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For the Canadian architecture sector, there are few greater platforms of recognition than the Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence. The annual awards program provides a platform for commissioned designed concepts that are either intended to be built, or in the initial stages of construction.

While Toronto’s built environment is an ever changing landscape, its eclectic mix of old and new architecture has created a strong sense of culture that is unique and innovative, and allows the city to remain one of the most livable in the world.

Architectural competitions prompt innovative ideals, bringing new designers out of the woodwork and finding a wide range of possibilities to match a given design brief.
While such competitions are often commercially-focused, one Canadian architecture competition is taking inspiration from Jewish traditions while seeking to provide housing for low-incomeCanadian families.

A building’s street level façade is steers the public’s first impressions of into the building, setting up a societal perception as to what it has to offer.
In a move that will drastically change the character of street level aesthetics and interaction, southeast Madrid is raising the bar – and the residential spaces – of Vallecas’ built landscape.

In terms of holistic green design, passive design is a burgeoning building ideology. Looking to a building’s very design to improve its performance is a vital step in creating a space that produces few little emissions or operates off the traditional grid.

After trending hotly earlier this year, the concept of the vertical farm has dipped on the public radar. While this would normally suggest a disinterest in the design process and concept of building urban farms, in this case the hype has simply died down because these formerly outside-the-box concepts are now coming to fruition.

The modern mainstreaming of Canada’s green building sector means that when it comes to sustainability, the industry holds extremely high standards. This is particularly relevant in buildings dedicated to the promotion and discussion of green ideals.

The architecture and design of hospital and other such health care facilities are changing. The stereotypical and traditional institutional facilities are now being replaced by spaces that are built around holistic care.

With an extremely warm climate necessitating measures to help keep buildings comfortable, Kenya is joining the green building race.
Rather than relying on costly and cutting edge technology to green their buildings, however, the Kenyan construction and design industry is leaning heavily on the concept of natural green intervention.

With the Pan-American Games in Toronto still three years in the future, London, England is setting a high bar in terms of building athletic venues with a green bent.
The 2012 Olympic host has incorporated sustainable building features into the venues that will soon host athletes from around the world. This attention to green detail is included in Olympic constructs ranging from the Olympic swimming pools to the public river walkway.

On Thursday, Lino Zambito, a former vice-president of Infrabec Construction acknowledged before the Charbonneau Commission examining corruption in Quebec’s construction industry that around 10 companies control bids for contracts in an arrangement in which each of the companies in question takes turns to win work under a system of rotation. Infrabec obtained at least $68.7 million in public works contracts from Montreal and Laval over a five-year period from 2006 to 2011

Members of the New York Mafia have been controlling the construction industry in Quebec and elsewhere by gaining control of building unions and controlling the supply of raw materials, hurting legitimate construction firms and driving up the taxpayer cost of public projects, the Charbonneau Commission into construction industry corruption in Quebec has heard.

Unlike in Canada, where building permit data indicates that the pace at which new work in non-residential construction has picked up substantially over recent months even with a drop back in June, an apparent recovery toward the end of last year in the pace at which new commercial and public sector building work is coming in has petered out in the past few months in the US.

Despite reflecting a sluggish economic environment, a third consecutive decline in prices of construction materials such as iron and steel in the United States has been heralded by one commentator as a positive for the building industry – as is other data showing a growing number of projects in the pipeline.

Despite the loss of around 1,000 jobs in June, unemployment in the United States construction industry has dropped to four-year lows, the latest figures from the US Department of Labour suggest.
Though overall employment levels throughout the industry remain flat and the decline in unemployment rates is thought to be a reflection of seasonal influences and workers leaving the industry, the news is being treated in a broadly positive light.

When China finally put some cold hard numbers behind its green building objectives in May and articulated specific strategies to get there, it erased many doubts around the world as to the substance of the emerging giant’s commitment to going green.

The green building industry in Canada has joined the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and others in the push toward healthier schools and better physical learning environments.

With indoor air quality so bad that staff had to be sent home on occasions, it is fair to say that the old Cambridge City Hall in Ontario was hardly a shining example of green building and sustainable construction.

Following the collapse of the roof of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake which killed two people and injured 20 others in June, Constable Marc Depatie of the Ontario Provincial Police states – rightfully – that ‘the community is entitled to answers.’

The territories are set to outpace Canada as a whole in terms of economic growth in the coming years, with mining the primary reason for their success.
According to the Conference Board of Canada’s Territorial Outlook-Summer 2012, gross domestic product in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut is predicted to grow substantially over the next few years, with a 3.6 per cent jump in 2012 followed by further bumps of 5.4 per cent and 4.3 per cent in 2013 and 2014, respectively.