I've been working/procrastinating all this long week-end (It's been Thanksgiving WE in Canada) and realized that I haven't posted anything interesting for ages. There's been pretty insightful developments in my thesis since last week. I went to the Toronto archives which gave me a good sense what this part of the city was only 15 years back. The site used to be a soy and malting processing plant, rather huge, everything has been torn down in the early 90's except the silos I'm workin on.

I started to put together measure drawings, which is forcing me to do research and understand how silos are built.

I went to see the editor of the www.ocadpress.ca book which will be published in a couple of months or so. We talked about my paper to be published in the book and had a great discussion. He suggested me to read "The Architecture of Happiness" of Alain de Botton. I started yesterday and I just can't stop. Although it is more philosophical than practically architectural, it will bring another dimension to my paper and therefore, is helping me to clearly define my thesis topic, which is really in need of being clearly delineated.

I had to put together a photo analysis of the area which helped me to understand and define the area I want to analyse. I have yet to do a set of maps/layers of analysis from a cartography perspective. This will help me to understand the site from a bunch of different approaches.

The following pictures are what I consider as important features of the area and also elements I will take into consideration when the planning phase will start.

The pictures are organized in four and half categories:

Limits, or the elements that help define and delineate the area.



Wildlife (part of the series but doesn't really belong to any category).

Water, as a former communication way, is now an edge without any actual purpose, what is its next use?



Remarkable buildings.



Communication ways.