Today, Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works is firmly embedded into the city’s cultural fabric. A century earlier, the site was embedded into the city’s industrial heart, producing some 25 million bricks per year during its 1920s peak. For two days in late October, these histories intertwined at AZURE’s Human/Nature conference, where a series of site-specific installations placed the Brick Works into dialogue with contemporary architecture and urbanism, transforming the dramatic long corridor of an erstwhile kiln into a locus of holistic design discourse. Below, we recreate the Building Value(s) exhibition’s wall text, along with images of the in-situ installations.

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What are our buildings worth? In 2025, the statistic that the construction sector accounts for some 38 per cent of global emissions is almost universal knowledge among architects, urban planners and allied professionals. Despite its ubiquity, it remains a sobering calculus, one that urgently demonstrates why addressing the climate crisis cannot be separated from the questions of how — and why — we build. For the team behind HouseEurope!, it starts with asking why we demolish. Initiated by German architects Bplus.xyz, the campaign aims to incentivize adaptive reuse in European Union law, seeking to collect one million signatures via a direct democracy initiative that would bring legislation before the European Commission.  

An excerpt of the CCA’s To Build Law brought the eponymous documentary — and a striking scale model — to the Evergreen Brick Works.

HouseEurope! is chronicled here via an excerpt of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s To Build Law, a film and exhibition that traces the ongoing campaign’s origins and early days. Accompanying a clip of Joshua Frank’s documentary, a striking scale model of Bplus.xyz’s own Berlin office commands the floor. Playfully dubbed San Gimignano Lichtenberg, the concrete towers are remnants of an erstwhile factory complex. It is a surprising and creative adaptation, with a moniker that nods to the medieval towers of Tuscany. If we look carefully, we’ll find value — even beauty — in unexpected places. 

Houses Worth analyzes three threatened Toronto high-rises sites, representing each building’s embodied carbon value through the equivalent number of median single-family homes. PHOTO: Stefan Novakovic

What does it mean for us in Toronto and North America? In terms of embodied carbon costs, the impetus to avoid demolition is just as urgent. Yet, our growing city also faces an acutely troubling paradigm. Accompanying To Build Law, Giaimo’s Houses Worth is a study of local development projects that aim to replace tall, densely populated 20th-century towers with even larger new housing. Scale models of threatened buildings are paired with hundreds of single-family homes, illustrating the cost of demolition by translating each imperilled high-rise into an equivalent carbon value of houses. In a sprawling, low-density city still dominated by single-family forms, it invites an urgent reconsideration of land use policy. 

Led by Monica Hutton, Doublespace Photography and No Demovictions, Units of Value features portraits of residents living in buildings threatened by demolition.

So what’s at stake? Much more than CO2. Alongside Giaimo’s provocative models, local studio Doublespace Photography offers intimate glimpses into the daily lives of apartment residents at risk of displacement through demolition.

The Units of Value portraits are paired with Hutton’s Some Quotes From Tenants (SQFT) series of embroidered quotes that channel the intimacy of home.

Developed in collaboration with housing advocate Monica Hutton and tenant collective No Demovictions, Units of Value humanizes the stakes. These buildings are vessels of culture and community; they are places where myriad lives and livelihoods unfold.

TMU’s Narratives of Collectivity chronicles the site’s historic users, from deer to Indigenous peoples, factory workers, urban explorers and current-day visitors.

If all of that makes you bow your head, you’ve come to the right place. On the floor, Narratives of Collectivity by Julia Jamrozik and architecture students from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) trace the public memory of the Evergreen Brick Works itself, with decals chronicling the stories of many individuals from various time periods — and species — who have occupied this space. There is value in history too. If we pay attention, it can even shape the future.  — Stefan Novakovic

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EXHIBTION CREDITS. Houses Worth: Ria Al-Ameen, Joey Giaimo, Mitchell May, Sara Shemirani. Samanta Ayala, Anahita Kawale, Stenzo Martin, Elaine Nahli, Dean Roumanis, Shanali Tewarapperuma. Narratives of Collectivity: Julia Jamrozik, Teagan Hyndman, Hyo Yeon (Tiana) Lee, Santino D’Angelo Rozas, Kyle Do Couto. Units of Value: Monica Hutton, Amanda Large, Younes Bounhar, No Demovictions.