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 Man...