We did it to ourselves, we did And that's what really hurts Us and no one else We do it to ourselves We do it to ourselves My @thestar.com column on the possible closure of Sneaky Dees. One councillor said it was the province’s fault. It isn’t Doug Ford here. It’s Toronto.

I believe this will be a major test of Carney. I voted for his party for the first time in my life in the last election, but if he is complicit in the further destruction of Toronto’s waterfront and the provincial takeover of Toronto he will lose a LOT of support.

Apparently, "sleepmaxxing" is a thing, "a viral social media trend that treats sleep as a data-driven event." But if you follow the data, you want to sleep in a #passivhaus environment with controlled temperature, low noise level, and good air quality. lloydalter.substack.com/p/are-you-in...

“At its core is the concept of sufficiency – the idea that people can enjoy a prosperous, healthy life without constantly striving to consume or accumulate more material possessions that degrade the natural world on which all life depends.”

I am so tired of these giant ads that we are all paying for. A better Ontario means no Doug Ford.

It is hard to believe how Muchmusic VJ J.D. Roberts has evolved since he left Canada.

Some readers complained that I was dumping on men in my last post about gas stoves. So today, I write about 150 years of women who wanted to eliminate kitchens so that women would be free to spend their time on better things than cooking. open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

The arguments over the merits of gas stoves vs induction reminded me of a much more significant cooking transition: from open hearth to enclosed stove. The benefits for the women who did the cooking were obvious, but men liked sitting around the fireplace, so the transition took decades.

Some of the “Bay Street Titans” in this ROB article are insane, spending $100K on testing and hormones every year, doing 250 pushups every morning and then there is Kevin Fucking O’Leary, having a blood plasma transfusion every 90 days. “I feel like I’m 14!” www.theglobeandmail.com/business/rob...

For all of human history, we have washed our bodies manually and generally made a botch of it. Now, finally, we have the human washing machine of the future, and I am so excited. And it's only US$400,000! lloydalter.substack.com/p/just-what-...

Mass timber buildings can be a bit wobbly until they get all the bracing in place, so the tower crane is totally free-standing instead of being attached to the building. I am amazed it can stay up like that, so tall!

The University of Toronto Academic Tower is almost topped off and looking good, I wrote about it in Wood Design @ Buildings Magazine cwc.maglr.com/wood-design-...

Ontario, pay attention: 32km/h is TOO FAST for bike lanes. 20 is plenty.

I found 3 architectural magazines spanning 1952 to 1972 that read cover to cover many years ago. Times have certainly changed! lloydalter.substack.com/p/three-diff...

Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement, has died. He inspired many other slow movements; in 2018, I wrote about slow bikes. I just republished it because it remains surprisingly relevant, particularly as I muse about the coming e-bike revolution. lloydalter.substack.com/p/from-the-a...

All the news about the recent Trump changes to refrigerants talk about groceries and supermarkets but the change to the rules about refrigerated trucks will mean a lot more climate-unfriendly refrigerants will leak. Follow the money here open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

I have always regretted not keeping all my mom's design magazines, but I just found 3- a house and home from 1952, a Forum from 63, and a Progressive Architecture from 72. I am going to have fun tonight reading these!

Hurrah! The province of Ontario may get more sensible regulations about e-bikes. They are not perfect and they are not finalized (Doug Ford may stick his nose in) but it's an improvement. lloydalter.substack.com/p/finally-on...

My new policy is to just dump every article with x-maxxing in it, it is so tiresome. 2 X’s and I am outtahere

I saw this on St. Clair in Toronto today. It goes 60km/hr and has a 1500-watt motor. It doesn't need licence or insurance and probably hangs out in bike lanes. I hope the new proposed rules that ban these get passed fast. (amazingly, it costs US$409) defeimaebike.en.made-in-china.com/product/MrTU...

Many older people worry about their financial security; They should also worry about thermal security. We need structural as well as financial preparedness. lloydalter.substack.com/p/why-your-r...

Tomorrow Doug will ban the yellow signs that tell you that you are speeding and collected this data. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

This one is like an old Far Side cartoon, car crashes into fireworks store, how beyond ridiculous does it get apple.news/ACsnPW2DlT2u...

@thestar.com profiles racist misogynist Jivani and calls him “a champion of young men.” I spit out my coffee, they should be ashamed.

How do you stay relevant when you get older? At some point, maybe you decide that it is not as important as it used to be. I am wrestling with this issue, and it's not easy. lloydalter.substack.com/p/how-do-you...

It is interesting what a difference one word makes in a headline. I think the print version is better with that "not" in @johnlorinc.bsky.social article

I used to blame Julia Child for the popularity of kitchen islands but after seeing a picture of Dick van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, I wonder if theirs is the most influential kitchen of the last 60 years. open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

Has any previous Ontario government been so profligate in its spending on advertising? This is truly ridiculous.

At the recent Passive House Institute | iPHA conference in Essen, Wolfgang Feist mentioned Nansen’s Fram as a Passivhaus precedent. It’s much more than that; Its hull was an ingenious use of mass timber and it had wind-powered electric light.

@mattgurney.bsky.social says Doug Ford should kill Ontario’s bottle deposit system. I say we should put deposits on everything, from bottles to Mcdonalds wrappers to cigarette butts. open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

Mothers invented traffic calming.

@mattgurney.bsky.social gets it wrong when he says we should ditch deposits, just because Doug Ford destroyed the system. He uses McDonald's as an example- should there be a deposit on the Big Mac wrapper? The answer is yes, there should be deposits on everything. www.treehugger.com/its-time-dep...

I should note that Doug Ford's expansion of Billy Bishop Airport from 2 million to 10 million passengers will increase UFP pollution significantly. And we have to stop building condos hanging over highways. lloydalter.substack.com/p/ultrafine-...

We have been measuring ultrafine particles (PM0.1) by weight when they weigh almost nothing; we should be instead measuring by their numbers, which are huge. UFPs could be the cause of many of our health problems, and we are not even counting them.

I think the word architecture should be reserved for buildings and should never be verbed. This lawyer writing about trade deals in @thestar.com nails a trifecta.

A survey concludes that homebuyers want "wellness," but what does that mean? The builders think spa-like bathrooms, but dig into the survey, and it is all about safety, comfort, and efficiency, the kind of things #passivhaus delivers. lloydalter.substack.com/p/what-homeb...

I think @ambermac.bsky.social misses the message from the 1920s and the car. Motordom acted like promoters of AI today: organized campaigns to neutralize the opposition, pass jaywalking laws, take away our streets, accept death and maiming as part of life. The lesson is to fight now and fight hard.

A writer I follow says, "Are you going to say toilets are a luxury? They are not. Modern sanitation saves millions of lives per year.” Separating water from waste saved lives, but the toilet is fundamentally flawed. A look at the problem of poop:

At the #28intPHC I watched James York and Emily Ong talk about a building which they insulated on the outside, and Michael Ingui discussed his fire hall renovation where he dismantled everything and insulated on the inside. Deciding which can be a challenge. open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

It’s May Day in most of the world, and Loyalty Day in the USA! Read my history here. “May Day was so much more fun before it got political. In honour of how it used to be, get outside today. Maybe do a leape and daunce or two. Enjoy the day and hug a tree. Or a socialist, whatever.”

After the #28intPHC I came to Berlin to do a lecture and visited a lot of museums. I find it funny that my favourite museum in the world, the Neues Museum, is separated by a few hundred meters of grass from the Humboldt Forum, which is now my least favourite museum in the world.

I’m spending a lot of time looking down in Berlin, it has wonderful personhole covers. This one has all the highlights of the city.

Berlin is full of big museums but the tiny Tchoban museum of architectural drawings is a gem (inside) and the Otto Wagner exhibition is outstanding, they knew how to draw back in the day.

Hey @holz-bau.bsky.social that’s exterior shading! Seen in Berlin

The conductor on the train to Hanover demanded to see my passport- “you looked too young to have a seniors ticket” I didn’t complain

I’m in the 3rd row from the rear on the far left.

Timothy Lock defines architecture: “Our buildings should not kill us.“ #28intPHC @phplus.bsky.social

Sven Maxa tries to bridge the chasm between Australian production housing and #passivhaus. It is wide and deep- a 250% lift from a crappy building code base production house to custom passive, a 60% increase to upgrade builder stock plan. Sigh. #28intPHC @passive house plus

It’s totally crazy and upside down but Andrew Coyne has been spitting truth a lot lately

One message that comes through this #28intPHC is “Keep it Simple.“ Zoltan from Romania shows how important simple forms and orientation are in houses; James from Scotland explains how in larger projects, systems can get complex, give them lost of room. An article here for @phplus.bsky.social