DIRTT Calgary Invites UrbanCSA

To our mounting  surprise, Calgary has been graced with a modest Architectural  firm that will make you wonder what became of that poorly assembled IKEA corner desk you threw away last month. DIRTT (doing it right this time) is in the business of environmental solutions, rethinking the way our buildings resonate sustainability to their inhabitants and the ecology. The creation of interchangeable and energy efficient interior spaces,  known as Modular Interior Construction, virtually eliminates the enormous waste created by conventional building renovation. This is achieved through specially designed walls, flooring, utility connections and various products; all manufactured in a replicable and sustainable way. Typical office remnants often spill out into a dumpster after only a few years of use, but creating ‘agile’ solutions to this issue is just one part of DIRTT.

All members of UrbanCSA have been invited to view these innovations and attend a media event on Tuesday August 11th at DIRTT Calgary head office where they will be unveiling the cities largest commercial solar array atop their magnificent southeast office. More information about DIRTT can be viewed on their website at www.dirtt.net.

More details to come, hope to see you there.

~Jon

Students lobby around Plan It

Story by: Daniel Pagan, Gauntlet News
Story date: Thursday, July 16, 2009

With the help of social media, the University of Calgary’s Urban Calgary Students’ Association is aiming to get students’ voices heard in the debate on the city’s ambitious urban plan. After a long hearing, the city council voted to pass the plan in its first reading.

Plan It, the proposed guide to Calgary’s growth over the next 60 years, would stop the annexation of rural land, create a primary cycling network, focus on high-density growth and improve Calgary’s transit system, if approved. Developers and several aldermen are concerned with the plan’s call to decrease car usage and single-family housing.

Continue reading here

A Call for Coordination & the Bigger Picture

Now-closed methadone clinic in Braeside (CTV.ca)

Karin Klassen expressed her sympathy for the patients of the Braeside methadone clinic in this letter published in today’s Calgary Herald. She goes on to say that simply because the issues are pushed out of the community doesn’t mean they disappear, and that we should be working together as a whole city to solve our problems.

We don’t just live in our community — we live in the whole city. Every time we take the bus, go shopping, see a movie, take the kids to their hockey game, we step out of our protected zone and wade into the dark morass of the infected, the perverse, the poor, the addicted. Them.

Read more at CalgaryHerald.com.

Tsuu T’ina Reject SW Ring Road

The Tsuu T’ina Nation have voted to reject an offer from the province to build the southwestern portion of the city’s ring road through their territory. These negotiations have been ongoing for nearly half a century, but after seemingly reaching an understanding, the members of the nation shut it down with a majority vote.

Now the city is scrambling to come up with viable alternatives that still strive to maintain automobile connectivity; many of these plans will revist the controversial idea of bridging or tunnelling under the Weaselhead Flats on the Elbow River. (Read more about possible “Plan B’s” via The Calgary Herald)

But some aren’t sure that it’s even necessary to build more roads. The following link will take you do a documentary hosted by CNN’s Miles O’Brien while he examines the way various mobility options have dictated the form of Denver, Portland, and New York. It’s an excellent film, and one that presents compelling evidence for smart growth from several different viewpoints.

Click here to watch PBS’ “Blueprint America: Road to the Future”.