Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute

High Performance Building Enclosures Seminar

Envelope failures are the most common cause of missed energy targets, durability issues, and health and comfort problems. Making multilayered, high-performance building envelopes function as they should requires a new way of thinking that has not yet become second nature in the industry. With this full-day seminar, Dr. John Straube Ph.D., P.Eng. will address the requirements of building enclosures with an emphasis on the elements of design required to ensure high performance. It takes place Tuesday, November 26, 2013, 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Sutton Place Hotel, 845 Burrard Street, Vancouver. For more info and to register, click here.

7 Core LUs

Older Population Will Reshape Cities

By Bob Ransford, Vancouver Sun
November 9, 2013

Too often when we are planning, designing and building our cities, we fail to think about the massive demographic phenomena that is changing our lives. We need to connect the dots between the realities of a dominant aging population that is emerging in the next 30 years and the decisions we make today. Japan is currently the only country in the world with more than 30 per cent of its population aged over 60. By 2050, there will be 64 countries. There will be two billion people over 60 worldwide – a 250-per-cent increase over today. There are an estimated five million Canadians 65 years of age or older today, a number that is expected to double in the next 25 years to 10.4 million seniors by 2036. Since 1970, worldwide life expectancy has risen by around 10 years for both men and women. More …

Does Curved Furniture Make You Feel Relaxed And Hopeful? You’re Not Alone

By Dave McGinn, Globe and Mail
November 7, 2013

Architects and interior designers have plenty of tools at their disposal. Oshin Vartanian, a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto, wants to add one more: a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine used to unlock the secrets of the human brain. In a study published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vartanian and colleagues found that research subjects, both men and women, preferred curved spaces over rectilinear ones. Not only were people more likely to say curved spaces were beautiful, but viewing such spaces fired up activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain associated with aesthetic judgments. More …

Vancouver’s Ban on The Humble Doorknob Likely to be a Trendsetter

By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
November 17, 2013

It is a ubiquitous piece of equipment found in virtually every building, a requirement for entry, a necessity for exit. For some, the humble round doorknob is unremarkable and utilitarian, a simple tool, a means to an end. For others, it is a piece of art, an object of beauty, an architecturally significant adornment on the welcoming portal to a building. For others, it is so synonymous with ordinariness that a “knob” is a pejorative word for being dull or stupid. More …