The Neptis Foundation asks architectural questions about how Canadian cities are approved and built, and what better rules would make possible. It commissions design studies and regulatory research to answer them. Neptis is privately capitalized and editorially independent.
About
Neptis commissions architects to design urban fabric that Canadian cities do not yet have, and to draw and render it so that people can picture living there. The regulatory research follows each design back to the rules that govern it: the building code, zoning, elevator standards, and infrastructure. It shows which rules stand in the way and what the alternatives might be. Its aim is to offer solid analysis and creative perspectives to Canadians through publications that are clear, visual, and freely available.
Martha Shuttleworth established Neptis in 1997, with an endowment drawn in part from the Richard and Jean Ivey Fund of London, Ontario. Under its first executive director, Tony Coombes, who led the foundation until his death in 2013, Neptis built its reputation on regional research, mapping the growth, land, and infrastructure of the Greater Toronto Region. Marcy Burchfield, executive director from 2013 to 2018, took that mapping further. Zoë Coombes, the third executive director, brought her training in architecture to the regional question. She founded Impossible Toronto, an architectural research program, to study the individual buildings that make up a region and to connect their design to the regional plans they serve.
Zoë Coombes
Executive and Creative Director of Neptis.
Zoë sets the foundation’s research agenda: the questions it takes up and the architects and engineers it commissions to answer them. She earned a Master of Architecture (M.Arch) at Columbia University, where she spent additional time studying urban history, comparing how New York and Paris were built. She then ran Cmmnwlth, a New York design studio, with her husband, David Boira, for over a decade. Zoë was born and raised, and lives again, in Toronto.
Board of Directors
David Boira, Director.
Lorna McKay, Director.
Martha Shuttleworth, Director.
Contributors
Aleris Rodgers
& Francesco Valente-Gorjup
Studio VAARO
Architecture
Alex Bozikovic
Architecture Criticism
Aránzazu González Bernardo
& Michael Fohring
Odami
Architecture
Aron Lorincz
Aron Lorincz Ateliers
Architectural Visualization
Blok Design
Graphic Design
Brandon Bergem
Office In Search Of
Architectural Visualization
Brandon Donnelly
Globizen Group
Urban Development
Christoph Elsässer
Fire Protection Engineering
Conrad Speckert
Semibold Solutions
Building Code Research
Gabriel Fain
Gabriel Fain Architects
Architecture
Graig Uens
Batory Planning
Planning
Hamutal Dotan
Editorial
Jack Keays
Vortex Fire
Fire Protection Engineering
Jonathan English
Infrastory Insights
Infrastructure Policy
Kelly Alvarez Doran
Ha/f Climate Design
Building Performance
Krista Palen
& Jonathon Brearley
Transsolar KlimaEngineering
Building Performance
Kurtis Chen
Make Good Projects
Documentary Film / Photography
Marc Ryan
PUBLIC WORK
Landscape Architecture
Stephen Smith
Center for Building in North America
Building Code Research
Uros Novakovic
Nicolas Koff
Sebastian Bartnicki
& Sophia Szagala
Office Ou
Architecture