Dr. Ted Kesik
Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
Moshe Safdie’s concept for Habitat 67 was not as visionary as people think. Rather, as an architecture student he innocently reinterpreted the theories of the era’s avant-garde, e.g., the Metabolists, who attempted to rethink the ways in which we build and occupy our cities. Habitat’s true value lies in the fact that financiers and builders supported its concept. Leading up to Expo 67, ambition, time constraints, and a general sense of excitement meant that project managers were willing to accept risk. And it wasn’t just Safdie who had an opportunity to build experimental designs. Other young architects, such as Joseph Baker and Macy DuBois (who passed away suddenly in November 2007), were permitted to experiment in a significant way at Expo 67.
In the forty years since, value engineering, alternative finance procurement methods, construction management, and the design-build approach (when the contractor guarantees the price prior to building) have leached into the creative well from which architectural excellence is supposed to emerge in this country. Despite this, Canada is still developing new generations of architectural innovators. Weder mentions Vancouver architect Gregory Henriquez, whose practice is facilitating the development of affordable housing in Vancouver while enabling contemporary Canadian society to think positively about its communities, regardless of socioeconomic conditions. Architects like Henriquez engage the community with a transparent design process considerably more complex than what Safdie was able to accomplish at Habitat. Every Canadian can still have a garden, although the vision and process have evolved since 1967.
Ian Chodikoff
Canadian Architect magazine
Toronto, ON
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Cash ‘n’ Caring
John Lorinc overlooked one crucial point in his important article “The Aging City” (January/February). Of course, the aging of the population worldwide requires infrastructure changes and additional services. However, there is also an urgent need to redistribute financial resources to seniors’ unpaid caregivers. When seniors express an overwhelming preference to “age in place,” they are not just talking about location. They want to be cared for by family and trusted friends.
In the United States, the aging demographic has given rise to scores of social service organizations — many effective but some, I fear, not — looking for windfalls of new money for their programs. Meanwhile, the government’s aversion to putting cash into the pockets of family caregivers, whose economic value is estimated at $350 billion (US) annually (keeping the American health care system from caving in) puts them in the position of having to spend their savings and even mortgage assets their parents worked for years to secure. And those are the lucky ones. Unpaid caregivers — mostly women — who are already poor become ever more desperately poor, as do their children. When they seek help through welfare, they might be offered a job, but neither income nor recognition for the job they’re already doing. Ironically, they often end up with employment that involves caring for seniors or children they don’t know.
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