An Adventurous Souls Passion for Beautiful Spaces & Places

It’s nice to see another great working initiative towards the sharing economy making even this little Caribbean island become more self-sufficient. 

How to create functional livable spaces in high density cities for young urbanites, singles, and temporary renters. Always thought of this idea for Toronto with the increasing population growth creating higher density in the city. We need to be more wise about how we build and use our spaces as in the video above, to be able to accommodate for more people in smaller square footage. Although I’m not too fond of the design of this building, in terms of creating that welcoming comfortable atmosphere they were aiming for, it’s the vision that I admire most. Maximum efficiency, no wasted space and a sense of community to enjoy the city-dweller life. In Toronto, developers are constantly bulldozing up land and over the past decade we have yet to see functional layouts/more sustainable building technology for the current units on market or even more thought and planning into creating a sense of community for the surrounding space of the developments. It seems as if the developers here prioritize short term goals to maximize profits over providing long term benefits for condominium owners and renters. Hopefully if we can educate people more on why having more sustainable buildings in practice can increase their own standard of living, we would have more willing to spend money in investing on creating greener buildings. That way there’s less money spent on building restoration in the future - keeping renting/buying costs relatively balanced, and we can come closer to achieving that goal of a more creative looking and healthier city where people are more inclined to stay on a long term basis.

What's to replace the iconic Honest Ed's Jan. 2017 #mirvishvillage #honesteds #theannex #toronto #hellomoreglasstowers (at Mirvish Village - Markham House)

Eminent Domain. An installation from over the summer showcasing the names of thousands of affected ecologies and species gone extinct as a result of globalization and human led activity. #eminentdomain #bikvanderpol #exhibition #installation #environment #degradation #extinction #globalization #thepowerplant (at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery)

This is probably the most innovative homeless man in Toronto. He created a mini library for himself under the Gardiner and even built a sense of community and purpose for himself with a sign reading "The Free Underpass Library, Enjoy 😃" #gardinerexpressway #underpass #toronto #homeless #innovation #freelibrary #shelter #publicspace (at Gardiner Expressway)

A mini phone timelapse I made a few weeks ago while mapping and watching cities from the cool hidden SilverSnail Black Canary Espresso Cafe a few weeks back. Not to mention, they also have the one and only best nutella latté in the city!

I thought this was absolutely brilliant and inspiring! (FORGET elementary school..., but I didn’t even have these opportunities back in high school!) If we want to see better design solutions that can sustain and foster growth in all aspects of our communities and cities, then we need to start with education. More schools like this one, need educators to create programs that stay ahead of time to match the current needs of our society and environment. This way we can better engage and give a sense of purpose to the impressionable youth to stay inspired and be able to accomplish something where they can see the direct impact in their lives and the world.

Great video with an overview on everything I have been thinking about lately on how we can build better cities and on a lot of the existing problems we face in North American cities.

all the worlds a stage (via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zMCxmdkcRY)