Canada's Environmental Voice
Sustainable design is often narrowly construed as only the environmentally conscious design of objects. Broader considerations for what design can be should also embrace services, experiences and even behaviors. But it takes a large leap to get people to see examples of sustainable design beyond the typical re-usable shopping bags […]
In cities across Canada, people and organizations are finding ways to address complex challenges and creatively shape the future of their communities. They are greening neighbourhoods while producing local food, creating social enterprises to reduce poverty, mentoring immigrants and helping them integrate into their new communities, and using community arts […]
A “cool” and affordable high performance electric vehicle has been as elusive as sighting a snow leopard in the Himalayas. We have seen so many hybrids and hybrid versions of the same old auto models in the marketplace of late that we have all but lost interest entirely in the […]
Papermaking remains a thriving industry in parts of the non-Western world including India, Nepal and Egypt. In many of these locales there are efforts in place to maintain handmade paper as a viable local industry for both economic and cultural reasons. Handmade paper also often relies on local organic materials […]
I was a kid in the seventies when a serious drought in Southern California left swimming pools emptied, which created the ideal environment for skateboarding to evolve from its quaint “sidewalk surfing” days, as Jan and Dean sang, to a legitimate and highly profitable industry.
Within today’s instantaneously disposable culture, buildings are often thoughtlessly constructed using mass-produced curtain wall and structural systems while capitalizing on consumers’ fleeting needs for ephemerality and ambiguity of space and place. Given the demands of the marketplace, how and why would anyone ever design an architectural program based on localized […]
For nearly five years, Sustainable Waterloo Region (SWR) has been convincing companies and organizations around Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, Ontario, to instigate a cultural shift that would help sew environmental responsibility into the way Canada’s 10th most populated urban area grows and evolves.
Long before going green became a trend, luthiers were passionate seekers of prized pieces of reclaimed wood. A fallen tree in the forest was viewed as a creative opportunity and specific species of wood were sought out with the belief that they held magical tonal qualities within their very DNA.
On Thursday, March 13, Wild Canada – the first large-scale documentary to comprehensively showcase Canada’s varied and unique natural history, including the role of humans – premieres on the CBC.
Chris Hadfield, perhaps the first out-of-this- world rock star, wastes no time before waxing poetic in his book about the bounteous beauty of space and our planet. “The windows of a spaceship casually frame miracles,” he writes in the opening paragraph of his introduction. “Every 92 minutes, another sunrise [because […]
