Gairloch Developments is building a portfolio of boutique luxury condominium developments in some of Toronto’s most sought-after areas, with two additions about to enlarge the portfolio. Both eight storeys tall and both designed by architects—Alliance, one building is in The Junction while the other is in Leaside. Adding to the developer’s history of bringing fine-grained urbanism and design-driven buildings to established neighbourhoods, the projects…

In May, we introduced a new monthly feature report that analyzes applications for new buildings in Toronto. It is one part of a subscription database service UrbanToronto is launching soon.  This month, we examine data for large projects from April of 2021. (UrbanToronto defines a “large project” as anything larger than a typical detached home.) Before we dive into the numbers, however, some…

The construction industry is relatively slow-moving for new product development and innovation compared to other sectors such as information technology or telecommunications. Most innovations have been “incremental” in their approach—taking one product with a single function and making it slightly better.  Using this line of thinking, developing a product that could provide two or more functions would be very difficult…

Before the current building boom brought dozens of new buildings to the Toronto skyline, the late 1980s and early 1990s saw an earlier wave of growth in our city. The optimism in the years before the 1990s recession brought a wave of Postmodern architecture—the prevailing style of the era—including a 17-storey, 291,000 ft² office building at 33 Bloor Street East. Now managed…

A view from Toronto’s Yonge and Bloor intersection is featured in today’s Daily Photo. Captured by Marc Mitanis, this shot faces skyward from just east of Yonge Street, showing the flowing curves of One Bloor East on the left side of the image. A crane just left of centre marks where The One is rising, soon to dominate the intersection…