Getting ready for Costa Rica

We've been split into teams dealing with one of the following: Matapalo town masterplan; Matapalo town square; housing unit. We're very much about threes at the IWB because each group had to present three variants for each today. It went pretty well but there's more work to do. Everyone is now very focused on the forthcoming presentations in Costa Rica. We're presenting to both the Veritas architecture school in San Jose and to the community in Matapalo. And its coming up fast...

After the fun

The fundraiser was a great success. Our distinguished guests particularly enjoyed the cardboard studio transformation into a Costa Rican village. The mojitos went down well too.




You can see more pictures here: http://uoguelph.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2169530&id=120805034

Laneway houses

In addition to working on sustainable housing in Costa Rica, the IwB students were asked to develop concepts for a laneway house in Toronto. Laneways - narrow lanes around 9ft wide - sit behind many of the streets in Toronto. The idea is that there's enough space for a small housing unit to fit in there and thereby increase the urban density and combat sprawl. We were asked to design a unit just 400 sq ft. One example is shown here.

Fundraiser preps

We're all working hard on the fundraiser at the moment. Two of the students have created a rain forest from yoga mats. Another is building a beach. Yet another team are building houses out of cardboard. Everyone is certainly putting the work in and looking forward to a great night of fun and fundraising.

You're invited