Hello readers! In addition to posting on my two blogs, another creative outlet of mine is writing fictional stories. I will be posting one of my books chapter-by-chapter on Wattpad to share it with the world. The storyline may be of interest to my blog readers as it begins in the mid-century period and is inspired by real events as well as the development of the new city of Bramalea. I invite you all to have a read of the first chapter and hopefully you will be drawn to continue reading as I post each chapter.  Below is the synopsis of the book: Seeking a better life for his children, a father embarks on the ambitious project of designing and building a new city from the ground up. As the city grows and changes so to do his children, each influencing the other over the decades. In many ways, the city takes on a life of its own, with an outcome that the founding father could never have imagined. Inspired by an actual city built from scratch, and real events surroundi...

This post is a bit of a crossover with my other blog bramaleablog  that is about the satellite city/new town of Bramalea, west of Toronto. The company that built the majority of Bramalea grew with time to become one of North America's largest real estate companies, but sadly went bankrupt in 1995. During its heyday Bramalea Consolidated Developments Limited (later re-named Bramalea Limited) was involved in a few Ottawa condominium projects including The Riviera towers on Riverside Drive near Industrial, as well as the Century Manor towers as featured in this post. Located at Baseline Road and Clyde Avenue in Copeland Park, these 3 similar buildings were constructed as a joint venture between the local company Aselford-Martin and Bramalea  Consolidated Developments Limited . The plans that I have below are for Century Manor; the other two towers on the site are named Manor Square and Manor Garden. They were built between 1974-1976.  This year (2016) units in t...

Costain,later renamed Coscan, used the title "Forestwood Collection" (some times spelled as two words: Forest Wood) on many of their plans for decades. At first the plans had names of trees, but this tradition changed with time.  In later years it appears that plans included in this collection were all larger, on wide lots, and with two-car garages.  I have included many in previous posts, but here are the ones I have from the late 1970s-early 1990s. A series of plans were also built under this banner later in the 1990s, and I will include them in a later post. Below are the Forest Wood Series of plans from Katimavik in Kanata, c. 1978. This collection of plans has a 1970s contemporary style with wood accents and textures apropos for the look and feel of the architecture built in the area at the time. Some are variations of older Costain plans, but others are new designs.  The designs below were bui...