Dawson City spent more than $600,000 last year dealing with damage to roads and pipes caused by melting permafrost.

A recently-published report says the shifting ground, a result of climate change, can do a lot of damage to infrastructure such as water and sewer systems. — cbc.ca

The Milllennials, the generation born from 1983 onwards, enjoyed a childhood free of bunkbeds or even shared bathrooms. Growing up in plush megahomes undoubtedly helped them become, in the words of one author, “self-centred, needy, and entitled with unrealistic work expectations.” Oddly, it also spawned a group of people patently unimpressed with backyards and breakfast nooks. — news.nationalpost.com

Big names of the international architectural and design community recently gathered at Toronto's Thompson Hotel as AZURE Magazine revealed the winners of its second annual AZ Awards, the only international, multi-disciplinary design competition in Canada. Representing a global snapshot of the world of architecture and design, submissions were open to designers, architects, firms and manufacturers of all disciplines, as well as students in these fields. — bustler.net

Fogo Island is less than 100 square miles just east of Newfoundland and Labrador. The craggy island isn’t the most hospitable place, but the roughly 3000 inhabitants are committed to living there and even taking steps to draw tourists to their rocky shores. Across the island, six artist’s studios designed by Saunders Architecture are taking shape. The hope is that the island will draw the kind of cultural tourists that have flocked to places like Marfa or Bilboa. — thefoxisblack.com

“It has been extraordinarily controversial and I made no bones of the fact that it’s not a project I would have supported if I had been on council at the time,” said the mayor.

“But the thing is, it’s there. It’s an indelible and a permanent part of the landscape of our city.

“It would all do us good to grow to love it.”

The span, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is officially pegged at $24.5 million, but is expected to cost more. — calgarysun.com

The proposal is for a mixed-use development. On the Howe Street side, there will be a 49-storey residential tower with a 9-storey podium which includes market rental housing, commercial uses, and a childcare facility. The building height is at 150 metres and will be the tallest building on the southern end of downtown and the 4th tallest building in the city, unless the Ritz Carlton site gets developed before this, in which case it would be the 5th tallest. — vancitybuzz.com

From CBC TV's "The Way It Is" program, circa 1969, urbanist and author Jane Jacobs compares late 1960s Toronto and Montreal on how they have been planned and built, while condemning major highways planned for GTO. — Youtube

Three huts were chosen from an open design competition with the winning designs coming from the Czech Republic, Norway and New York. A fourth was chosen from student submissions at the University of Manitoba while the fifth was designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. — winnipegfreepress.com

The portuguese architect Diogo Burnay to head Faculty of Architecture and Planning of Dalhousie University, at Halifax, Canada, after being selected among three finalists in an international competition. — Público - P3

Amnesty International called on Canadian authorities Wednesday to arrest and prosecute George W. Bush, saying the former U.S. president authorized “torture” when he directed the U.S.-led war on terror. — news.nationalpost.com

A design-build team led by Ledcor was announced Wednesday as the winning bid for construction of the new Royal Alberta Museum in downtown Edmonton. — cbc.ca

For the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t look better than the past. Faced with the prospect of climate change, environmental degradation, economic upheaval and diminished resources, it’s not unexpected that architects such as Susan Fitzgerald have started to look at the world beyond the building. The Halifax practitioner, just announced as the winner of the Canada Council $50,000 Prix de Rome, will spend the next two years figuring out how cities can be made more productive. — thestar.com

Douglas Coupland, the Canadian author, also buddies with our Professor Tony Robbins was the surprise client for our final studio project.

After the installation gallery and precedent studies we tasked with designing a small house for a hypothetical client. The client was described as an artist and a writer and these two professions dictated the dualities of his personality. — UBC (Mike)