Concrete has been around for a long time.The earliest concrete-like structures were built by the Nabatean people circa 6,500 BC, in what is now Syria and Jordan. They were concerned with the “dryness” of the mixture — what we now refer…

An overholding tenancy is created when a tenant remains in possession of its premises past the expiry of its term without a new agreement. Under the common law, the provisions of the expired lease continue to operate with the exception of…

As the global pandemic begins to recede into the background, the big story of 2022 will be shortages: Shortage of materials, shortage of workers, and possibly even shortage of insurance coverage.Yet the construction industry has reason…

An office building made with cross-laminated timber in Tokyo, Japan. (Shutterstock) Meike Siegner, Ryerson University and Cory Searcy, Ryerson UniversityIn 2020, the extraction, transport and manufacturing of materials for the…

Demand for real estate throughout Canada has made housing unaffordable. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Brian Doucet, University of WaterlooIt seems like everyone is talking about housing these days. For many, it is in a state of…

The latest trend in building affordable housing is to build Passive House. “Passive House is the simplest, lowest-cost environmental solution to affordable housing,” according to Medora Uppal, Director of Operations at the YWCA Hamilton.…

Members of the RCMP return from a boat patrol of a flooded neighbourhood in High River, Alta., on July 4, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh Timothy J. Haney, Mount Royal UniversityLike many residents living near Calgary’s…

A house in Ottawa that sold over the listing price. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang Steve Pomeroy, McMaster UniversityA recent news item about New Zealand’s radical new housing law and whether such measures could work in Canada…

Hundreds of millions more people will settle in the world’s cities in the coming decades. Artificial intelligence will continue to transform every aspect of our lives. Buildings, streets and infrastructure will be hyper-connected…

Destroyed buildings in San Francisco, Calif., after the 1906 earthquake. (H.D. Chadwick/Wikimedia Commons) Anastasia Athanasiou, Concordia UniversitySteady population growth and the accompanying rise in urban density increases the…