this goes against the spirit of the new legislation which is intended to speed up cash flow and defeats the purpose of imposing a deadline in the first place.)

As with any new legislation there is likely to be uncertainty around the adjudication framework. Publishing guidelines would go a long way to clarifying the legislation, as well as to help organizations effectively prepare themselves to deal with the new rules. We can also learn from issues that have surfaced in other jurisdictions that might help inform us about what to expect. The first issue is that, in cases where the dispute involves complex issues of fact or law (on a mega-project, for example), the adjudicator can sometimes feel rushed into making a decision that may seem like “rough justice.” Maybe it is worth considering a graded approach to the level of procedure and timelines associated with the adjudication process depending on the nature and scale of the project. Second is that the decision of the adjudicator can be misunderstood as simply an interim decision that can be fixed later in arbitration or litigation. While the revised Act is clear that an adjudicator’s decision is binding but not final, the practical effect in other jurisdictions has been that a decision carries significant weight, making it difficult to reverse. Third is that project teams are often stretched as it is, and the additional intense activity required to fully investigate and gather appropriate evidence could divert attention from the fundamental goal of delivering the project. Fourth is that project teams can sometimes delay bringing claims, or in some cases wait to the end of the project and submit a huge claim. While the revised Act is clear that an adjudication can be commenced if notice is given before the completion of the contract

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THE DECISION OF THE ADJUDICATOR CAN BE MISUNDERSTOOD AS SIMPLY AN INTERIM DECISION THAT CAN BE FIXED LATER IN ARBITRATION OR LITIGATION

(unless the parties agree otherwise), maybe it is worth considering incentives for the project team to bring claims promptly so there is not a significant lapse in time between the submission of the claim and when the events giving rise to the claim took place. With all of this in mind, then, project teams (public and private sectors alike) should be considering a few fundamental questions in order to better assess their readiness to deal with the new adjudication process: • A re your governance structures and processes, especially around cost and change management, appropriate to the successful

formulation of, or defense against, a claim? •D o your teams have a solid understanding of how to build the project record, including the documentation of any potential time or cost impacts? • Do you have people on your teams with the commercial experience and capabilities required to manage the adjudication process and advance or defend against claims? • Would your project team benefit from an independent and unbiased review of any potential claims to ensure that there are sufficient grounds to support a successful outcome?

One final point is absolutely clear: a lack of commercial readiness to deal with disputes can distract owners and contractors alike from the primary objective of delivering the project. The key to success will be having the right strategies, governance, systems and people in place to manage the process before the project starts.

J. Grant Hillier is Senior Manager, Global Infrastructure Advisory at KPMG in Canada. http://info.kpmg.ca

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COAST CAPITAL

BANFF GONDOLA

Flynn’s team of designers and engineers worked closely with the architect on a design-assist basis to devise a seamless curtain wall system that fits over the dramatic positive and negative slopes of the Coast Capital building.

Not every project is at 2281m, but Flynn’s standards for quality and safety are always high. Our culture of safety rode the gondola up the mountain along with Flynn’s metal and glazing materials, which our crew installed on the new upper terminal.

VANCOUVER, BC

BANFF, AB

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ds of th ew

KU HOSPITAL

NOVA CENTRE

Flynn helped the University of Kansas Health system complete a significant expansion by supplying and installing more than 250,000 sq. ft. of building envelope, including 75,400 sq.ft. of roofing, and 87,910 sq. ft. of curtain wall.

Our roofing, glazing, and architectural metals work on the Nova Centre in Halifax included the installation of 74 mammoth 34-foot-tall window panels, as part of the largest curtain wall project ever installed in Atlantic Canada.

KANSAS CITY, MO

HALIFAX, NS

Visit FlynnCompanies.com for more project photos, and information on our design-assist program.

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Access to Opportunity THE POPULATION IS AGING, BUILDING CODES ARE CHANGING, AND FEDERAL LEGISLATION IS LOOMING. ARE YOU READY TO MEET THE NEW DEMANDS FOR ACCESSIBILITY? BY BRAD MCCANNELL

Brad McCannell is Vice President, Access and Inclusion, at the Rick Hansen Foundation. Since founding Canadian Barrier Free Design Inc. in 1992, Brad has been a leader in the field of accessibility and has extensive experience in the application of Universal Design across the built environment. Contact Brad at access@rickhansen.com Learn more at www.rickhansen.com/RHFAC

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WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT why improving accessibility is the right thing to do. But improved access is not just a question of human rights. It’s an economic imperative. A recent report from the Conference Board of Canada has made a powerful business case for improving accessibility in the built environment. People with disabilities are a large and growing consumer group. They currently represent 14 per cent, or $164 billion in consumer spending. By 2030, spending by this group is anticipated to grow at three times the pace of the overall population, representing 21 per cent of the total consumer market, or $316 billion annually. While removing physical barriers in our buildings means people with varying disabilities can maintain greater independence, it also means they’ll have increased employment opportunities and new ways of contributing financially to their families and communities. The bottom line is, as a community of people with disabilities continues to grow and become more active, there is a greater need for the built environment, including housing, to meet the real needs of the consumer. And the payback is enormous. The Conference Board of Canada report confirms that real access to the overall built environment would allow over half a million Canadians with disabilities to find employment, increasing our country’s GDP by $16.8 billion. So we need to ask ourselves,

if there were 17 billion dollars’ worth of gold in the ground, would you just leave it there, or would you do everything you could to get access to it and maximize the return on investment? That’s what’s happening right now. By denying meaningful access to people with disabilities we are leaving $17 billion on the table.

Accessibility matters In the rush to ‘green’ it’s often forgotten that no building or site is truly sustainable if it doesn’t first sustain the people meant to use it. Meaningful access is determined by how each person experiences the entire building as a whole, from the moment they reach the door, enter, and way-find throughout, all the way to leaving and even to emergency exiting/planning. Accessible environments must anticipate the needs of people of all ages, stages, and abilities, from young children to seniors. There’s no better time than now to rethink how we access and use our buildings. Today, one in seven Canadian adults identifies as having some form of disability and there are now more Canadians aged 65 and older than 15 and under. Due in part to our large and aging Baby Boomer population, the overall number of people with disabilities is expected to increase to one in five Canadians within the next 20 years, affecting up to nine million people. Simply

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Top. An RHFAC professional conducting an accessibility rating. Left. To become a barrier-free environment for the Hard-of-Hearing (HOH), Edmonton’s Walterdale Theatre invested in an audio frequency induction loop system that allows HOH patrons to pick up audio directly by hearing aids, without the need for a special receiver. Photography courtesy of RHF

put, in the new millennium it’s normal to have some form of disability. Every day across Canada these people struggle to find housing, access spaces like offices, community centres, and retail stores because of physical barriers and obstacles created literally by design. Many of the solutions are simple. And often, once made aware of the real barriers and obstacles to people with disabilities, design and planning teams can easily resolve these issues. Therefore, to increase the overall accessibility of the built environment as part of the normal design process, planners and

designers need the tools to accurately measure current levels of accessibility as well as provide a roadmap towards greater access as part of long-term planning.

Building Canadian communities for the future The first step towards creating inclusive buildings and spaces is to identify their current level of accessibility. The Rick Hansen Foundation has created the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification ( RHFAC ) program, a LEED -style rating system that measures the accessibility of build-

ings and sites. At its simplest, the RHFAC is a national scale for accessibility that standardizes what accessibility really means and how it’s applied. The program promotes increased access through the adoption of Universal Design principles. It also trains professional assessors to rate buildings based on their level of meaningful access using a consistent methodology. RHFAC Accessibility Assessor training is available this spring in Vancouver (Vancouver Community College) and Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia Community College). The program is expected to roll out to the rest of Canada in the months ahead. RHF Accessibility Certification is currently available at no-cost to British Columbian non-profit organizations, municipalities, and commercial properties thanks to generous funding from the Province of British Columbia. Organizations that are rated via the RHFAC are also eligible to apply for a grant of up to $20,000 to improve the accessibility of their location through the RHF BC Accessibility Grants Program. The viability of our communities depends on planning and design that embraces older adults and seniors. Aging-in-place solutions, accessible environments, and intergenerational living all rely on the practical application of Universal Design to maintain their communities. Accessible buildings appeal to more tenants, serve more customers, and attract more employees. Accessible residential units and community facilities makes good economic sense, while giving every Canadian the ability to participate and live to their full potential. This need for real meaningful access across the full built environment has already triggered provincial legislation establishing access requirements well beyond old code minimums in Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. And the Federal government’s Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities is promising national legislation on accessibility this year. The RHFAC provides an opportunity for builders to plan for these upcoming legislated changes and normalize the inclusion of people with disabilities in the design process on future projects and renovations. The population is aging; building codes are changing; Federal legislation is looming — are you ready to meet the new demands for accessibility?

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The New Carbon Architecture THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT CAN SWITCH FROM BEING AN ECOLOGICAL PROBLEM TO A SOLUTION. IT BEGINS WITH MOVING PAST “GREEN BUILDINGS.” BY BRUCE KING We’ve got good news, and we’ve got bad news. First, the bad: buildings have been major climate villains, responsible for 40 per cent of global warming emissions. And it gets worse: Net Zero buildings are all the rage in green building, but are not doing so much for the climate. They don’t fully address climate disruption because they actually often increase carbon emissions by loading the front end — the embodied carbon attributable to construction and especially materials. That embodied carbon has a time value, much like money, because it goes to work right away and keeps on working — against us. Truly green or climate-friendly architecture must account for and work with embodied carbon, not ignore it as if materials and buildings appeared in the world by magic. But now the good news: buildings are poised to be climate heroes — and much nicer to live in — by becoming climate sponges, absorbing huge amounts of carbon from the air in the materials of architecture. Wood from sustainably-managed forests and agricultural by-products from farmers will increasingly be available in a variety of products on the shelves of every supplier. Both concrete and cement will be reinvented as an array of low-carbon, affordable alternatives, and plastic refuse will be cleaned from the oceans and turned into blocks, panels and insulation. We can soon get “beyond zero” by making things nature’s way rather than “heating, beating and treating” with fossil fuels. The result will be less stressful to the climate, but also just better buildings. For example, just imagine: you walk into a brand new building and immediately sense

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something different. The structure is all exposed wood: columns, beams, even floor and roof are all great curving slabs of timber elegantly joined together from smaller pieces. The skin and insulation, which you can also see, are straw bound into shapes that shed rain and insulate walls. The foundation is soil from the site transformed by invisible microbes into strong concrete to hold everything up, and warm, leather-like floors that need no additional covering. It seems like it should look and smell like a barn, yet it feels more like an inviting bedroom or an elegant museum. It’s nicer than any structure you’ve ever been in before. And it’s not a handmade house in the woods: it’s a new downtown office building, nine stories high and filling half a city block. It gathers all the power and water it needs, and processes all of its own wastes into soil for the courtyard gardens. And, though you can’t see this, compared to what might have been built a few decades earlier, its construction put thousands of tonnes less carbon into the air, and pulled hundreds more out of the air to serve as walls, floors, insulation and roof. For the first time in history, we can build pretty much anything out of carbon. We can structure any architectural style with wood, we can insulate with straw and mushrooms, and we can make concrete with clay, industrial wastes, and microbes. All of these emerging technologies and more arrive in tandem with the growing understanding that the so-called embodied carbon of building materials matters a great deal more than anyone thought in the fight to halt and reverse climate disruption.

Back up a bit We’ve been developing the art and science of building for thousands of years, mostly learning from mistakes, but as of the last few centuries also learning and developing via science. We know an awful lot more about how things work than we ever did, but can also dimly see how much we still don’t know, such as what most of the universe is made of. Speaking of what things are made of, in many ways the history of architecture follows the development of materials, and follows the history of people messing around with things they found in the landscape to get bricks, columns, toilets and building-integrated photovoltaic panels. People learned to fire clay to make pottery and bricks, and when the kilns were made of limestone they discovered that the intense heat also changed the rocks: lime plaster, concrete, Pantheon. In some places the potters saw shiny metal come oozing out of certain heated rocks: copper, bronze, iron, Golden Gate Bridge. 200 years ago the predecessors of modern structural engineers in England placed iron bars in the newly-invented Portland cement concrete, and architects went wild like they never could before: the Sydney Opera House and every downtown skyline in the world with lights, plumbing and comfort hundreds of feet in the air. In some places people saw oil oozing out of the ground, then drying to tar: vinyl siding and the Interstate highway system, not to mention plywood and air conditioning. And so on. Seems like the party would never stop, but of late the many large and hidden costs are come due, and we have to change not

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Brock Commons Phase 1 Student Residence, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Photography by KK Law

just the way we build, but what we build with. Some of us who design and build have been noticing that Nature builds all sorts of things, and has been doing so for the nearly four billion years of life on Earth without waste, pollution, or a whole lot of fuss. She has a hell of a head start on the trial-and-error path, and as such maybe we can and should peek over her shoulder and see if we can’t cheat a bit. How does a mussel build its shell? How do spiders spin their webs? How does a redwood tree stand and remain very much alive at 400 feet (and why doesn’t it grow higher)? How do birds stay warm and dry? Questions like these are leading to breakthroughs in cements, binders, insulation and other building products. Some of those breakthroughs are already entering the marketplace, such as Ecovative insulation made from grownin-place mycellia, BioMason bricks grown from enzymes, or Blue Planet’s limestone aggregate made from industrial emissions.

Some are simply refinements and modernization of ancient building techniques, like taking traditional timber framing and applying it to glulam and cross-laminated timbers to get taller, larger and far more elaborate wooden structures than was ever before possible, or using straw and other agricultural by-products to make sheathing and insulation. The list goes on, and is rapidly growing as we flesh out ways to coax carbon back out of the air and durably returned to earth as buildings made of sky. Right now, the appeal is a matter of aesthetics (such as: most people like wood more than concrete) or oddity (mushroom insulation!), but as governments around the world at every level begin to put a price on carbon, it is becoming a matter of economics. This is where the industry is heading. How soon? We’re fairly clever creatures, technologically. It took less than two and a half years between Franklin Roosevelt authorizing

the Manhattan Project and the first atomic explosion in the New Mexico desert. It took only eight years between JFK’s proclamation and Neil Armstrong’s footprint on the Moon’s surface. And both of those projects were designed and executed by people using slide rules, unreliable wire telephony, and computers far less powerful than the average cellphone of today. When we collectively set ourselves to do something, for better or worse, we tend to get it done. The challenge before us, as an industry and as a global species, is to execute a sort of jiu-jitsu flip from climate villains to climate heroes. It is indeed a whole new and lovely ball game. Bruce King, a structural engineer for 35 years, is Founder and Director of the Ecological Building Network (EBNet). The preceding is excerpted from the book of the same name. © 2018 Bruce King and New Society Publishers. www.newsociety.com

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New York Blueprint for better Blueprint for better New York Lincoln Lincoln Buffalo Buffalo Jackson Jackson Springfield Springfield Portland Portland Bisbee Bisbee Join us at A’18, where some of the most architects, designers, Joincreative us at A’18, where some of the and firms will share how they’re most creative architects, designers, creating their blueprint for better and firms willown share how they’re tocreating make atheir difference in cities own blueprint all forover better the world, like New York City and to make a difference in cities all over Bisbee, Arizona. the world, like New York City and

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Advance May Register now! Early bird rate endsends April 25.23. Register now! conferenceonarchitecture.com conferenceonarchitecture.com Early bird ends April 25. Register now! conferenceonarchitecture.com

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site VISIT Comfort Zone A new research and design centre in Montréal brings the comfort of home to the culture of corporate life. By Shannon Moore

Ericsson’s new head office is made up of two main volumes connected by a ground floor. Although the towers are similar in volume and in the strict and repetitive spacing of the curtain wall mullions, their envelope design distinguishes them. Photography by Stephane Brugger

DESIGNED BY MENKÈS Shooner Dagenais Letourneux Architectes ( MSDL), the new Ericsson Research and Development Centre establishes a collaborative atmosphere for the creatives that inhabit its space. Located in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montréal, the 265,330-sq.-ft. corporate campus for technological research and design consists of two office towers connected by an internal courtyard. Sharing the same concentric configuration, the three- and fivestorey structures blend open workstations with meeting rooms, conference halls, a library, gym, cafeteria, computer lab, and skylit atrium. Navigating the interior through a maze of staircases, employees are encouraged to collaborate in a setting bathed in consistent natural light.

“The individuals working here were previously in a building with secluded office spaces,” says Thu-Nhon Luu, associate architect at MSDL . “Ericsson had a branding and design philosophy for the company, and we helped them to adapt it in this new space. Everyone has access to natural daylight and nobody is left in the dark.” With Scandinavian-esque white and wood tones, unexpected pops of colour, and clean decorative lines, the complex is comfortable despite its comprehensive size. On the ground floor, an Early Childhood Centre accommodates up to 80 infants and young children in five colourful classrooms. Dubbed a “Home Away from Home,” the daycare is thoughtfully designed for its users, with small furniture, luminous globes, soft surfaces, and

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a playful entrance. “The main corridor was inspired by the way in which children draw houses, with a pitched roof and square body,” says Luu. “It’s meant to feel like you’re walking into a small home.” The classrooms also contain full height windows and wood floors, for a continuation of warmth and natural daylight inside the daycare itself. Outside, the curtain wall towers are glazed in a digital printed pattern for visual interest, while a nearby perforated metal parking structure mimics their texture. The campus also opens onto a lush setting with trees, bushes, and a small pond, helping to establish the complex as a natural oasis within its surrounding industrial landscape. The Centre won a Canadian Interiors Best of Canada Award in 2017. The Awards program commended MSDL for its interior design that embodies a corporate culture focused on openness, comfort, and creativity, and for workspaces that foster innovation and collaboration.

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This spread The two office towers have the same concentric configuration, structured around an organic core that unfolds in more orderly zones near the exterior facades. In the heart of the central area, a large atrium incorporating a communication staircase allows the outside light to enter all the way to the ground floor. The Early Childhood Center is set back from the common areas, with direct access to the outside.

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SPEC SHEET Product Round-up New & noteworthy for building specification. CAMBRIDGE IR | IKO 1620 VINYL SINGLE-HUNG WINDOW | MI WINDOWS & DOORS This is the first window in the company’s popular 1600 Series to offer operable archtop configurations yet still retaining long-term performance attributes such as heavy-duty weather-stripping and metal-reinforced meeting rails coupled with a beveled exterior profile, tilt-in sashes, and mortised recessed locks. Spring-loaded night latches keep the window secure even when partially opened to provide added ventilation without sacrificing safety and security. www.miwindows.com

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This new line of roofing shingles come with ArmourZone, first pioneered on IKO’s popular Dynasty shingles. ArmourZone is a tear-resistant, reinforced woven band that helps provide resistance to winds of up to 210 km/h, and also provides fastening strength over a greater surface area of the shingle, helping to resist nail heads from pulling through the shingle in high winds. This line also features a resilient, heavyweight fiberglass mat, which is fortified with an extra-thick layer of IKO modified asphalt that gives the shingle additional elasticity. www.iko.com

INSTANTAR | CONFIGURA STARLIGHT COLOR CAMERA | WESTINGHOUSE Available in a turret or bullet model, these cameras capture high resolution color video surveillance day or night. With a 3.6mm F1.2 starlight lens, these cameras capture images up to nearly 1,000 feet from a fixed position. Both versions are available as either a 4-in-1 using existing coaxial cables and work with HDTVI, HDCVI, AHD, and CVBS technologies or IP version. In addition, the strong waterproof housing is rated IP66, providing a high level of protection against particles and water. www.westinghousesecurity.com

First demoed at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair earlier this year, Configura’s new augmented reality ( AR ) technology for users of space-planning software CET D esigner offers mixed-reality solutions for businesses, which allows CET D esigner users to “project” their designs in a client’s space using a phone or tablet. The highly visual CET Designer software enables 2D and 3D design, photorealistic renderings, flythru videos, virtual reality experiences, instant bills of materials, installation documents and now augmented reality experiences. www.configura. com/marketplace

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COMMAND AND CONTROL SUITE RELEASE 200 | HONEYWELL Honeywell’s latest smart building technology connects building personnel with data analytics to help drive operational improvements and efficiencies. CCS R200 builds on the original Command and Control Suite by offering more user interfaces to bring building performance data to key personnel, when and where they need it — from building operators and managers to security incident response teams — helping to reduce operational costs, mitigate risk and enhance business continuity. www.command. honeywell.com

MARKET FRINGE | CHILEWICH Available in six sizes and three colourways – Pacific, Quartz and Sangria – Chilewich’s Market Fringe carpets are prized for their careful manufacturing technique. Handcrafted in collaboration with a small weaving mill in Los Angeles before being finished in the company’s factory in Georgia, the carpets are made of yarn created from scratch by twisting multiple strands of tonal colours together. The resulting carpets are smooth and stylish. www.chilewich.com

NOTABLE DRY ERASE PAINT | BENJAMIN MOORE This new dry erase coating can transform almost any surface into a dry erase board. Notable is made with a two- component, user-friendly formula that is easy to erase and will not yellow over time or leave ghosting marks after erasing. Recommended for professional use in interior commercial or residential spaces such as office buildings, schools and universities, Notable is suitable for a variety of surfaces including painted walls, wood, glass, metal and laminate. www.benjaminmoore.com

FLINTLASTIC SA | CERTAINTEED Already a popular selfadhering product line, CertainTeed has upgraded this roofing system to withstand installation in near-freezing temperatures. Both the Flintlastic SA C ap and Flintlastic SA Cap FR (fire rated) cap sheets can now be installed in temperatures below 40°F with the use of a hot air welder. This enables roofers to work quickly through the winter months without fear of plunging temperatures. www.certainteed.com/ commercial-roofing

HIGH PROFILE SERIES | HUNTER DOUGLAS ARCHITECTURAL Using standard patented extrusions and clientspecific shapes, the new Frameworks aluminum beams can be customized to create one-off ceiling and wall designs. Made from up to 50 per cent recycled materials, the precision-cut seamless baffles are available up to 20 feet in length and in a variety of finishes and colours, including wood-look and wood-veneer options. Support options include traditional threaded rods, Unistrut supports, and low-visibility aircraft cables to provide for vertical, angled, and horizontal applications. www.HDarchitectural.com

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view point Walk With Joy

ULI Toronto’s Executive Director urges commitments that move us toward a diverse city building industry. By Richard Joy

Richard Joy is Executive Director of ULI Toronto. Previously, he served as Vicepresident, Policy and Government Relations at the Toronto Board of Trade, and was the Director of Municipal Affairs and Ontario (Provincial Affairs) at Global Public Affairs. Follow him on Twitter @RichardJoyTO or email at Richard.Joy@uli.org

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DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH. As a city building industry, however, it’s not really our practice, according to a national 2016 Matrix Search Group study. Over 70 per cent of industry professionals in Canada are of Caucasian or European descent. While overall workforce gender balance is progressing slowly, fully 79 per cent of women are not from diverse communities. Individuals identifying as LGBTQ are reflected in proportion to Canadian demographics, but employees of aboriginal descent and from the disability community are significantly underrepresented. The Matrix report digs into other details that bear greater exposure. Especially troubling, if not surprising, is the degree to which visible minorities are underrepresented in corporate leadership positions. Only 28 per cent of executives, senior or middle management are non-white, and a mere 14 per cent are owners, partners or in the C-suite. While women overall now represent over 50 per cent of the workforce and equally share positions at the management level, only 34 per cent of women can be found in the C-suite. A recent Urban Land Institute panel of national real estate leaders focused on gender equality revealed a deep concern that companies that do not reflect the communities they serve are putting themselves, and the industry as a whole, at a competitive disadvantage. It’s a view echoed in the Matrix study that revealed an overwhelming consensus across the industry that greater diversity lends itself to increased business innovation. Recent developments suggest that industry leadership has taken stock of this evidence and is working to step up efforts to open the paths of opportunity and leadership. In January, REALPAC, a national trade association dedicated to advancing the longterm vitality of Canada’s real property investment sector, launched a Diversity & Inclusion Task Force with a no-nonsense walk-thewalk set of objectives to achieve industry diversity. This includes a proposed pledge

of its members to only participate on public forum panels of two or more people if “at least one woman and/or a person from a diverse group is represented,” not including the moderator. For its part, the Matrix Search Group recently rebranded itself as Matrix360 to reflect an evolution of its talent recruitment focus to expand into advisory services of workplace “diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging.” ULI Toronto is also embarking on a diver sity and inclusion strategy development plan, and has recruited the leadership of Matrix360’s Managing Partner, Chandran Fernando, and the past and founding cochairs of our highly successful Women’s Leadership Initiative, Leslie Woo, (Chief Planning and Development Officer, Metrolinx), Godyne Sibay, (Managing Partner, Ontario Region, McCarthy’s LLP ), and Toni Rossi, (president, Real Estate Division, Infrastructure Ontario) to help lead this priority of ULI’s Chair, Derek Goring (First Gulf). We have long undertaken to ensure that all our thought leadership events reflect the REALPAC pledge. Our board leadership is over 60 per cent female and is 30 per cent diverse. Our overall membership, at just over one-third women, clearly has a way to go. No data exists on our membership diversity, something we will be addressing in the coming months. Being an industry that represents who we are as a society is an idea that appears to have very little resistance in Canada. Support for diversity initiatives and anti-discrimination policies have never been higher. Achieving such a goal, however, requires a deeper commitment from all of us. Each of us must play a role in understanding what a diversity and inclusion strategy looks like for their company.

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