edit: Updated link to the City’s award web page.
Just a quick update to announce that we have been awarded the “Award of Excellence” for 444 Highcroft Ave. from the City of Ottawa as part of the Ottawa Architectural Conservation Awards. I have blogged about this project previously here. You can also view the case study page here.
We are quite pleased about the recognition and are proud to have worked with such great client. A considerable amount of credit should go to the contractor Vincent DeBeer, who really raised the bar on quality.

After a few fits and starts, a hobby project of mine has finally been given life.

Parcfer.me is an F1 enthusiasts community site. The focus is on the North American motorsport fan. With the introduction of a newly american based team (USF1) and the reinstatement of the Canadian Grand Prix, I felt it was time to provide a forum for the often alienated fans on this side of the pond.
Parcfer.me is the clever brand name for this site; derived from the racing term “Parc Ferme”; literally meaning “closed park” in French,  a term used to describe a secure area at a Grand Prix circuit where the cars may be stored overnight. According to the FIA Formula One regulations, the area must be sufficiently large and secure so as to prevent unauthorised access to the cars, while allowing technical checks to take place.

For those that may not be aware, I lead a secret other life as a race car driver. I’ve been very involved in the grassroots aspect of the sport for the last few years and actively campaign a Miata in several forms  of racing. I qualified this year for my novice race license. I’ve been a fan of F1 for as long as I can remember. I recall boring my father with excruciating technical details of Grand Prix cars as early as 12 or 13 years old. Those were the days of the great Gilles Villeneuve and his time at Ferrari. I attended my first Grand Prix (in Montreal) at the age of 17-18; and was captivated by the noise, smell and the speed of F1 race cars. Its an enthusiasm I’ve maintained since then, to the point of rising in the middle of the night to watch live feeds of far off races.

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The first commissioned backyard studio is now in progress. The client, a video artist, is moving from his rented studio to a space closer to home…more accurately his back yard.
The original backyard studio has been completed for several years now. After being picked up by TreeHugger there has been an intense amount of interest in the general concept of a “man space” and the specific execution of my own solution. The “manhut” (a term coined by this designer’s wife…also a designer) was developed as a necessary addition to our limited urban residence. With the introduction of my daughter, any usable home office arrangement was pretty much abandoned. The startup phase of my business precluded the possibility of renting office space. Additionally, my protestant work ethic was nagging me to actually address the lack of domestic space with some type of creative solution. That same startup condition excluded any possibility for financing a reasonable addition to the existing house. After considering the absolutely bare minimum program for a work space, I soon realized that the bulk of my metier takes place in much less than 100 sq. ft. The modern design agency is a largely digital endeavor. For a one man operation, the accommodation of a large monitor, a simple computer and a reasonable task chair are the only real requirements. Adding 100 sq. ft to a house is a bit silly. Gazing at my largely vacant rear yard, it soon dawned on me that a simple garden shed is all that is really required. The obvious precedents of Steve Jobs starting Apple out of a garage and more classically, Thoreau’s cabin in the woods; set the plan in motion. An interesting loophole in the zoning bylaw; any project less that 100 sq.ft is not subject to a building permit application was the icing on the cake. (more…)

I was showing my son Google Street View, which was recently unveiled in Canada. Like every other geek in Canada, I immediately navigated to my house to see if I got caught outside in my bathrobe. Unlikely, since I’m sure I would remember the combination of being outside in my bathrobe and having the Google car go by. Turns out it was a dull, early spring, daytime photo of my street. My son, not picking up on the fact that it was evening (and now dark out), immediately asked to zoom into the house to see if he could catch us looking at the computer (and by extension…looking at Google Street View).  It was this 8 year old’s expectation of technology that really blew my mind. It wasn’t a miracle enough that this corporation took sequential photos of every street in North America ( and most of Europe), but here, he expected the photos to be in real time and infinitely detailed. Now, I’m sure that feature will show up in the next couple months, but until then I’d like to postulate on some of the reasons why Street View is so compelling. (more…)

On Monday October 5, Adobe announced LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 2 (ES 2). Livecycle is Adobe’s enterprise offering for document-based workflow systems. Part of the suite will include a new portal-like technology, called LiveCycle Mosaic, for creating custom workspaces where employees can view contextual data from back-end systems in a series of windows, or “tiles,” on their computer screens.

We are pleased to have been associated with the design and development of this ground breaking product. Kevin Deevey Architect Inc provided user experience design consultation for the product. KDA worked as a part of the development team leveraging the Agile Development Process. (more…)