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IS IT WRITTEN IN OUR
HISTORY
j'
THAT WE SHOULD
ALL LOVE A
MYSTERY"
BY BARBARA MACKAV
ILLUSTRATION : STEPHEN STANISH
urder is forbidden territory ­ the
strongest taboo. Which is perhaps
one reason why the literary genre
of murder mystery is so popular.
In it , murder, that most heinous
crime, is served up safely and vicari­
ously and, in some novels, quite cozily
In others, readers can take a more
unsettling journey, visiting the dark
side, but without taking up permanent
residence.
The genre's roots began with Edgar
Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Since then. new spins on the form have
expanded its boundaries, with new
sub-genres being created. Mysteries
are often more progressive than other
forms of literature women are no
longer helpless bystanders or victims
but detectives themselves . In fact ,
modern Sleuths are also gay and
lesbian, Afro- and Native American,
and physically challenged.
Whether the slant is sci-fi or feminist ,
like Vancouver writers Sean Stewart's
Passion Play (Beach Holme, 1992)
and Nora Kelly's My Sisler's Keeper
(HarperCollins, 1992) respectively, the
sleuth is often an outsider. For readers,
identifying with the personality of the
crime-solver has always been a draw
At The Sleuth of Baker Street in Toronto,
M
the mghr was dreary.­ - .
_
bur someth'ng happan
- snmerhl'1g "ene'
a store which specializes in crime/mys­
tery books, owner J.D. Singh says that
fictional detectives develop strong
reader loyalty. And why not? After all,
who hasn't felt like an outsider'?
And if we can't relate entirely, then
who hasn't fancied herself a detective,
using powers of perception, deduction
and intuition to sort the clues from the
red herrings? After all, detectives get to
use nifty paraphernalia, high-tech
surveillance equipment or low-tech
tricks of the trade - such as a super­
sleuth parabolic mike, or a glass to the
door. Though many detectives seem
plagued by some societal dysfunction,
they often have helpful, devoted side­
kicks, with yin-yang, buddies-in-bad­
times relationships which we would all
like to commandeer. Nancy Drew has
Bess and George; Nero Wolfe has
Archie; Peter Wimsey his capable valet,
IHt A~~~ ~~l Mr~ltRln~ ~~i:~~~~iri~~~~SeS~The B
v
RHO N
0
A
RIC H
E
ins-and-outs of insurance
fraud, pOison,and the calibreof her two handguns.Bul Sue Gratton is no shady
lady, rather she spends her days wriling about alibis and modus operandi.
Mystery novelist GraNon is Ihe crealor of the ABC series. which began back
in 1982 wilh 'i'1" Is For Alibi (Holt, Reinhart and Winston) slarring one of Ihe
mosl popular woman Pl.s in literature, Kinsey Millhone. Gratton's own life of
crime began wilh another famous female detective - "I always read mysteries
as achild. I started out with Nancy Drew but movedquickly to Mickey
,n
a
Bunter; and Sherlock, his Dr. Watson .
Our attraction to sleuths can also be
quite physical. Mystery men are classic
examples of the kind of men our moth­
ers used to warn us about - sexy,
potentially dangerous, lone wolves who
are both emotionally needy and distant
at the same time Dashiell Hammett's
Sam Spade, personified by Humphrey
Bogart in The Maltese Falcon , is a gruff
knight in shining armor; icy, aloof
Sherlock Holmes plays hard-to-get;
and Howard Engel's Benny
Cooperman is a lovable teddy bear.
Women detectives are also alluring.
Sara Paretsky's VI. Warshawski, for
example, is a no-nonsense gal who
takes care of herself. Tough, but sexy,
Warshawski stalks the mean streets ,
drinks whisky for breakfast and goes to
bed late. Sue Grafton's California­
based detective, Kinsey Millhone, 57 ~
Spillane," she says Despite herearly introduclion, she began writing who­
dunnits only atter 10iling asa lelevision wriler and wishfully thinking of
ways to bump off her ex-husband.
In fact, while Millhone is probably closer 10 Spillane's tough-talk­
Ing Mike Hammer than leen steuth Drew, the characler most resem­
bles everywoman. complele with failed relationships, bad-hair
days, loss of confidence because of the loss of ajob, and financial
difficulties. Gratton admits that her own life directly and indirectly
influences Millhone's "more otten than you would imagine. If I'm
dieling, you'll see more food in Ihe book. I own an 'all-purpose'
dress. Idrive the VW bug that she drives. There was alime 57 ~
g
e
LOOKING FOR CLUES continued
is more than a
few blocks distant
from Warshawski's
mean streets. Millhone is intelli­
rhere S 11 gent, moralistic and altogether an
admirable loner - no kids , hus­
glove lYing band, pets, or houseplants. A
woman with sexuality but one who
on the nO. >( doesn't use womanly wiles to
solve crime this is no flirtatious
•..did She female. Some other sisters in
crime include Canadians
drop It Elisabeth Bowers' divorced moth­
er, Meg Lacy, and Alison Gordon's
gOing out baseball writer, Kate Henry
No less intriguing than the
Itl door? detectives is our fascination with
plot. As if the real world can' t
spawn enough murder, mayhem and
intrigue, we read mysteries for the lure
of the puzzle itself. The grande dame of
"pure puzzle" writing is Agatha Christie.
Her style of story may have even
spawned the term "whodunnit"
because the question is all important in
Christie's stories - you read them to
solve the crime. Her novels are the
original "cozies" - murder mysteries
often set in a quiet village with the flavor
of afternoon tea with the vicar. "They're
comfortable, not too violent, not too
dangerous," says Singh.
Unlike real life, murder here isn't a
random act of violence, but instead is
con tained in a sturdy, reliable structure .
"People like these mysteries because a
certain amount of order is required in
the form, " he says. Like a perfectly exe­
cuted high dive, the plot carries the sto­
ry, which usually ends with a satisfying
conclusion - loose ends are neatly
wrapped up and the crime is solved.
Good wins over evil With a definite solu­
tion at the end, according to Singh
COVER
Feathered hat by Vicki Sather for The Mad
Hatter, Toronlo. Dress by Wayne Clark..
ANGEL HEARTS
PAGE 13 Shirt by Pam Chorley for Fashion
Crimes, Toronlo only. Rowered bra by
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Fashion Crimes, Toronlo. Back-laced
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Sleepwear by Underwriters' at Ealons.
across Canada.
GOING THE LENGTH
PAGE 24 Gold lace evening sheath by
Loucas. available by special order. Call
(416) 581-1200.
ABCs OF MYSTERIES continued
===:::::;'1
Not all murder mysteries are quite so
when I cut my own hair," she says, and pausing,
reassuring about a moral, just and
adds, "I also cuss tike atrucker. My job is to keep
ordered world. Mysteries that eschew
growing as aperson so that Kins ey Millhone can
grow as aperson."
strong plot for strong characters are
often the ones that most frequently visit
II is Grahon's attention to detaillhat makes both
the dark side of human nature. Authors
her characters and scenarios betievable and
such as Patricia Highsmith and Ruth
intriguing "The lirsl thing Iwork out," says Grahon,
Rendell, for instance, are not so much
"is who did what to whom and why. Then ttry
writers of whodunnits as whydunnits. In
to ligure oul the molive, whether ii's revenge,
these tales, murder isn't removed or
jealousy,money whatever"
distant Instead, the telling of the tale
She then begins constructing Ihenovel, build­
makes it seem as common as house
ing it in Ihree layers. "The first layer, " saysGrahon,
dust. A seemi ngly harmless, innocu­
"is what reatly happened As awriter Ihave to dis­
ous, everyday event becomes the
guise my purposes, so Ihe second is what appears
impetus for a reprehensible crime.
to have happened,and the third layer is the detec­
Odious acts develop from petty, even
tive Irying 10 figure oul what happened" Then she
benign beginnings and the familiar
fills in the delails, working out the complexities of
becomes horrendous.
both the crime and the law. Her library is stacked
In psychological crime fiction, read­
with books on subjects ranging from California
ers get inSide the mind of the murderer.
criminat taw to poisons, though, she adds,
But it's often a mind that seems, per­
"Most of the time Ipick up the phone and
haps, more lucid, albeit driven, than
call the experts"
mad. It 's as if you're inside the mind of
"These books lakeup the bulk of my life. One
a compulsive eater, left alone with a
takes about 10 monthsto write," says
triple-layer chocolate cake. You take a
Grahon, and giventhai she is now
knife - a long, sharp, shin ing blade­
completing the follow-up to last
and neatly slice a small wedge. It's a
spring 's "I" Is For Innocent
clean slice - just to neaten the edge.
(Fitzhenry Whiteside) , she figures
It's only a small piece ,- it's all you're
Ihat she has untit around 200810
~~ figure out what "z" is for. But she
going to eat. But then you notice
some crumbs at the edge of the
is determined 10 finish what she
cake plate, an unevenness on
,­
..
calls her "Iask", drivenby the charac­
••
tershe has created, because "Kinsey
the face of the layers, and
another tidying slice is required.
Millhone is such abossy little thing".
Just a sliver. And so it goes...until
you 've consumed more of the cake
VVHODUNNITS
than you ever dreamed possible.
To sample some homegrown murder
It's in these novels that the line
and mayhem, try these anthologies of
between good and evil is hazy, crossed
Canadian mystery writers: Cold Blood,
over on a meandering but compelling
Vols. I to IV (Mosaic Press), Criminal
path, and before you know it, you're
Shorts (MacMillan, 1992), Great
Canadian Murder and Mystery Stories
standing on the dark side with the
smoking gun in your hand. The journey
(Quarry Press, 1992) , Canadian Mystery
was easy, one little step at a time . Stories (Oxford University Press, 1991).
WICKED!
PAGl 27 Dress by Wayne Clark, Toronlo.
For availability, call (416) 599-9515.
Feathered hat by Vicki Sather for The Mad
Hatter, Toronlo. PAGE 28 Black jersey and
laffeta dress by Adrienne Vrttadini,
Seasons, Kilchener; TheAdrienne Vrt:tadini
Boutique in Haze~on Lanes, Maxi Shop,
Toronlo; Rickie, Cole 51. Luc; Hose by
Phanlom, available al better stores across
Canada. Earrings by Pia Moon for Only
Accessories, Brettons and Liptons across
Canada. Bracelel by Colette HamlOn.
Design Zone Harbourfront. Fabrice Haze~on
Lanes. and ICE, Toronlo. PAGE 30 Dress
by Wayne Clark,Toronlo. Hose, Phantom,
al better stores across Canada. Earrings by
Colette Harmon, Design Zone.
III
(J
Harbourfront, Toronlo. PAGE 31 Red dress
from Sposabella, Toronlo onfy. Earrings by
Pia Moon for Only Accessories. Brettons
and Liptons across Canada; Madame
Angelo, Toronlo; Sassolino, Cambridge.
NIGHTS IN BLACK & WHITE
P<:ge 45 Black evening iacket wtth feather
trim by Loucas, Accessories Unlimrted.
Kingslon; The Maxi Boutique, Holt Renfrew.
Toronlo; Tocca Rntta.Oakville: rAG- ·17
Evening halter iumpsurt by Andrea Jovine,
Holt Renfrew across Canada; Sassolino.
Cambridge; Tocca Rnrta. Oakville:
Mendocino, Toronlo; O'Briens, Toronlo;
Corinne Boutique, Chicoulimi; Parfart,
Vancouver. Shoes at Corbo, Toronlo.
Gloves by Portolano, Holl Renfrew across
g
Canada. PAGE ~a Cocktail dress by
Andrea Jovine, Liplons and Holt Renfrew
across Canada; Sassolino, Cambridge;
Bocana. Burlinglon; Tocca Rntta, OakviUe;
Corinne Boutique, Chicoulimi; Parfatt.
Vancouver. Hose by Rialto, at Shoppers
Drug Mart across Canada; Shoes by
Calvin Klein at Brown's Ho~ Renfrew, Bloor
Street. Toronlo; PAGE 49.Tuxedo availabfe
lor rent from Syd Silver Formals, North
Yolt, and from fine menswear stores
across Canada. Top hat from The Hatter.
Toronlo; Calhouns. Vancouver; Henri
Henri. Monlreal. Black velvet shorts by
Kors for Compagnia, al Kors speciaity
stores across Canada. Hose by Phantom.
available at better stores across Canada.
Shoesfrom Corbo. Toronlo. ­
BY
BARBARA
MACKAY
"Don't Get Mad, Get Eve n ~" Ihjl'/" fUJl'it'" JI
n(111M
""
11tI11rill~
M"'''''' .IU'f'lI'"
tmu/"rs flPIJrOre:
ILLUSTRATION :
NORMAN
COUSINEAU
Our tummy is tied in knots of anger, your blood pressure
pounds from injustice - getting even may seem like oh­
so-appropriate relief. And why not? The Greek gods
dished up revenge in mythic proportions. As well, revenge
is a most delicious device in all kinds of plot lines, from soap
operas and horror flicks to Gothic romances and Rambo
action movies, Revenge, it seems, is sweet. But, when the
deed is done and the dust has settled, is it really satisfying?
Revenge, pay-back, retribution, just desserts, or settling
the score - call it what you will- most people seek it at one
time or another. Visions of revenge are most likely to dance
in your head "when you perceive you have been unfairly
wronged", says Dr. Richard Goranson, a psychologist and
member of a York University research program on violence
and conflict resolution, Feeling insulted, embarrassed or hurt
can also prompt a desire for revenge, says Diane Marshall, a
family and marriage counselor at Toronto's Institute of Family
Living, as can feelings of jealousy and envy, especially those
that fester around soured love relationships , Greek myth­
ology, for example, is rife with violent retributions by jealous
lovers, spurned sweethearts and enraged cuckolds, These
classic tales make comforting reading if you've just been
dumped yourself. After all, your own initial reaction to roman­
tic rejection may be a curse on his favorite anatomical organ
now that he's through with you . Whatever your particular
"pox on his parts" may be, it seems that the drive to revenge
is automatic.
Research on revenge by York University doctoral student
Noreen Stuckless indicates that another aspect of revenge is
not simply to seek justice but to provide the avenger with
relief from the discomfort caused by
anger. Unlike retaliation, which is
often immediate, revenge usually
occurs after the avenger has
spent time reflecting on the per­
ceived wrong. As a system of
retribution, the more primitive
and uneven justice of personal
revenge has been replaced In
Canada by a criminal justice system ,
Y
For instance, if someone burns down your house, you're like­
ly to take the perpetrator to court rather than string him up
you rself. However, in informal settings, such as at the oftice or
in the family, the possibility of revenge helps keep ciVility and
social order, Dr. Goranson says, For example, at the oftice,
you 're unlikely to falsely take credit for another's idea, know­
ing that your wronged co-worker WIll probably get even, Fear
of revenge may lurk below the surface of our social civility,
working as a deterrent to injustice, even if it's not employed .
Revenge can also be useful as mere fantasy, For instance,
rather than getting back at an irresponsible and dangerous
freeway driver by cutting him/her oft with your car, a more
prudent driver might, instead, fantasize about having a
James Bond-like auto that could destroy the other driver and
his car without leaving a trace of refuse on the road , Although
this sci-fi scenario may seem extreme, fantasies that com­
bine omnipotence with revenge can help compensate for
feelings of helplessness when you are wronged . While we
don't have the power of the Greek gods to, say, turn ex-lovers
into water lilies or braying asses, it sometimes helps to at
least dream about it. Fantasizing revenge can offer some
comfort when you've been injured, and is less potentially
dangerous than acting on your vengeful feelings,
But should you ever actually act on your vengeful heart?
In the case of Hamlet. for example, a guy tormented by his
inability to perform what he believes is his vengeful duty,
revenge seemed the perfect cure for his tragedy. But is
revenge really a valid credo for living today? "Revenge may
make you feel better in the short run, but there's the problem
of guilt and the very serious problem of retaliation ," Dr.
Goranson says, Ah, retaliation, Just when you think you've
evened the score, when you feel that justice has been
seNed , the one with whom you've just gotten even may feel
differently - and YOU may become the object of revenge.
In studying revenge, Dr. Goranson says that several
researchers have found that some cou ntries partake of
revenge almost as a national pastime , In Sicily, New GUinea
and Albania, for example, there are blood feuds that go
back hundreds of years. "In some places, whole cultures are
organized around revenge, " he says. And, when personal
48
_6
m
(t
g
e
>­
REVENGE cont'd
CQ)~QDCS ~E G - •
NUTRITION-WISE It CENT-WISE THERE'S NO BERTING EGGS
BASIC SOUFFLE
DESSERT OMELETTE
3
eggs, separated
3
1tbsp sugar
15 mL
1 tbsp butter
15 mL
Preheat broiler. In amedium-size
bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar
until thick, pale and creamy. In
another bowl, beat egg whites
until stiff. Fold into yolks. Set 7­
inch (18 cm) omelette pan over
medium heat. Add butter and
heat briefly. Reduce heat to low.
Pour in egg mixture and level off
lightly. Cook until bottom is set
and pale golden-brown. Broil
omelette several inches from
heat source until top is lightly
browned. Spread filling on half
omelette. Fold over and serve
immediately. FilLINGS: Use
sliced fresh fruit either as is or
lightly sweetened and flavored
with aliqueur, or fill omelette with
alittle hot jam (a jam and cream
cheese combo is great); or mar­
malade or honey mixed wrth fine­
ly chopped walnuts. Serves 2.
Approximate cost per serving
(with strawberries): $1.50.
LIGHT.
FlUFFY
OMElEnu
Eggs are wonderful on
ONE OF THE MOST
those poorish days when NEGUCTEO WAYS TO
cents won't stretch to
COOle EGGS FOR COMPANY
rigatoni at the local tratto- IS AN OM EUTTE .
ria. Averaging between
HRVEO WITH A SALAD ,
10 and 15 cents each,
OR A MlLAN GE OF
they are the cheapest
STEAMED VEC,ETABLU ,
protein source available. TH EY ' RE LOW COST
Eggs are also the perfect AND, BUT Of ALL ,
single-girl food, requiring AR~ COOKED IN A WINK .
nothing fancy in the way
of preparation or tools. Served poached and laid on top of
spinach; scrambled, fried or coddled they offer endless vari­
ety. Soft boiled and served with toast soldiers, eggs are
nursery food, but they have asophisticated mien when they
want IT - for instance, scrambled marrying nicely with
caviar, onions, smoked salmon; and in omelettes wnh such
exotic cheeses as Brie or ricotta. Eggs are the heart of foods
such as quiches and fmattas - ~alian omelettes cooked
under the broiler and served in pie-like wedges. Helen Gurley
Brown of Cosmopolitan fame and author of the Single Girl's
Cookbook once had arecipe for "Ghastly Eggs" in which a
purple sauce was poured over poached eggs and then
served to aman after astay-over, to avoid any follow-up
visns. As she said, "No man confronted with apurple egg in
the morning... is apt to return to your house for anything."
Too true.
(HarperCoilins, 1991) by Jane
and
the reCipe.
you buy free-range or battery­
be farrn-fresh, uncracked, and
them, and then stored in the
ends down.
•Afresh egg has aplump round
orb olthe moon, and agelati­
, if the yolk is flattened or the
the egg is old - dispense
with Nutrition-wise, the color of an
egg doesn't matter. The color differ­
-flnce,- whether n's brown or whrte
- is determined by the type of
hen that laid n. Mhough the rude
and rustic esthetic of abrown egg
. with freckles sitting in your egg
cup is hard to ignore. If you won­
der what makes the difference in
the color of the yolk, n's the feed.
An egg laid by acorn-fed chicken
will be orangy; wheat feed provides
apaler yolk. Eating raw or improp­
erly cooked eggs may resu~ in
salmonella, thanks to bacteria
that can @er into eggs
_ _'-"h.~.
cracking, incor­
rect farming or storage. Cook
eggs well (aUeast 3 minutes)
to derive the benefits of
one of the world's most
PAC.KED WITH
FRU.TOR DRIZZLED
WITH SWElT lAM ARE
PHOTOGRAPHY;
AN OfT~NEGU'TED
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DUSlRTOPTIO...
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N
vendettas are started, the ante may be
upped with each subsequent act, with
the stakes getting higher than anticipat­
ed. "Escalation is a big problem with
revenge," he adds
Another problem with acting out
revenge is that it can be misplaced ­
you may avenge yourself on the wrong
person. In other cases, people who
store up unresolved feelings of humilia­
tion or anger may overreact when they
finally take their revenge. Mass murder­
ers, for instance, often end a lifetime of
feeling victimized by wreaking violent
and indiscriminate "vengeance". But
these are examples of mega-scale
murderous revenge What we're talking
about is "micro-revenge" -garden­
variety, bantam-weight punishment.
Micro-revenge is personal, perhaps
anonymous It's the difference between
cutting the brakes on an ex-lover's
sports car and just scratching it. Did
I say scratching? I mean, harmlessly
scribbling on it with a kid's wax crayon
Yes, sometimes nothing 's more sat­
isfying than just doing it, and fantasies
of revenge give way to real plans of get­
ting even. One popular myth involves a
postie who was angry at getting a ticket
from a pompous police officer. Feeling
the ticket was undeseNed , the postal
employee took the cop's name and
badge number, then used the informa­
tion to obtain his address. The postie
then had all the officer's home mail
redirected to the Yukon.
For some people, vindictiveness is
so unseemly that it may even inhibit
them from seeking retribution . But don't
confuse revenge with justice. For
instance, Marshall often sees victims
of sexual abuse who feel uncomfort­
able filing criminal charges against their
abusers because, for some women,
this seeking of justice feels like
revenge. But, says Marshall, "From
a therapeutic point, there's a need to
channel rage about a personal mis­
justice into justice work. " For instance,
women who form incest sUNivors
groups or groups such as Mothers
Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) offer
support to victims of similar injustice
as well as working to eradicate these
wrongs altogether.
As for revenge, like a quick trip to
the candy store, it may be sweet but
ultimately unsatisfying. Just as bon­
bons don't make it as a basic food
group, revenge doesn 't cut it as valid
justice. Of course, we may be forgiven
for giving in, every once in a while, to
a sweet craving - or a curse or a mid­
night prank - but in the end revenge
may be best seNed for everyone when
it's all in your mind. ­
HOM E S S~rin~ rorwar~! An examination oj grand trunks and other arboral splendors
For the spring of a new
BY
BARB ARA
MACKAY
decade, a leafy issue to make
oronto is a very green city indeed," says Michael
winter just a dim memory ...
Hough, landscape architect with Hough Stansbury
T
Woodland Limited. But this city's trees are under
• THE IMPORTANCE
OF BEING GREEN : IN PRAISE
OF THE URBAN TREE
• URBANE DESIGN
ON OCEANS' WAVES
• HAND - CARVED STONE
AND HANDMADE LACE
intense stress from urban conditions and many are
dying simply from old age. Toronto is green now, but
can it maintain and promote an urban forest? Does it matter?
"Much of the environmental health of cities is based on
its vegetation," says Hough, also a professor of environmental
studies at York University and author of the seminal City
Fann and Natural Process (Routledge, Chapman and Hall,
1984). And not just the carefully groomed and pruned street
• THE ROSEDALE MANSION
OF RANDY KNOX
trees and civic parks but also the "wi ld " natural environment:
the shrubs and weeds found in abandoned lots, back alleys
• SUPER SHOPPER
SITS ON THE LAWN
and alongside train tracks. Though the former are
• STREET WISE
VISITS HOGG'S HOLLOW
at best ignored, Hough maintains that both of these urban
• A BROWSER'S GUIDE
TO THE FLEA MARKETS
OF RURAL FRANCE
usually a source of civic pride and the latter abhored or
landscapes are important to the health of the city.
Trees affect a city's air quality, water control, soil erosion,
wildlife existence and climate, and they have an effect on the
larger health of the entire globe. In addition, while it may be
difficult to measure objectively, trees also make an important
contribution to the aesthetic and psychic landscape of a city.
The im pact of the urban forest is felt on both the larger
environment and the immediate area. For example, a treed
neighborhood will be cooler in the summer than a barren
one (an average of five to ten degrees cooler) . More
specifically, a home surrounded by trees is cooler than one
that isn't. "For cooling an average home, one large tree is
equivalent to about five average-sized /Continued on page H40
HAND-LETTERING
BY
KATHY
BOAKE
HOMES
MAY)990
H21
Shady characters /Tom page H21
air conditioners," says Hough. In addition,
trees are necessary for photosynthesis
(remember grade school botany?). Unlike
air conditioners, which just transfer heat
from inside to out, the process of photosyn­
thesis absorbs the incoming sun's heat, mak­
ing the city cooler.
Jonas Spence-Sales, a professor of land­
scape architecture at Ryerson, adds that.
space or to demarcate movement paths, for
example, along streets or in parking lots. In
addition to all' this, trees have an inspira­
tional and emotional value, says Spence­
Sales, and a symbolic importance that dates
back to biblical times.
For those moved more by the material
than the spiritual value of trees, studies sug­
gest that a home is worth more money if
uncommon for homeowners buying estate
properties to invest hundreds of thousands
of dollars in landscaping. On the other
hand, she says, an overgrown landscape or
even large old trees can be a drawback for
homebuyers who are discouraged by the
potential of roots in the drain , pruning
costs, leaf raking and garden shading. Still,
the property values for homes in a treed
neighborhood are usually higher
than those in nontreed areas,
TORONTO MAY SEEM A VERITABLE OASIS, regardless of whether or not there
are trees on the purchase property.
BUT THE CITY'S TREES ARE GENERALLY IN PERIL
Bill Granger, director of urban plan­
ning and design for the City of North
trees are the lungs of a city-they inhale
there are trees on the property. According York, estimates that housing stock in a
treed neighborhood is usually worth an
carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. They
to research done by the United States For­
also make excellent windbreaks, work as est Service, a homebuyer will often pay additional fifteen to twenty per cent. (But
don't assume you can protect a neighbor­
acoustic controls and are wonderful dust $3,000 to $5,000 more for a home worth
hood tree from your neighbor. If a tree is
collectors. But as a designer, Spence-Sales is $80,000 to $100,000 if there are healthy,
just as interested in the aesthetic value of well-placed trees of a reasonable size on the
on an individual's property, that individual
can probably remove the tree. Richard
trees as he is in their climate modifying
property. Mamie Cormack, a residential
Ubbens, who administers the forestry plan­
properties. Landscape architects select
real estate appraiser with Royal LePage
ning program for Toronto's department of
trees for specific sites based in large part on for the King City area, says she's unaware of
parks and recreation , points out one case
their form and shape, the color of their any similar research in Canada. But
leaves and bark, whether they have berries a lthough she says it's difficult to put an
in the Beaches where a resident sued his
or larger fruit and how they change during
actual dollar figure on trees, she estimates neigh bor for loss of shade because his
the seasons. For th e architect, trees offer
that, depending on the area, ravine lots
neighbor chopped down a tree. The case
has been in litigation for several years and
visual relief from a hard landscape of con­ generally sell for an additional $10,000 (in
crete; they can be arranged to organize
part because of the trees), and that it is not is still undecided.)
Shady characters continued
elm. Jack Radecki, supervisor of arbor ser­
vices for the cemeteries, attributes the fine
collection to a strict maintenance program
and a policy to obtain at least one tree of
every species that will thrive in Toronto's
climate. Each cemetery has an arboretum
guide available at the main office.
But while all this greenery may give the
impression that Toronto is a veritable oasis,
the city's trees are generally in peril. "Urban
trees are definitely stressed," says Granger,
who was an arborist with the City of Burling­
ton and then with North York before head­
ing the urban design section of the plan­
ning department, a position usually
reserved for architects. Urban trees are sub­
ject to all the same natural disasters that can
befall a rural tree: drought, bugs, virus, fun­
gus, acid rain, just about everything, with
the possible exception of forest fires . But
there are other factors that are peculiar and
devastating to urban trees, including road
salt, soil compaction and urban drought.
Nobody likes road salt. It eats leather
boots and car bodies alike, it hurts dog
paws, corrodes sewers and drains, gets into
the water table, messes up the soil's pH bal­
ance and basically kills trees. "In effect, it
plugs the vascular system of the tree. It lim­
its the tree's ability to absorb nutrients and
moisture," says Granger. But it also keeps
the roads and sidewalks safe for pedestrian
and vehicular traffic, and municipalities are
obligated to use the stuff.
Like many other North American cities,
Toronto's public works department is look­
ing for an alternative. Sonia Wylie of the
city's environmental protection office in
the department of public health researched
and wrote a report outlining possible alter­
natives to salt. That report is curren tIl' mak­
ing its way around city hall-through the
health department, public works and on to
the city services committee, a subcommit­
tee of council. Though the alternatives to
salt work as well, the major problem with
them is simply cost. Road salt (sodium chlo­
ride) costs about thirty dollars a tonne,
while the leading alternative, CMA (calcium
magnesium acetate), which is biodegrad­
able and sodium free, costs about thirty
times that.
. Still, city governments are starting to rec­
ognize that the real cost of road salt must
also be measured in environmental damage
and in corrosive damage. For instance, a
recent suit against the City of Ottawa by
developers Olympia & York claims that road
salt damaged one of their parking garages
to the tune of twenty-four million dollars.
The result of this suit is still pending, but it's
another message to municipalities that alter­
natives to road salt need to be found .
(Granger suggests that homeowners can
give up salt on their driveways and footpaths
H42
HOMES
MAY 199 0
for something less environmentally damag­
ing. Most benign is birdseed, wood ash from
your fireplace or plain sand.)
The major tree stress in summer is
drought. For urban trees drought is com­
pounded by the ubiquity of roads, drive­
ways, sidewalks, concrete surfaces and To­
ronto's current passion for paving stones,
all of which make it more difficult for water
and air to get into the ground and then for
the trees to access these. A tree's root sys­
tem is likely to extend two to three times
past the tree's drip line (the outer extent of
.the branches) . So, for example, on a nar­
row urban lot, it's likely that your neigh­
bor's tree has its roots under your yard and
that paving your yard will have a negative
impact on that tree.
Urban stresses also make city trees more
susceptible to natural disasters such as
insects. There is even evidence that sug­
gests a tree under stress may actually pro­
duce pheromones that attract insects and
hasten its demise-like a natural culling
process. Ubbens, in the city's forestry
office, says the elm bark beetle, a carrier of
Dutch elm disease (the beetle carries the
deadly fungus on the hairs of its body and
passes it on to the tree when it bores into
the bark to lay eggs), can smell a stressed
tree up to thirty miles away.
Keeping all these predators, stresses and
blights at bay, keeping Toronto green, is a
battle to be waged on two fronts-preserva­
tion and reforestation. And, it's a battle to
be waged , not only by environmental
groups, but by individuals, landscape archi­
tects, urban planners, municipal govern­
ments and developers.
Co-ordinating the efforts of the many is
the goal of the Greenspace Strategy of the
Metro Toronto and Region 'Conservation
Authority (MTRCA), the body that owns
about eighty per cent of Metro's park lands,
including the ravine systems. The Strategy
is seeking to keep green spaces green and
preserve environmentally significant areas,
such as the Rouge Valley, says Bill McLean,
MTRCA general manager. Although the
MTRCA can only comment on development
(it has no power to stop development on
land that is not under its regulation),
Mclean feels that governments, developers
and the public are more aware now of the
need to preserve green space than they
have been in the past. Explains McLean,
"In the early '50s when the Don Valley Park­
way was being planned, the ravines were
looked at as an obstacle to be overcome
rather than something that's rare and that
should be looked after."
The issue of preservation is a lost cause
for areas that have already been levelled
and paved, but it's an issue that is very
much alive in the outlying areas of Metro
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Metro Toronto 's trees are managed­
planted, pruned and protected-by eac h
municipality's parks and recreation depart­
ment. Don Young, acting director of parks
and urban forestry for the City of Toronto,
which had a net budget ofjust over five mil­
lion dollars last year, says part of its man­
date is to improve the condition of the
urban forest and plant more trees than it
takes down. To do this Toronto has a com­
puterized tree management information
system. The system interfaces with other
city department data bases so that the
forestry section is alerted to anything that
could affect a city tree, from landscaping or
putting in driveways to home additions.
"Our computer talks to buildings and
inspections' computer and to planning,"
Ubbens says. And the system works both
ways. For example, when parks and recre­
ation decides to plant a residential street
tree, approval must be received not only
from the homeowner at the tree address,
but also from the twenty-two other civic
departments and private firms that handle
underground utilities systems for the city.
In the city of Toronto alone there are
90,000 street trees along approximately 600
mil es of road. Some of the most grand
examples are the lofty canopies of fifty-year­
old Norway maples in neighborhoods like
Moore Park and the Annex. But these
shady stree ts tell two stories. They represent
both the best and the worst of the city's past
tree pl.antings. Though beautiful, the trees
in these neighborhoods are all of one kind
and are all dying of old age-many are over
fifty years old and have life expectancies of
only fifty-five to seventy-five years in total.
This situation is a re sult of past forestry
departments having planted only four dif­
ferent species of trees-Norway maple, lin­
den , honey locust and green ash-which
grow fast but unfortunately don't live long.
According to Granger, these trees are not
appropriate to all soil conditions; th ey
often conflict with overh ead utiliti es, and
none of them are native species. In addi­
tion, one single tree blight could '¥ipe out
one-quarter of Metro's trees.
However, in the last decade, North York
and other Metro cities have started to
change their strategies. 'Today we've ex­
panded our planting list to twenty-two dif­
ferent species, most of which are native,
and we're planting small-growing trees
under hydro wires so they don't have to be
chopped into funny shapes. We're planting
native shade trees in areas that have heavy
soil, where they do well, and we're trying to
recreate shade-tree-lined vistas along our
streets where we don't have overhead
wires," Granger says.
Tree-fanciers who wish to see an even
wider variety of species are well advised to
visit one of the nine Toronto Trust Ceme­
teries, including Mount Pleasant, Pine Hills
and York. These cemeteries have one of the
best tree collections in North America, mth
examples of native and naturalized exotic
trees. Mount Pleasant, for example, has
over forty different varieties of maple, as
well as native red and white oaks, some
almost 300 years old, plus large specimens
of European black alder and smooth-leaved
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Shady characters continued
where the city continues to expand. A
woodlot preservation plan from Mississauga
has proved to be a cutting-edge example,to
Metro's municipalities.
The plan began in the early '70s, when a
developer wanted to build about fifty hous­
es on an approximately ten-acre parcel of
land. The parcel was also home to a wood­
lot of swamp white oaks-old and fairly
rare Carolinian trees (parts of southern
Ontario are the most northern portion of
the Carolinian climate zone and much of
this forest has already been destroyed).
After almost a year of wrangling, the plan­
ning department and the developer came
up with a plan to save the trees by design­
ing long lots, each to take in a part of the
forest. In addition, because the trees thrive
on wet ground, a simple underground sys­
tem was installed to capture runoff water
and direct it to the trees at the rear of the
lots. Explains Dirk Blyleven, senior environ­
mental planner: "Homeowners were not
faced with a situation of standing water but
. the ground remained damp throughout
most of the year."
To protect the trees in future, Missis­
sauga put restrictions on the land titles, 'dis­
couraging, without actually prohibiting,
homeowners from removing the trees.
These days Mississauga's environmental
protection is more straigh tIorward and the
city simply makes tree preservation a part
of the zoning bylaw, Blyleven says. So, for
instance, land with an existing woodlot is
given special treatment by the city and
developers are required to undertake a for­
est analysis and devise a plan to save the
trees. In areas where there are no existing
trees, for example on former farmland,
developers are required to contribute to
the plan ting of street trees.
Preservation of existing forests must go
hand in hand with restoration, Hough says.
Bringing environments back to a state of
health is key and needs to be done with an
understanding of the processes that created
them in the first place , he says. His firm,
Hough Stansbury Woodland Limited, was
recently involved in a major reforestation
project at a refinery in Clarkson, where two
sides of the refinery's boundaries were
reforested with Carolinian trees. "Species
that had not been seen in that part of the
world for many many years," Hough says.
Municipal governments can have a
strong hand in promoting re-greening and
in preserving urban forests. And it seems
that an increased tree awareness is dawning
in most of Metro's cities. Design depart­
ments of urban planning divisions are
much more tree conscious than in the
recent past and trees are showing up in
proposals for parking lots, along streets, in
public squares-everywhere possible. The
mood in city planning departments is away
from the traffic engineer's design for cars
and toward a more people- and tree-friend­
ly landscape. Susan Filshie of the Scarbor­
ough planning department's urban design
unit sums up the atmosphere: "We want to
make Scarborough a wonderful space for
pedestrians-nicer paving, more trees,
more space. To make it feel like a courtyard
instead of a back service area."
In Toronto, the forestry section is work­
ing to increase the profile of all its pro­
grams. To this end a grand Arbor Day cele­
bration (usually held in the last week of
April) is scheduled for 1990 and a booster
planting program is in the works. With the
increased public awareness of the value of
urban trees, the forestry program hopes
that requ ests for individual tree plantings
will also increase. For example, in 1988 a
summer student employed by the parks
and recreation department identified 2,000
addresses where trees could be planted, but
when residents at those locations were con­
tacted only ten per cent agreed to a tree .
Every Metro city has a tree planting pro­
gram (usually through parks and recre­
ation) where individuals can request a tree
be planted on city property in front of their
home. In Toronto a bare root tree is free,
while a larger balled and burlap-covered
tree costs fifty dollars. Th e city does the
planting and offers a choice of at least thir­
ty species. In Toronto, applications must be
received by February 15 for a spring plant­
ing and by August 15 for a fall planting.
Tree plantings have long been a tradi­
tion with some volunteer groups. Trees for
Canada, operated by the Boy Scouts of
Canada, works with the assistance of the
conservation authority. Each year in Metro
9,000 scou ts aged 5 to 26 plant almost
30,000 saplings. A two-year-old, nonprofit
group, Trees for Today and Tomorrow,
founded by Aird Lewis and Charles Sauriol,
has begun a tree planting program with the
goal of planting fifty million trees through­
out southern Ontario in twenty years. The
group is targeting its plantings in Metro's
river valleys-the Credit, the Don and the
Humber-as a means of soil erosion con­
trol and flood control. Last October, at the
group's initial planting, 10,000 trees were
put in along the Credit.
The future for Toronto's trees seems
strong, as individuals and groups begin to
recognize the interconnections that will
help keep Toronto's green spaces healthy.
These days even schoolchildren understand
that the health of the Amazon rain forest
affects Toronto's climate, that the preserva­
tion of the Rouge Valley has an impact on
the entire watershed and that your neigh­
bor's tree depends on your front lawn for
its good health.
_
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THE NATURE Wrelyon it in a dozen different
ways, yet few of us truly know how
or why it works. Writer Barbara
MacKay discovers that the sense
of smell is nothing to sniff at.
E
nter a kitchen in which muffins are
baking in the oven, drive through a
pine-scented forest, rejoice in the sense of
smell. "Smells like heaven," we say. And
yet, in humans, the sense of smell is con­
. sidered one of the lower senses, provid­
ing less information and involving a
simpler physical structure than, for exam­
ple, those required for sight
or hearing . Unlike
30
HEALTHWATCH
insects, carnivores and rodents, which are
macro-osmatic, meaning they rely heavi­
lyon their sense of smell to distinguish
friend from foe, and find food and sex,
humans are micro-osmatic.
But despite smell's second-class stand­
ing in the human world, it is a sense that
is key to many things: your enjoyment of
food, your reactions to other people, your
memory and mood stimulation. Smell is
unique and, as medical researchers are
just beginning to discover, there's more to
the sense of smell than first meets the
nose.
Smell, however, is significant- even if it
seems more important in its absence. For
example, your sense of taste may seem
dulled by a common cold but, says Dr.
Kenneth H. Norwich, a sensory expert at
the University of Toronto, it's really
your impaired sense of smell­
Illus tra/ion: G oil G eftner
OF
S MEL L fragrant bath oils and body creams and
even scented cleaning and scrubbing
products . Indeed, according to Diane
Ackerman, author of A Natural History of
the Senses (Random House, 1990), in
consumer tests people inevitably pick
the furniture polish with the most pleas­
ant smell as the one that works best.
All this expense isn't wasted on the
nose, because the human sense of
smell is a keen one. The average
nose can smell literally thousands
or even millions of different
chemical compounds.
It's esti­
mated
t hat
the
o If a ctor y
organs are
10,000 times
more sensitive
than taste buds.
According to Dr.
Norwich,
the
sense of smell may
be as sensitive as
vision. "Ostensibly we can see even a few
light particles, but we can also deted iust
a few molecules of an odorant. As few as
six molecules of a substance can be
smelled."
But what smells good to one nose may
not be pleasant to another. According to
Dr. Charles Wysocki, an associate mem­
ber of Monell Chemical Sensing Center in
Philadelphia, there are no unive. sally
good .or bad smells. "There are some
people who
very much enioy the smell of skunk," Dr.
Wysocki says, "and I'm one of them."
According to Ackerman, as children we
generally have a greater tolerance for
"bad" smells -learning to dislike them as
we grow older - and foul smells in one
HEALTHWATCH
31
culture can be pleasant to another. For
example, African Masai tribespeople
dress their hair with dried cow dung to
enhance their attractiveness. Rather than
being universal, good or bad smells are
often merely a matter of opinion.
W
hat is universal about the sense
of smell is the way it works.
When you inhale the scent of food or
flowers, for instance, molecules travel on
the air, up your nose to the olfactory
epithelium, a sheet of long, thin
receptor cells located high in the
back of the nose. The inhaled
molecules interact with these
hair-like receptors, translat­
ing the molecules' chemical
message into an energy
message for the sensory
nerve. "The receptor cell is
also a nerve: it's the only
sensory system that
works this way," Dr. f
Wysocki explains. "It's
unique to have a nerve cell sitting
out in the environment like it does in the
nose," he adds. Also unique is the fact
that these nerves have a very short life
span and are replaced by new nerves
every 30 to 45 days. No other sensory
nerves work in this way.
Once the smell molecules have been
transformed into energized messages,
the information is sent along to the olfac­
tory bulb located in the front of the brain.
This is where information processing
takes place. But the way this information
leaves the olfactory bulb is also a function
unique to the smell sensory system . Infor­
mation can leave along multiple, parallel
pathways to different places in the brain.
"One pathway leads to the cortex. When
information reaches here, we can talk
about smell, describe it, say whether it's
good or bad. But there are other path­
32
HEALTHWATCH
ways - some of which go to the structures
that affect mood and memory. So smell
information can be processed at other
sites and perhaps even independently of
the cortex connection," Dr. Wysocki says.
In other words, a smell can cause a sud­
den emotion or memory association with­
out you even being aware of the odor.
Adds Dr. Wysocki: "The sense of smell
has very intimate connections with the
regions in the brain thot are involved with .
memory formation, memory storage and
memory retrieval."
That smell may affect
emotions - even with­
out your conscious
awareness - is just now
being investigated by scientists.
However, this suggestion gives cre­
dence to the old art of aromathera­
py, a massage technique where
fragrant oils are rubbed into the body
to either energize or relax you. For
example, peppermint, cinnamon and
lemon are said to have an energizing
effect while essential oils such as laven­
der and basil are considered relaxing.
B
ut can mere scent be therapeutic?
At the Fragrance Foundation (a
non-profit, educational arm of the per­
fume industry) in New York City, director
Annette Green says researchers at the
allied Fragrance Research Fund are
exploring aroma psychology to discover
the effects of scent on mood. "We're
funding clinical psychologists to discover
which fragrances will reduce stress, help
sleep and improve social relationships,"
Green says. Some of the fund's initial
studies show that people who use one
fragrance or none at all are less interest­
ed in how people perceive them socially.
"They're not socially inclined," Green
says. And in medical applications,
research indicates that some scents can
help patients relax during treatments and
examinations- particularly during an MRI
(Magnetic Resonance Imaging ) scan,
where a patient must remain still through­
out the lengthy procedure. The founda­
tion has even formed a new Product
Applications Committee to apply the sci­
entific insights. "Our findings could
change the perfume business/ Green
says. She points to applications in Japan
by Shimazo Company which developed
a computerized fragrance-delivery sys­
tem for buildings such as factories,
offices, hospitals, prisons and shopping
malls. Says Green of the Japanese appli­
cations, "On production lines, scents of
peppermint and spearmint made work­
ers feel livelier and more productive."
O
f course, manipulation of mood
with scent depends on a properly
functioning nose. There are several ways
in which the sense of smell can be dam­
aged and other cases where it malfunc­
tions. People who can't detect odors at all
are called anosmic. These people may
have been born without an olfactory bulb
or have lost their sense of smell from
injury to the nose, the bra in or the con­
nection between them - for example,
from a car accident or stroke. Can you
train the nose to smell better? No one's
certain, though it's likely that the sense
can be made more acute, as in the case
of wine experts or perfumers who have
honed their sense to detect smell notes
just as an orchestra conductor hears
musical notes. But, for everybody, the
sense declines with age, and after the age
of 80, 50 percent of people have little or
no sense of smell. .
Still, even if you can smell, there may be
some things you can't, in which case you
have "smell blindness" . Everyone has
some smell blindness - what Dr. W,ysocki
refers to as a specific anosmia. "If a per­
son had enough time to be tested, they
would find out, much to their surprise,
that there would be at least one class of
compounds that they can't smell."
Unlike an eyesight test, no standard
smell test exists - or is needed . However,
at research centres such as Monell, where
smell is the theme of every day,
researchers use two standard smell tests.
The first is for odor identification, asking
people what something smells like, and
the other is for odor acuity, that is, how
much of a substance is required before a
subject can detect its odor.
One interesting fact that researchers
discovered is that a substance known as
androstenone, a naturally occurring sub­
stance in pork, celery and human under­
arm sweat cannot be detected by 45
percent of human adults. "Ofthe remain­
ing people who can smell it, one group is
1
FIN f) IN (1
WI1
0
OVT D lJ N NIT MAy
JUS-r HAvE 1"0
I
WAJT. Feen-a-minf
I~EW CHOCOLATE MINT lAXATiVE
extremely sensitive to it a nd co n detect it in
fewer than 200 parts pertrillion in air and
for these people it smells bad, like stale
urine . The other group requires higher
concentrations to be able to detect it, and
then describes it as woody, sweet like san­
dalwood and certainly not unpleasant,"
says Dr. Wysocki .
The other dysfunction of the sense is
called parosamia. This describes either
smell confusion - as in identifying the
odor of an apple as cow dung - which
according to Dr. Wysocki is a condition
"which indicates something uniquely
wrong with their olfactory system", or an
olfactory hallucination, where you think
you can smell something but there isn't
an odorant there at all. Dr. Norwich
explains that smell hallucinations of this
nature happen when "part of the brain is
stimulated, usually not pleasantly, and the
brain is tricked into thinking that the nose
is actually smelling, something."
It's likely that the most common belief
about smell is a mere myth. This is the
idea of a chemical compound, unique to
humans, that makes the opposite sexes
irresistibly attractive to one another. In the
animal world, sex pheromones are
detectable , and signal mating time for
many species . Insect pheromones, for
instance, have no odor to humans, butto
a bug it's like yelling "sex time". Some
perfume manufacturers believe that by
adding pheromones to perfume, they
could sell a biologically based sexual
turn-on . But, according to Dr. Wysocki,
"There is no documentation that there is
any chemical compound that acts as a
sexual attractant in humans. No chemical
has been identified that fulfils that role, so
you can 't put it in a perfume ." The sex
pheromone that perfumers do use in their
products is from pigs.
ON THIS
" unique odor print", the
smell equivalent of a
fingerprint . Identical twins
on the same diets cannot
be distinguished by odor,
but on different diets they
can. However, even on the
same diet, two people who are not
twins will smell different.
I ndividuals with the most acute sense
of smell ore generally young females,
from puberty through ages 30 to 35.
T here appears to be a link between
eo rly loss of the sense of smell, and
Alzheimer's disease.
34 HEALTHWATCH
It is a well documented fact that
women who live together menstruate at
the same time. This is known as the
McClintock Effect (for the psychologist
who first observed it). This synchronicity
may be a result of the sense of smell.
M uch of the pleasure from kissing
and nuzzling may come from smell.
Odor glands connect directly with
cheek-to-cheek touching and smell
molecules are transferred directly from
one mouth to another.
M ore sex-and-smell stuff: According
to one U.S. study, one-quarter of the
people with smell disorders find that
their sex drive disappears.
L·fe in the back lane Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe assembled a lot out of other people's backyards. Then they had to tow the abandoned cars off their front lawn By Barbara MacKay lYTNG TN A laneway
seems, in many
ways , quintessentially urban. But
the experience is different from
other city housing . A laneway
home is buffered, set apart from
the enterprise and activity of the
street, so that it sometimes feels
_ _. . as quiet and private as a house in
the country. Howard Sutcliffe and
Brigitte Shim, husband and wife archi­
tects, discovered this paradox when they
moved into their new home last year.
In designing and building their house
in a deserted back lane, they created a
shining example for Toronto's official
plan of intensification and infill housing.
However, the route to their south River­
dale dwelling required not a convention­
al road map, but a paper chase . Less
determined individuals would have
given up along the odyssey of red tape ,
but for a couple who wear their tena­
cious natures graciously, challenge is
simply a part of architecture.
" We couldn't afford to buy a house
just to tear it down," says Shim, adding
that she and Sutcliffe are both committed
to building new architecture, not reno­
vating, and they were determined to find
a way to do so in the city. "Basically, we
had to find a piece of land that nobody
else wanted." They finally acquired three
pie ces of land -small, contiguou s
parcels on a laneway-to form a seven­
teen-by-106-foot lot. The first parcel , too
small alone for a home , was purchased at
a city auction in 1987 . Then the adjacent
parcels were bought from individual
owners over two years of quiet negotia­
tions . "There was a lot of back and forth,
a lot of, Well, I'm busy right now, or My
daughter's getting married, talk to me
next month," she recalls. Low-key per­
sistence paid off, and once they had the
land, they had not only to design a home ,
50
but also to acquire permission to build it.
Having already put in more work than
most potential homeowners wou ld be
willing to face , the couple had to de al
with a created site for whic h the zoning
was, at best, confused. " Strictly s peak­
ing, you couldn't even park a car here ,"
says Shim. Ironically, the land seemed to
sprout cars. "After we owned the site , we
had the abandoned cars towed off it."
But like creatures in a monster film, the
cars just kept coming back . "We towed
them away and almost the next day, there
would be others."
The couple hoped for building ap­
proval at a committee of adjustment meet­
ing . But here future neighbours had their
say, and what they said wasn ' t welcom­
ing . "The land had been derelict so
long ," says Shim , " I think the neighbours
saw our plans as invad­
ing their backyards ."
One area planner
offered his concern
about their quality of
life. "He felt that liv­
ing in a lane was de­
pressing, and that peo­
ple shouldn't have to
live this way," she re­
calls. So they marshal­
led letters of support
for their project, and
for laneway housing in
general , from promi­
nent architects and ur­
ban planners-George
Baird, Michael Kirk­
land, Ken Greenberg,
Jack Diamond and An­
thony Eardley, dean of
architecture at U of T.
But the committee
of adjustment refused
to rule (the project was
Interiors continued
deemed more than a minor variance, and
thus beyond its jurisdiction), and the cou­
ple was left to face the final effort-an
Ontario Municipal Board hearing. "The
OMB deals with huge-scale projects like
the railway lands," says Shim. "All we
wanted was one small home. For the
scale of the building, the amount of
process we had to go through just didn't
even out. Looking back, it was sort of
l:razy to do it, but we had more time than
money, and it was truly a labour of love."
In the end , the OMS didn't simply ap­
prove their home, but applauded it. "The
ruling was very positive," she recalls.
''They stated that laneway housing
should be encouraged ." And as an unof­
ficial precedent the ruling cleared the
way for future infill applications.
Although victory was theirs, Shim
and Sutcliffe were intent on remaining
attentive to the concerns of the co mm u­
nity. From the exterior, the ho use is
unassuming in a coating of silvery-grey
stucco. The structure neither signifi cant­
ly shades the existing backyards, nor
peeps into neighbours' windows, th anks
to features such as a stuccoed g arde n
wall surrounding the north end and
translucent ground floor windows that sit
high up in the walls. And in the impor­
tant matter of size, the home is much like
its neighbours : two storeys, with similar
length and width dimensions (forty-five
by seventeen feet); in total , a modest
1,350 square feet.
Like their design and their choice of
construction materials, Shim and Sut­
cliffe are unpretentious. Both 35, they
are a pretty serious twosome-sincere,
idealistic, intellectual. Shim teaches at
the University of Toronto School of
Architecture and last fall was a visiting
professor at Harvard University. Sut­
cliffe, who won the Ronald J. Thorn
Award for Early Design Achievement in
1991 , works with the firm Kuwabara
Payne McKenna Blumberg. Their home
is serious too--there are no frivolous
trimmings tacked on inside or out. Seri­
ous, but not solemn.
Sutcliffe calls the living/dining space
the governing room of the house. Here,
slate slab stair treads descend into the
room from the south, and the north wall
is entirely glass panes-some clear,
some translucent-all framed in warm
red mahogany. The view is of a tiny gar­
den surrounded by a concrete block wall.
The interior walls of this room are also
concrete block. "It's a humble material,"
he says, " a challenge to use and trans­
form." The effect makes interior and
exterior seem all one garden room.
The garden is planted to produce a
lushness of year-round greenery. It's
52
still young, so the climbing vines are
just starting up the walls, surrounding
the centrepiece-a multilevel water­
pond. But then, this is a couple that
knows how to design a garden where
architecture and nature converge. A few
years ago, they created an eloquent gar­
den pavilion and reflecting pool for
Murray and the late Barbara Frum that
won a Governor General's Award. Their
own garden is not just visually appeal­
ing, it considers the more subtle sens­
es-one large frame of glass pivots
open so that the soothing sound of water
flows throughout the house. Fountain is
juxtaposed with hearth-the key ele­
ments of water and fire-and at the
other end of the room there is a fireplace
with a grand and glowing yellow chim­
ney in textured Italian plaster that rises
to the skylight a storey above.
Sutcliffe says one of their aims was to
"create a space in the city where we
could breathe out , a place with a sense of
privacy, full of light and with a decent
scale of room." Their living/dining room
certainly satisfies this last goal: it's
e xtremely private but also light, bright
and airy. This is a surprising result since
no window offers a view beyond the gar­
den walls.
Guests feel it too. Gathered at the din­
ing table-which won a VIRTU award and
toured Japan as a representative of mod­
e rn Canadian design-friends often
linger overlong. "Sometimes we can ' t
get rid of our guests," Sutcliffe says .
" We ' ll be sitting around ta lk ing, the
evening passes , and we ' re saying, . Ah,
excuse us, but we have to get up in the
morni ng . ' We practically have to ask
them to leave."
The rest of the house is shiplike,
designed to take advantage of every
inch of space. Alongside the entrance is
the kitchen. Workable and efficient,
with everything possible built-in to
maximize space, the room's deep-hued
colours-claret and grey-green-are
anchored with a black slate tiled floor.
Up a central oak stairway that rises
beside the chimney, the rooms above­
bathroom, bedroom, study-are like­
wise compact and practical.
Architect's projects, especially dream
projects , are often never realized
beyond the paper plans. Actually living
in your dream can be an odd sensa­
tion-despite, and perhaps because of,
its imaginary existence. As Sutcliffe
says, "With so much of architecture ,
you build the project in words, plans,
models . You build it in your mind and in
the mind of the client. To see it become
a house and then to move into it is an
unusual experience. But we're getting to
the point now where we can just live in
it and enjoy it."
_
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