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Designing for Future Ontario Climates – Homes and Cottages
Map showing the extreme daily maximum temperature change in degrees Climate change is topping national, provincial, and municipal conversations these days: and for good reason. The fast few years have been the warmest on record (“NASA, NOAA Analyses Reveal Record-Shattering Global Warm Temperatures in 2015“) and the perils of business-as-usual become apparent. Ontario is implementing a Cap and […]
Read morePaper as Insulation
At the firm as part of our conversation around insulation types, one of the Principals, Marty, mentioned that we have been using newspaper to insulated walls for hundreds of years. Indeed if anyone has done a renovation or addition to a home in Toronto from the early 1900’s, they might have found old newspapers still […]
Read morePassivHealing
We are excited today to share a guest post by Nabia Majeed, on her thesis work at the University of Toronto around healing environments. Nabia participated in the Passive Building Show at Coolearth Architecture in the Fall of 2015. Nabia Majeed is a Master of Architecture graduate from the University of Toronto who completed […]
Read moreReframing “Sustainable” Payback: Cost or Comfort?
A common element in Sustainable Design is projected payback period. Payback is in this sense defined as cost savings in dollars that the sustainable measure will have over the long term, i.e by using less electrcity or natural gas. Here is an example of a typical pay-off calculation: If the typical home is 1500 […]
Read moreMAGICBOX – Window Installation for Toronto Offsite Design Festival
In 9 days the Toronto Offsite Design Festival will begin, and once again Coolearth is hosting a window installation. See our previous years installations here, and here. We’re happy to be hosting MAGICBOX, and installation exploring how the world of “smart devices” still remains in an old paradox of flat, rectinlinear screens and boxes, […]
Read moreHappy Holidays from Coolearth
Coolearth wishes to extend their thanks to all of the clients, engineers, tradespeople, architects, and everyone around the world a Happy Holidays! At the firm we designed these giant pop-up cards with the words Peace, Love, and Joy, in order to celebrate what is truly great and important in our lives. Politicians and […]
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