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Building
RAIC wary of government’s mixed messages
OTTAWA - The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has criticized the federal government for issuing announcements about promoting and funding energy efficiency, while quietly cutting programs. As evidence, RAIC points to the…
Beware of free margaritas
If you're a builder, you've probably heard about Greenbuild, the annual gathering of the U.S. Green Building Council. If not, you will. The conference brought more than 15,000 builders, architects, designers and other environmentally-minded…
The “other” Chapter 11
Most readers of Building magazine will not instantly be able to ascribe a meaning to Chapter 11 since it is not a term which comes up often in the construction and development industry. Those in the industry who deal with cross-border…
Going green is good business
Weaning American culture off its dependence on fossil fuels will be one of the most important processes of the modern age. Like any addiction, this Herculean task will take a long and painful course, made worse by the lack of any clear…
Breaking the architectural sound barrier
While much current architectural discourse centres around the use of technology as it relates to design visualization and fabrication, there is a rising interest in the potential of digital applications to create multi-sensorial and…
Good timing
It can be compellingly argued that over the last 25 years, the construction industries of the industrialized world have become fragmented, bloated and inefficient. Ironically, in a drive to become leaner, with more focused disciplines,…
The nature of Ghosts
"As an architectural student in my early twenties, I quickly became suspicious of the nature of the architectural education that I was receiving. While daydreaming in the classroom, and looking out the window at the life on the street…
The landscape of an urban campus
The words "art" and "science" frequently appear in definitions of landscape architecture signaling, as with architecture, a duality of creative expression and functionality. Robert Holden (New Landscape Design) calls it "an all-embracing…
Setting standards
A standard for the testing and evaluation of Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems (EIFS) in commercial applications, recently approved by the Underwriters Laboratory of Canada (ULC), will silence some critics of EIFS, a cladding system…