Design : Featured Stories

With so much new construction in the last few years, it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Our Development Editor Bert Archer picks five projects worth a closer look (including one you can't look at yet).

In our second session on affordable housing, passionate thought leaders brainstormed how to improve the quantity—and quality—of affordable housing in Toronto.

At our June 21 event on affordable housing, panelists and attendees connected the dots between market forces, transit, and government and charitable contributions. There were no silver bullets, but lots of great ideas taking us into round #2.

Fitting more people into Toronto doesn't have to mean building up. The city's alleyways are full of real estate opportunities, if only the city could figure out the best way of servicing them.

With GTA on the forefront of increasing awareness of the danger some buildings can be to birds, it makes sense that industry leader Feather Friendly Technologies sprang up in Etobicoke.

Author Bob Willard meant to do some recycling when he revisited his book on sustainable business practices. But the world had changed too much. And not just the technology.

The nerd-driven video-game industry has traditionally overlooked female talent. But women game creators in Toronto are working together to pull down the gender barrier. And they might be creating a world with better games, too.

A love of West Coast hacker culture prompted Eric Boyd to fashion a line of wearable technology that lets people know what your body is up to. Could it bridge the gap between stylistas and geeks?

With projects aimed at breaking down the barriers between creators and users, artists and designers, Jeremy Vandermeij pinpoints the human connections at the core of great design.

At Yonge Street's best-attended event yet, our experts encouraged more thoughtfulness in the design of our city.

Join Yonge Street on Thursday, Feb. 16, for a discussion on how smart design and planning can help us get the best out of Toronto's increasing density. Our fourth public event will focus on how the city's built form can accommodate a growing population. Architects Shirley Blumberg and Charles Rosenberg and city planner Gregg Lintern will lead the discussion. Toronto Star columnist Royson James will moderate. The Yonge Street Speaker Series is sponsored by the Toronto Community Foundation and Waterfront Toronto.

In one of an occasional series of articles looking at how other North American cities wrestle with their challenges, Minneapolis-based writer Michelle Bruch examines how public input helps the bottom line as much as it helps build places where people want to be.  

The inaugural event in the Yonge Street Speakers Series, taking place on Sep. 22, will examine how Toronto's public spaces shape our lives in ways both dramatic and subtle. The series is sponsored by the Toronto Community Foundation and Waterfront Toronto.

Lara Bazant's ethical jewelry business is the perfect combination of intricate design, fair trade materials and chemical-free processes. With a varied background and extensive travel, she also chose Toronto to set up her growing business.

When people think of affordable housing, they don't always think of accessible housing, even though experts say the disabled make up huge swaths of low-income people. In Ontario, the numbers are jolting. Almost two million Ontarians are disabled. People like Danielle Svec are negotiating the slowly-improving system.