The purpose of this blog is to share and preserve the recent past architectural history of Ottawa. For about 3 decades I have been collecting floor plans and marketing ephemera for houses in the Ottawa area, Toronto area, Southern California, as well as planned American communities/new towns including Irvine, California and Reston, Virginia. I am also the author of the BramaleaBlog and have had a long standing interest in innovative housing and urban/suburban planning.  There is much to learn from the past as a way to inform the future. As such, I am working on a Manifesto for housing and neighbourhood design in the National Capital Region. The purpose of the work is to propose ideas that re-think the way that new houses are designed and suggesting new ways to design neighbourhoods.  Intrigued? Stay tuned for more! My desks (I have a few) are always piled high with books, brochures, master plans, proposals and floor plans. One source of my inspiration for the Manifesto. D

In my final installation on Beaverbrook, I present historic  articles and maps of Beaverbrook as well as Kanata in general, including Katimavik. They are great for setting the context of what Beaverbrook and Kanata were planned to be. Happy reading!