CreativeMornings/Vancouver Presents Brett Gajda Live

Presented in partnership with HCMA Architecture + Design, TILT, and CreativeMornings/Vancouver, with support from GDC, CAPIC and Nicli Antica Pizzeria.

Brett Gajda, the writer and host of the popular podcast “Where There’s Smoke”, will be in Vancouver on June 23rd to give a thought-provoking, engaging and inspiring presentation to creative professionals.

In his talk, Brett will be discussing the realities, challenges and opportunities created by the changing landscape of the creative professions, including how the application of control and focus can be used to adapt and thrive. He’ll also explore the role of personal connection to meaning (purpose) plays in a creative career and how we can live the life we want to live. Brett will address the self doubt and fear that many creative professionals experience as they face a changing market and provide insights into how we can tap into courage and vulnerability, leaving attendees feeling inspired.

After the presentation there will be Q&A and an engaging group discussion with likeminded creative professionals.

If this description isn’t enough, here is Brett’s bio:

Brett Gajda is a global consultant, trainer, and speaker for Fortune 1,000 companies, as well as entrepreneurs. He is also the writer/host of the Where There’s Smoke podcast.

Brett has launched two multi-million dollar businesses, and studied with some of the leading personal and professional development teachers in the world. All the while experiencing the broad spectrum of life as a world traveler, entrepreneur, artist, athlete, husband, father, and student of new ideas.

Since 2003, Brett has combined his business and life experience, with a powerful understanding of human psychology and business philosophy, to inspire and empower clients to raise their culture and performance to new heights. He has worked internationally with companies including Microsoft, eBay, Weiden+Kennedy, EA, Sony Entertainment Systems, Cisco, Citigroup, CBS Interactive, and Bloomberg (to name a few).

With Where There’s Smoke, Brett feels like he might finally be living up to the honor bestowed on him by his high school graduating class – “Most likely to replace Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.” After living in San Francisco for 18 years, Brett recently re-located to his hometown of Toronto, Canada.

Oh, and there will be snacks and beer served, so you’re officially out of excuses not to attend.

Date: June 23, 2015, 7-9 pm
Location: HCMA Architecture + Design, 675 West Hastings Street Suite 400, Vancouver, BC V6B 1N2

Additional details and to register for this event.

Future Shack: A Jean Prouvé Prefab Shelter Gains Mod-Con Pods and a New Lease of Life

By Natalia Rachlin
Wallpaper, June 11, 2015

York might not be an obvious place to go looking for Jean Prouvé masterpieces, but down an unremarkable dirt road nestled amid yellow rapeseed feilds, inside a hangar- sized warehouse, sure enough, there’s a six-metre-square Prouvé demountable house sitting in a corner, looking rather quaint. Its weathered steel-and-timber frame reveals the 70-odd years that have passed since it was originally built in 1944, as part of an order for emergency housing from the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning, to rehouse war victims in bomb-ravaged France.

(Image: Patrick Seguin and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have come together to work on the adaption of an original demountable disaster-relief house designed by Jean Prouvé in 1944. Courtesy of Wallpaper, photo by Daniel Stier)

Nearby, two newly commissioned, unfinished rocket-shaped pods, their insulation and metal framework still exposed, are propped on stilts as if preparing for take-of. When completed, the cylindrical capsules, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), will host kitchen and bathroom facilities that can be attached to the Prouvé house. Come mid-June, new and old will combine to transform a structure once intended as a disaster relief shelter into a modern holiday retreat that will be showcased at Design Miami/Basel by the Paris-based Galerie Patrick Seguin. Read more…

Architecture School’s New Wing An Ontario First

By Jonathan Migneault
Sudbury Northern Life, June 4, 2015

(Image: This artist rendering of the two-storey West Wing of Laurentian’s School of Architecture, expected to be completed in early 2016. Courtesy of LGA Architectural Partners.)

By the time it’s completed in early 2016, the second phase of Laurentian University’s School of Architecture will serve as a solid example for students of what can be achieved with wood.

A two-storey structure built with engineered wood products called cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glulam will host classrooms, a second-floor library and a lecture room as part of the school’s 54,000-square-foot second phase. Read more…

Architect Jacques Herzog Shapes City Culture With Building Design

The Current
CBC News, May 20, 2015

The man who brought Beijing its Birds Nest is now soaring toward another project, eyeing an empty parking lot that will become a new Vancouver Art Gallery. Architect Jacques Herzog shares his ideas on how a building can change the cultural face of a city.

Listen to the radio interview.

(Image: Jacques Herzog. Courtesy Studio Basel, photo by Adriano A. Biondo)

Homeowners Protection Office: Illustrated Guide to R22+ Effective Walls in Wood-Frame Construction in BC

The Homeowners Protection Office (HPO) is pleased to announce that the Illustrated Guide – R22+ Effective Walls in Wood-Frame Construction in British Columbia is now available for free download from the HPO website.

This guide was developed to assist home designers and builders in the City of Vancouver build walls with R22 or greater thermal performance. The information included in this document is relevant for low-rise wood-frame residential buildings across British Columbia. A valuable reference tool, the guide is intended to be an industry, utility, and government resource with respect to meeting this thermal performance level, while not compromising other aspects of building enclosure performance, including moisture management, air leakage, and durability. This guide was funded by the City of Vancouver and the Homeowner Protection Office (HPO), a branch of BC Housing, and was prepared by RDH Building Engineering Ltd.

The AIBC contributed to the project by reviewing and commenting prior to publication. Additional resources from the HPO useful to architects are available.