The Neptis Foundation is a private charitable foundation based in Toronto. It funds research, design studies, and public programs that examine urban growth, the systems that determine how Canadian cities are approved and built, and what better rules would make possible.
Neptis is privately capitalized and editorially independent. It supports work on its merits and publishes what the research finds.
About
Neptis works in two ways. We make the invisible forces that shape Canadian cities legible to the public: building codes, zoning, infrastructure policy, development economics. We also commission architects and designers to imagine what Canadian cities could become, and to render that image in drawings both measured and vivid. Canadians can and will decide what their cities become. Our aim is to add solid analysis and creative perspectives to this debate: publications that are clear, visual, and freely available.
Neptis was founded in 1997 by Martha Shuttleworth, with an endowment later expanded by the Richard and Jean Ivey Fund of London, Ontario. Under founding 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, deepened the foundation's mapping work. Zoë Coombes, the third executive director, extends the inquiry to the material the region is made of: architecture, buildings, and the codes that shape them.
Zoë Coombes
Executive Director of the Neptis Foundation.
Zoë sets the foundation's research agenda: the questions it takes up, and the architects and engineers it commissions to answer them. Before leading Neptis, she studied urban history, then earned her Master of Architecture at Columbia University. She spent a decade in New York designing with her husband, David Boira. She was born and raised 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