Rechercher dans la communauté

Couldn't find any info online, but the last remaining nuns moved out March 2013. This CANDEV sign popped up over the weekend.

Trouvé sur ce site : Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion and Technology: May 2014 avec cette description : Également trouvé en parcourant divers site, cette photo de la maison Shaughnessy en 1948 : sur ce site : Montreal Mission | Sisters of Service

In Little Burgundy, close to Atwater Market, The Burgundy Lion, The Corona and Joe Beef. Probably on this empty lot. www.hudsonhouse.ca

The Bilbao Effect: is 'starchitecture' all it’s cracked up to be? Every struggling post-industrial city has the same idea: hire a star architect (like Frank Gehry) to design a branch of a famous museum (like the Guggenheim), and watch your city blossom with culture. After all, it worked for Bilbao ... didn’t it? Tomasz Kacprzak, chairman of the city council of Łódź, the third-biggest city in Poland, was telling me about the time he met David Lynch. “We went to his house in California,” Kacprzak said. “He loves Łódź. He wants to build us a cultural centre.” (Lynch’s plan for a 90-acre site comprising a film studio, cinema, gallery, offices and bar in an abandoned power plant in Łódź – the city that also inspired the cult director’s film Inland Empire – is expected to open in 2016.) “Actually,” Kacprzak continued, “Lynch’s house is not great. The interior. It is not modern.” “Oh, no,” I said. “Retro? Nineties?” “No,” Kacprzak said. “Eighties. Gehry’s house was much nicer.” “You went to Frank Gehry’s house, too?” This was interesting. We were standing in the soaring atrium of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, designed by Gehry. Through the window, in the courtyard, you could make out the back of Jeff Koons’ huge, Edward Scissorhands-style plant sculpture, Puppy. “Yes,” Kacprzak said. “We asked for the Guggenheim in Łódź.” “You wanted Gehry to design a new museum?” “No,” Kacprzak said. “The same.” He swept his arm over the pine, glass and steel that curved above our heads. “You wanted him to build the exact same building?” “Yes,” Kacprzak said casually. “The same. But we would use it for a concert hall.” Much is made of the so-called ‘Bilbao effect’, the idea that attracting a world-class cultural institution – in Bilbao’s case, a branch of New York’s Guggenheim art museum – will put your city on the map, and in turn attract more investment, brands, tourism and cultural energy. This was the first time, however, that I’d heard someone say they wanted to copy Bilbao’s building exactly, swooping metal sheet for swooping metal sheet. “What did Gehry say?” I asked. “He said, ‘OK – but it will very expensive.’” Kacprzak shrugged. “We are a small city.” So, of course, was Bilbao 18 years ago when it rose to fame almost overnight. The fourth-largest city in Spain had lost its former glory as a manufacturing centre: its factories shuttered, its port decrepit. But after Spain joined the EU in 1986, Basque Country authorities embarked on an ambitious redevelopment programme for their biggest city. They drafted in expensive architects to design an airport (Santiago Calatrava), a metro system (Norman Foster), and a footbridge (Calatrava again), and in 1991 landed their biggest fish – the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, which decided to bring a new branch of the legendary Guggenheim Museum to the city, and hired star California architect Frank Gehry to build it. The building was an instant hit. Critics agreed Gehry’s deconstructed meringue of sweeping metal, which opened in 1997, was a work of “mercurial brilliance”. The collection inside, featuring art by Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko, Anselm Kiefer and Richard Serra, was world-class. The construction even came in on budget, at $89m. What’s more, Bilbao now had a landmark. Visitor spending in the city jumped, recouping the building cost within three years. Five years after construction, Bilbao estimated that its economic impact on the local economy was worth €168m, and poured an additional €27m into Basque government tax coffers – the equivalent of adding 4,415 jobs. More than one million people annually now visit the museum, which became the centrepiece of the Bilbao Art District: a cluster composed of the maritime museum, the fine arts museum and the Sala Rekalde art centre. In 2010, French designer Philippe Starck completed his renovation of a former wine cellar to create the Alhondiga culture and leisure centre (recently rebranded as Azkuna Zentroa). And Zaha Hadid has presented radical plans to redevelop the neglected Zorrozaurre peninsula and turn it into a high-tech residential and cultural island. A struggling city, decimated by the decline of its manufacturing base, had seemingly reinvented itself by – of all things – betting big on culture. Other post-industrial cities noticed. When I told Kacprzak’s story to Maria Fernandez Sabau, a cultural and museum consultant for cities around the world, she sighed. “Yes, many of my clients say the same thing: give us the Guggenheim,” she said. “Often the exact same building! But you can’t just copy it.” Don’t tell that to Abu Dhabi. Possibly in an attempt to buttress itself against the day the oil runs out, the city is building a museum complex called Saadiyat Island, which will feature branches of not just the Guggenheim (again) but the Louvre as well. In Hong Kong, the West Kowloon Cultural District will be home to M+, a new museum of Chinese contemporary art. There are plans for new cultural hubs centred on museums in Mecca, in Tirana, in Belo Horizonte and in Perth, Australia. It’s the same in the UK: Dundee has drafted in Kengo Kuma to build a new V&A Museum of Design, while Liverpool and Margate have welcomed the Tate Liverpool (designed by James Stirling) and the Turner Contemporary (David Chipperfield). Every city, it seems, wants to create the next Bilbao-Guggenheim-Gehry vortex. Praise for this model reached its zenith last month, as mayors, cultural attachés and city representatives descended on Bilbao for the UCLG Cities and Culture Conference. Walking the streets with Kacprzak from Łódź, I could see what the delegates liked so much. The city centre is clean. There are lots of expensive retail shops. “El Fosterito”, the glass-tube metro entrances designed by Foster, are slick and futuristic. And the people seem disproportionately well-off. Presiding over it all, like a monolith of gentrification, is the Guggenheim. Yet despite this icon of culture, the city seems strangely quiet. Where are the local galleries, the music, the graffiti, the skateboarders? Spain’s difficulties with youth unemployment are well-documented, but I expected more twentysomethings in what is regularly billed as a cultural capital. Does the Guggenheim actually encourage creativity in the city, as advertised, or is it a Disneylandish castle on the hill with a fancy name and an expensive entrance fee for tourists and the well-heeled? Is the Bilbao effect to spread culture, or just to spread money? “The Guggenheim put our city on the map, no question. But you also can’t get anything support here unless it’s top-down,” says Manu Gómez-Álvarez, an animated man of around 40 wearing earrings and a black hoodie, who is the driving force behind ZAWP, the Zorrozaurre Art Working Progress, a cultural group based on the Bilbao peninsula that Zaha Hadid proposes to completely redevelop. ZAWP is precisely the kind of cultural organisation that gets praised in megacities like London and New York. It’s a decentralised collective of young artists, theatre-makers, musicians and designers, with co-making spaces in the old industrial buildings of Zorrozaurre and a thriving entrepreneurial atmosphere in their colourful, funky headquarters – which also house a bar, a cafe, a gig space and a theatre. Gómez-Álvarez is leading a movement he calls Meanwhile, which aims to use the still-derelict buildings of the peninsula as temporary sites for plays, gigs, artistic interventions or even just cafes. Every proposal, at every turn, gets the same answer back from the authorities: no. “There’s no support for grassroots culture,” he says. “We waited 20 years before we got any funding from the government at all.” Last year, he says ZAWP finally received a grant – but they still don’t get a permanent home in the new Zorrozaurre, and will almost certainly have to move again. It’s hard to imagine: ZAWP’s premises are huge, stretching through half a dozen buildings and decorated in amazingly elaborate detail. And yet “we are nomads”, says Gómez-Álvarez. I asked Igor de Quadra, who runs Karraskan Bilbao – a network of more than a dozen theatre groups, venues and creative organisations – what he thought of the Guggenheim’s effect. He struggled to frame his words carefully. “It is fine for what it is,” he said at last, “but it gets a lot of attention from people who are just passing through. Events like this [uCLG forum] take up a lot of attention, but don’t leave much behind for Bilbao culture. Frankly, we don’t think about the Guggenheim.” The Guggenheim certainly doesn’t claim to be in the business of fostering local culture, nor would you expect it to. The museum has some Basque art and occasionally runs cultural workshops, but it’s an international art museum, rather incongruously plonked down in northern Spain. (Extreme Basque nationalists didn’t take kindly to its arrival: the week before it opened, ETA killed a police officer in a foiled attempt to bomb the museum.) There are, of course, Basque cultural organisations in the city, such as Harrobia Bilbao, a performing arts group established in a former church in the Otxarkoaga area in 2011, but their presence feels surprisingly marginal in a city that is supposed to be at the heart of Basque culture. “In English Canada, culture’s nice to have – in French Canada, it’s crucial,” says Simon Brault, head of the Arts Council of Canada, talking about a similar dynamic between French-speaking Quebec and the rest of the country. Brault helmed what you might call an “anti-Bilbao effect” – a completely different type of culture-led regeneration in another struggling post-industrial city, Montreal. Brault helped found an open, non-hierarchical cultural network called Culture Montreal, which rather than speaking only to the Guggenheims and cultural superstars of the city, was open to everyday Montrealers – bar owners, teachers, musicians. “An artist just in from Chile would be at the same table as the head of Cirque du Soleil,” he says. The aim wasn’t to secure funding for massive projects, but to put culture at the heart of the city’s regeneration. It was controversial at first. “The cultural groups thought it was a distraction and that what the culture sector needed was more money,” he said. “But within a year, we got what cultural groups had been asking for for 20 years: a seat at the table.” Rather than championing culture only for an elite group of professionals – and asking for money just for the huge institutions – Culture Montreal was better received by city and provincial governments, says Brault. Their goals were less arrogant: to increase cultural access for Montrealers, and to include culture as part of the solution to any civic problems. They achieved this, Brault says, by making everyone feel as though culture was a daily part of everyone’s life, not something for a sophisticated few. “There is definitely room for starchitects, but it’s always better to tap into local culture rather than buy it from outside. You can’t do culture in a city without involving citizens,” he said. So, which is the better way for cities – bottom-up cultural movements or big-ticket splashes? “Of course, there will always be top-down decisions,” Brault said. “The key is to look for a middle ground.” Hadid’s billion-pound redevelopment of Zorrozaurre will be a test for that middle ground in Bilbao. Will its 6,000 new houses, two new technology centres and park genuinely engage with local culture, or will it simply be a flashy area for rich Spaniards looking for a waterfront property? The Bilbao effect might be famous, but it’s here that it could be truly tested. Those cities around the globe hoping a brand-name museum will save them should be watching carefully. “The Guggenheim Bilbao was a rare occurrence,” says museum consultant Maria Fernandez Sabau. “There was an incredible confluence of amazing, talented people. You had a museum that was hungry to expand, available land for cheap, a government with money, an architect itching to make a statement, and a city that desperately needed a new reason to exist. You can’t just buy that.” http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/30/bilbao-effect-gehry-guggenheim-history-cities-50-buildings?CMP=twt_gu

Hors Canada,mais intéressant de voir ce qui pourrait un jour nous arriver... Irish house prices to fall another 20pc, warns Fitch. Irish house prices could fall a further 20pc and inflict stiff losses on holders of mortgage bonds, with a growing risk of property defaults across the eurozone periphery, according to Fitch Ratings. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9789129/Irish-house-prices-to-fall-another-20pc-warns-Fitch.html

TeleQuebec

Ça s'est vu avec les autos et la locations d'appartement sur les sites de petites annonces, mais les fraudeurs s'essayent avec la vente de maisons et de condos maintenant. Ils vont jusqu'à monter de faux cabinets d'avocats pour inciter les acheteurs éventuels à leur laisser de grosses sommes d'argent... via CBC Fake real estate ads prey on buyer desire for home deal Police say fraudulent websites targeting potential renters more common than scams to sell homes CBC News Posted: Dec 02, 2013 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Dec 02, 2013 9:50 AM ET An Ottawa woman says she was shocked to learn the condo she was selling online was also being offered on another website at a deeply discounted price, part of a complicated scam targeting unsuspecting homebuyers. Julie Gutteridge is selling her upscale downtown Ottawa condo for about $260,000, and placed ads with real estate website Grapevine and online classified advertiser Kijiji. She then noticed a nearly identical ad — with the same digital photos she had used on her advertisement — on another real estate website. The one difference: the price. The clone ad listed the condo for $108,000. "I was shocked... because I first heard of it, then I got an email from just a person that had noticed the two listings," said Gutteridge. "They actually used the same description that was on Grapevine. Not only the pictures of my unit, but the same description, address, everything but the unit number ... and of course the contact information," she said. Police investigators have seen a number of fraudulent websites targeting potential home renters, particularly people coming from far-away cities. But for someone to attempt to sell a home that he or she doesn't own is rare and particularly involved. Buyer pressured to close sale quickly "This is fairly elaborate, going to the point of setting up false law firm websites," said Sgt. Mike Noonan with Ottawa police's organized fraud section. "They are duplicating the ad, but drastically reducing the asking price, and that's what seems to jump out at legitimate homebuyers. They see, 'Wow, look at the price of that home and it looks good,'" said Noonan. The key to the confidence game is a reliance on both the desire of a homebuyer to get a good deal, and pressure from the supposed seller to close the deal quickly, says Noonan. CBC Ottawa's Simon Gardner learned this first-hand when he called the number on a duplicate advertisement for a different home — in Orleans, and listed in a duplicate ad for $129,000, or less than half the actual price. Gardner identified himself as "Andrew Gardner" and created a plausible back story after CBC News determined a journalist would be unable to understand how the seller's operation worked if he called and represented himself as such. The man who picked up the phone identified himself as Paul — a name CBC News assumed was fake — and said he couldn't meet Gardner in person because he was in Toronto with clients. He claimed he was selling the home at a discounted price because he was under financial stress and needed money fast, but offered assurances that the home had not been a grow-op. "Actually we do need some money urgently and there is no lien on the house, the house is paid for and it's going really quick. I have a couple of other interested buyers," Paul said. He said in order to close the deal, Gardner would have to deposit $12,000 in a bank account. The man then said his lawyer would contact Gardner with details about the transaction. The man also provided a link to the website of a Toronto law firm specializing in real estate. Law firm not recognized by law society Checks with the Law Society of Ontario reveal the firm doesn't exist, and the phone numbers listed on the website are not active. But nevertheless, Gardner was sent official-looking purchase documents asking him to wire his deposit into a Royal Bank account in Brampton, Ont. The account does exist, but it is unclear whether the account holder is involved or is an unwitting victim in a confidence scam. Noonan said tracking the suspected scammer is difficult, particularly if operating outside Canada. "The internet service providers, we don't seem to be able to track down. Our suspicion is that it's not even originating from within Canada and with a money wire service. Once that money leaves the country, it can be retrieved anywhere in the world," he said. Gardner made repeated efforts to meet with Paul, as well as his lawyer, to try to close the transaction in person, but was met with a series of excuses. After weeks of back-and-forth emails, text messages and phone calls, Gardner identified himself as a reporter and said he was investigating a potential real estate scam. 'How do you sell a house you don't own?' "What scam is that, I don't get you," Paul replied. "Well, let me ask you," said Gardner. "How do you sell a house you don't own?" At that point, the phone went dead, and Gardner received a text a short time later. "Nice try Andrew (Simon) you are a good scam baiter," the text read. "Pls lets drop everything. I am leaving this stupid job. I got forced into this lifestyle." It's not known if anyone has fallen for this kind of fraud, but Gutteridge feels it may already have hurt her chances of selling her place. "They may assume what I have on Grapevine is a scam or [may] not be comfortable moving forward with anything," she said. Noonan said homebuyers should be wary of suspiciously low price homes when the supposed seller never has time to meet. As for home sellers, he said the best you can do is keep an eye on real estate websites to ensure your ad hasn't been duplicated.

Depuis 2011, beaucoup de panneaux de verres de fenêtres et balcons sont tombés à Toronto. Ce qui est le plus choquant, c'est la réaction du bonhomme à la fin de l'article. David House dit que c'est normal, que les techniques de bâtiment sont du "jetable", que ça se vend, le problême c'est que ça va coûter cher à réparer dans le temps. Duh. http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/28/toronto-high-rise-hazards-of-falling-glass

Bonjour ! Je me promenais en ville aujourd'hui. J'ai été au Centre Bell, Ritz Carlon, Crystal, QdS et Vieux Montréal et j'étais pas mal fier de voir toute l'action qu'il y avait ! J'ai parlé et aidé plusieurs touristes des USA, et de Ottawa/Toronto qui venait voir le Festival de Jazz, One Direction, Bruno Mars etc. La vibe était bonne ! Ça faisait du bien de voir ça Les hôtels semblaient assez full house partout ou je passais ! My 2 cents !

Changing the plans America’s oil capital is throwing up a few environmental surprises Jul 14th 2012 | HOUSTON | from the print edition STEVE KLINEBERG, a sociologist at Rice University, mentions a couple of events that made Houston’s leaders take notice of a looming problem. One was the day, in 1999, when their city overtook Los Angeles as America’s most polluted—evidence that the rise in asthma attacks among the city’s children, and the students passing out on football pitches, were no coincidence. Another was when Houston came up short in its bid to compete to host the 2012 Olympics. No one on the United States Olympics Committee voted for it, despite the fact that Houston had a brand-new stadium and had promised to turn an old sports field into the world’s largest air-conditioned track-and-field arena. At a casual glance, Houston looks much as it ever did: a tangle of freeways running through a hodgepodge of skyscrapers, strip malls and mixed districts. A closer inspection, though, shows signs of change. The transport authority, which branched into light rail in 2004, is now planning three new lines, adding more than 20 miles of track. Most of the traffic lights now boast LED bulbs, rather than the incandescent sort. More than half the cars in the official city fleet are hybrid or electric, and in May a bike-sharing programme began. Every Wednesday a farmers’ market takes place by the steps of city hall. Other changes are harder to see. The energy codes for buildings have been overhauled and the city is, astonishingly, America’s biggest municipal buyer of renewable energy; about a third of its power comes from Texan wind farms. Houston, in other words, is going green. Laura Spanjian, the city’s director of sustainability, says that businesses are increasingly likely to get on board if they can see the long-term savings or the competitive advantages that flow from creating a more attractive city. She adds an important clarification: “We’re not mandating that they have to do this.” That would not go down well. Houston is the capital of America’s energy industry, and its leaders have traditionally been wary of environmental regulation, both at home and abroad. In fact the city has been sceptical of regulations in general, and even more of central planning. Houston famously has no zoning, which helps explain why the city covers some 600 square miles. It is America’s fourth-largest city by population, but less than half as densely populated as sprawling Los Angeles. People are heavily dependent on cars, the air quality is poor and access to green space is haphazard. At the same time, Houston has jobs, a low cost of living and cheap property. Many people have accepted that trade-off. Between 2000 and 2010 the greater metropolitan area added more than 1.2m people, making it America’s fastest-growing city. Still, the public is taking more interest in sustainability, and for a number of reasons. As the city’s population has swelled, the suburbs have become more crowded. Some of the growth has come from the domestic migration of young professionals with a taste for city life. And despite living in an oil-industry hub, the people of Houston are still aware of the cost of energy; during the summer of 2008, when petrol prices hovered around $4 a gallon, the papers reported a surge of people riding their bicycles to bus stops so that they could take public transport to work. The annual Houston Area Survey from Rice’s Kinder Institute also shows a change. This year’s survey found that 56% think a much better public transport system is “very important” for the city’s future. A similarly solid majority said the Metro system should use all its revenue for improvements to public transport, rather than diverting funds to mend potholes. In the 1990s, most respondents were more concerned about the roads. People’s views about houses have changed, too. In 2008 59% said they would prefer a big house with a big garden, even if that meant they had to use their car to go everywhere. Just 36% preferred a smaller house within walking distance of shops and workplaces. By 2012, preferences were running the other way: 51% liked the idea of a smaller house in a more interesting district, and only 47% said they wanted the lavish McMansion. http://www.economist.com/node/21558632

Fort de son nouvel appui de 25 millions de dollars de Teralys, le gestionnaire de capital de risque ontarien Celtic House ouvrira un bureau permanent à Montréal. La firme investira aussi des dizaines de millions dans les jeunes entreprises québécoises au cours des prochaines années. Tel que rapporté hier par La Presse Affaires, Celtic House a récolté 105 millions pour mettre sur pied un nouveau fonds de capital de risque. Le quart du financement provient de la firme québécoise Teralys. Or, l'équivalent de ce montant, soit au moins 25 millions, sera réinvesti par Celtic House ou ses partenaires dans des entreprises québécoises. «Tout ce qu'on fait est dans cette optique, dit Jacques Bernier, associé principal de Teralys. Tous les investissements qu'on fait reviennent dans l'écosystème québécois. De plus, l'historique montre que chaque dollar québécois investi en capital de risque attire chez nous deux autres dollars des États-Unis ou d'ailleurs.» L'investissement de Teralys - un réservoir de capital de risque créé en 2009 par Investissement Québec, la Caisse de dépôt et le Fonds de solidarité FTQ - était aussi conditionnel à ce que Celtic House ouvre un bureau permanent au Québec. La firme ontarienne avait de toute façon son homme à Montréal depuis plusieurs années, soit l'associé Pierre-André Meunier. «On va avoir pignon sur rue à Montréal d'ici la fin de l'année», promet M. Meunier, qui cherche actuellement un local à partager avec d'autres investisseurs. Occasions d'investissements La spécialité de Celtic House est de parier sur des entreprises en démarrage qui mettent au point des technologies pour les médias et les communications dans l'espoir de les voir percer et ainsi multiplier sa mise. Pierre-André Meunier affirme avoir déjà à l'oeil plusieurs occasions d'investissements dans ces domaines au Québec. «Il y a ici un pool de compétence et une expertise technique de classe mondiale, ainsi qu'un écosystème de qualité», dit-il. «J'ai des projets dans le collimateur au Québec, et directement dans les segments de marché où Celtic House a fait de l'argent précédemment», a-t-il aussi révélé. http://affaires.lapresse.ca/economie/201205/24/01-4528114-capital-de-risque-celtic-house-ouvre-un-bureau-a-montreal.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=lapresseaffaires_LA5_nouvelles_98718_accueil_POS14

http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/this+architectural/6201759/story.html

Peu importe où l'on se trouve sur la planète, je pense qu'on pourra toujours se consoler en regardant Détroit..... http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mother-six-trades-98k-house-used-minivan-152424777.html

Bonjour, Ces derniers jours, j'ai visité plusieurs projets de condominium. Les systèmes de chauffages offerts dans ces condos sont toujours les mêmes: les bonnes vieilles plinthes électriques situés au bas du mur pour bien assécher l'air. J'aimerais bien voir une certaine évolution de ce coté. Je pense surtout à la géothermie. Je ne vois que des avantages à cette source d'énergie, spécialement bien adaptée pour notre climat et pour les superficies supérieures à 2500 pieds carrés. Lorsque cette dernière condition est remplie, on rentabilise l'équipement rapidement. La chaleur et fraicheur du sol est puisé gratuitement. C'est rempli de bon sens. À date, je répertorie seulement 3 projets de condos à Montréal offrant la géothermie. Square Benny Promoteur: Développements McGill http://www.devmcgill.com/projets/square-benny.html Maison Productive House Promoteur: Produktif Studio de Design http://maisonproductive.com/fr Les Jardins de Westmount Promoteur: Roland Hakim et associés http://www.jardinswestmount.ca/Default.asp?Key=1&L=2 Pourquoi aussi peu promoteurs immobiliers offrent une telle technologie dans leurs projets de condominiums? En connaissez-vous les raisons? Si vous connaissez d'autres projet de condominiums avec géothermie, SVP partagez l'information. Merci!

http://www.baltimoresun.com/travel/bs-tr-montreal-cheap-1022-20111020,0,7685979.story?page=1 Article intéressant! Je dois avouer aimer la citation : « Toronto has its pockets of curiosities, but it ends up being a reminder of many cities in the Northeast. It's not for nothing that it often doubles for New York in movies. It's the no-fun house to Montreal's love shack.»

Source: Bored Panda Via: Journal Métro Strangebuildings.com has a wonderful collection of the world’s most unusual architecture and together with Bored Panda presents you an incredible list of 33 strangest buildings in the world, and best of all, it’s not just another random list, but it is based on 4.520 unique visitor votes. 1. Mind House (Barcelona, Spain) ... 13. Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada) 15. Olympic Stadium (Montreal, Canada) 28. Montreal Biosphere (Canada)

For Sale Living space: 6,500 sq.ft Honestly who wants a Floridian style home in Hudson. It probably looks totally out of place in the winter. --- For Sale Living space: 17,000 sq.ft It was built by Jean Houde. Plus after it was built, Hudson supposedly banned having homes built this size or something. --- For Sale Living space: unknown but probably well over 3000 sq.ft Japanese style house in Beaconsfield.

Boat dock inside the house Price: $25 million (sold as is) Living Space: 65,000 sq.ft Acreage: 43 It has an indoor pool and a golf course. No helipad though, which is weird. The place is 500 km from Toronto. Thats a nice commute.

The Ville Marie borough has given the go-ahead for a major facelift of the Helene de Champlain pavilion on St. Helen's Island - the building that until a six months ago housed the Helene de Champlain Restaurant. It will undergo a 10-million dollar expansion and upgrade this fall. After the facelift it will house a restaurant affiliated with the prestigious Relais et Chateaux chain as well as a cooking school and library. http://www.cjad.com/node/1174275

SolarBotanic is a company which researches and specializes in an emerging tech dubbed biomimicry -- which seeks to mimic nature, and use nature-inspired methods to solve human problems. SolarBotanic is focusing on energy production, and, to that end, they've developed what they call Energy Harvesting Trees. The trees aren't "real," (they're just modeled on real ones); these are composed of Nanoleafs, which use nanotechnology designed to capture the "sun's energy in photovoltaic and thermovoltaic cells, then convert the radiation into electricity." They also have stems and twigs which house nano-piezovoltaic material which act as generators producing electricity from movement or kinetic energy caused by wind or rain. The company has several patents on the technology already, and are currently seeking partners for funding and development. We don't really have any details about what these fake trees look like -- but Thom Yorke's probably going to write a song about them. Press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/02/prweb2133164.htm

Best deals in real estate by Don Sutton, MoneySense Wednesday, June 16, 2010 It’s a crazy time for real estate in Canada. Prices are sky-high, people are feeling pressured into selling into a hot market and buyers fear purchasing an overpriced home only to see the bubble burst. But MoneySense magazine has come to the rescue and crunched the numbers to identify the best real estate deals in the best cities. Using hard data on 35 major housing markets, the magazine has awarded a letter grade based on how reasonable the house prices are, whether home prices are likely to rise and how prosperous the local economy is. Surprisingly, none of the winning cities are Canada’s largest, but instead reflect medium-sized cities with affordable house prices that have the ability to grow strongly with local economic conditions. The best deals in real estate in Canada are to be found in Moncton and Regina, both of whom received an A-, while Fredericton, St. John’s, Ottawa, Gatineau, Winnipeg, Guelph and Saint John all received a B+. The criteria for the study was strict and comprehensive. MoneySense compared average rents to average home prices, which gives a great indicator of how valuable a home is. Next it compared local wages as to average home prices to see how long it would take for a family to purchase a home. The magazine also evaluated how quickly homes sold and prices increased over the years. Last, the economic environment of the city was also analyzed. The magazine looked at how fast a community grew, what the unemployment rate was and what kind of discretionary income the citizens had. This method avoided identifying cheap real estate in communities where prices were unlikely to increase due to a poor local economy or widespread unemployment. The analysis gives a comprehensive overview of where to get the best real estate deals in Canada. The study is also useful for identifying which real estate markets to avoid. For example, Abbotsford and Montreal both only rated Cs. MoneySense’s study also identified overpriced markets. For instance, Kelowna, B.C., scored well in the category of growth potential and has a great local economy. But the average house price makes it hard for the typical family to buy into the market. With this aspect in mind, Kelowna rated a D+ in the value category and a C+ overall. Windsor, Ont., where house prices are among the best values in Canada, is in the opposite situation. It rated an A for affordability, but since the city is slowly recovering from deep layoffs in the car industry, it only rates a C in the momentum category and a C+ for local economy, giving it a B+ overall. In concrete terms, what the best cities for real estate like Regina and Moncton have going for them is big-city growth and opportunities without big-city prices. While the affordability and growth value of a home are not always the prime reasons to buy in a particular location, knowing that your home is a sound investment in an economically vibrant city offers great peace of mind. Top 5 cities: 1. Moncton A- 2. Regina A- 3. Fredericton B+ 4. St. John's B+ 5. Ottawa B+ http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/article/moneysense/1662/best-deals-in-real-estate

MONTREAL'S FIRST 100% GREEN CONDO AND TOWNHOUSE PROJECT Overview Located minutes from Montreal’s downtown core and the historic Atwater Market, Maison Productive House (MpH) is a contemporary, green living project that offers a contemporary architecture that makes sustainable urban living bountiful and verdant. At Maison Productive House empowers consumers to live intelligently. Maison Productive House offers you two housing choices to meet you specific needs, Condo and Townhouse. Each unity offers a contemporary and green design that is both rich in space and refined in its architecture. MpH residences offer a privileged, refined living environment, which is refined and avant-garde. MpH perpetuates the exceptional architectural style with the most advanced Green (sustainable living) elements. MpH is Montreal’s first ecological design that seeks carbon-neutrality and addresses various productive aspects of a responsible lifestyle: alternative energy, food garden, active transportation, more personal productivity and leisure time. Here are some of the design principles that inspired the vision for the MpH Its walking distance from Charlevoix metro station Amenities MpH is very green. Its infrastructure can contribute to the environment instead of being as drain upon it. Maison Productive House seeks a LEED® Platinum certification and follows zero-emission development (ZED) design principles. What is unique about the MpH project is that it is Novoclimat® certified, uses Solar Panel and Geo-thermal energy; includes EnergyStar® appliances, dual-flush toilets and radiant heated floors. Additional examples of this unique project include: Onsite garden Custom-built doors kitchens and stairways using FSC or reclaimed wood or bottles No use of VOC products in lacquers, and natural fibers wherever possible (insulation, wall structure). Social and productive spaces, mixing ecological and social functions, such as: its year-round greenhouse, sauna, meditation room, and laundry room recovering grey waters and balcony. The sauna is strategically placed to allow for voluntary heat loss that directly will benefit the otherwise passively heated (solar) greenhouse. The greenhouse is supplied with recouped rainwater and filtered gray water for irrigation. Other amenities include: - Attention to linkages between outdoor and indoor spaces with the innovation of SunSpaces and ample roof, garden and balcony spaces for social interaction and growing. - Artisan bakery integrated into the residential development - Creation of possible income-streams to owners through rental spaces - Proximity to public transportation and the provision of a shared car service - Both inside and outside the greenhouse, the roof is maximized for growing vegetables. Cold-frames are integrated in the roof balustrade with seasonal covers to extend the growing season. - This social gathering area will have all the amenities for Bar-B-Qs, sun-bathing and gardening. - The Sauna uses an electrically-powered design which utilizes pine wood and is large enough for 4-6 people. - In addition to the roof greenhouse, every owner has their own private plot for growing fruits and vegetables in the garden as well as access to a fruit orchard and a herbal garden. - Water filtration systems: Units 2,4 and laundry room have recycled gray waters. Also personal units are supplied with carbon filters in the kitchen counters to provide the cleanest possible drinking water. backview They say they have 55% sold. It seems like they have 3-4 condos [only 1 left] (each are 3.5 equalling 809 sq.ft) and there is 4 townhouses [only 2 left] PDF File

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=181275

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)