Issued For Construction

Issued For Construction AD: Pina & Ralph - GPAIA

Issued For Construction

Show Notes

Pina and Ralph have been partners in life and architecture since a prom date arranged by a cousin. Ralph showed up for that first date and mistook Pina's twin sister for her, a mix up that still gets retold. Both grew up in Italian Canadian families steeped in building and craft. Ralph comes from three generations of builders, and Pina spent childhood summers in Italy touring history with her father. Ralph led a student boycott at the University of Toronto that marched on Queen's Park, while Pina went on to Princeton and still teaches at U of T. Their wedding had an accordion player, a raw bar, and 250 guests, after they had planned for 100. Their first commission arrived after a late night encounter on College Street, when the owner of Bar Italia asked Ralph for help. The fee was $4,250, and the job turned a neighbourhood institution into their calling card. A licensing body rejected the name Arena Architects, so they began under Ralph's own name and grew into Giannone Petricone Associates, founded in 1995. While the bar collected attention, Ralph quietly master planned a 26 acre lakefront site that became Port Credit Village and helped the young firm survive. Today about 40 people work on projects that range from the Shops at Don Mills to The Royal Hotel in Picton, Volta Estate Winery in Prince Edward County, and the Snider House, a ribbon of curved glass wrapped around North Toronto's oldest surviving home. Hear how they design for gathering, plan a future beyond themselves, and why two of their three sons became architects anyway. ⁠⁠Giannone Petricone Associates⁠⁠ Upcoming Episode: Michelle Mawby Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Caplan's Appliances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Doors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To connect with our sponsors, email me: [email protected] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Issued For Construction⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Oct 22, 2026

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Oct 19, 2026

Richard Kroeker grew up on a Manitoba farm near a small prairie village, one of five boys in a home where canning season, butchering bees and hay crews were shared community work. His father, a Ukrainian immigrant who worked as a bricklayer, plumber, carpenter and mechanic, told his sons that their heads were their future. Richard set out to be a naturalist, drawing and painting everything he observed, until a shortcut through the University of Manitoba architecture building showed him people laughing, building and generating ideas together. He soon changed course. He went on to the Architectural Association in London, where students wrote their own curriculum and defended it before external juries, with teachers that included Peter Cook and Zaha Hadid. After designing in London through the Thatcher years, a teaching post brought his family home to Canada and to Dalhousie University in Halifax. There he became a professor, director of the School of Architecture, and now Professor Emeritus, treating the studio as a place to solve real problems. In Gambia, his students built hand pumps from discarded tires and flotation gear from water bottles for fishing families. In Eskasoni, he worked with Albert and Murdena Marshall, and in Minnesota a studio helped protect a Dakota sacred site. Richard is a Member of the Order of Canada, a 2022 World Architecture Festival WAFX award winner for the Muscowpetung Powwow Arbour, and a recipient of the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award for the Pictou Landing Health Centre. He still paints. Richard Kroeker Upcoming Episode: ⁠Richard Kroeker⁠ Pt.2 Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Caplan's Appliances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Doors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To connect with our sponsors, email me: [email protected] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Issued For Construction⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Jamie grew up in Cedarvale, the youngest of three sisters, with summers at the family cottage on Lake Simcoe. By her own account she was a serial quitter of piano, guitar and dance, but she never stopped making things, from beading and painting to bedazzling, and she still remembers the hot pink and orange Ikea haul that made decorating her bedroom feel like a turning point. A psychology degree from McGill did not point her toward design, but a nudge from her mom and a leap into a Toronto interior design program did. She passed on Parsons in New York, spent a summer traveling through Southeast Asia, and learned the business from the ground up through retail at Club Monaco, a short stint selling condo upgrades, and nearly five years at Tara Fingold Interiors, where she picked up drafting, styling, purchasing and the confidence to get on the phone and make things happen. After a maternity leave that came to an end, in early 2020, weeks before the world shut down, she launched JPZ Interiors with one renovation, a freshly photographed home and an Instagram account. Today her Toronto residential practice often runs around ten projects at once and has reached Florida, and she is building a team while raising three kids. Along the way she opens up about pricing her time, writing her first contracts, trusting her gut on red flags, and why you should simply pick up the phone and ask. ⁠⁠JPZ Interiors⁠⁠ Upcoming Episode: Richard Kroeker Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Caplan's Appliances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Doors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To connect with our sponsors, email me: [email protected] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Issued For Construction⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Oct 12, 2026

Place of Work is an architecture studio with one foot in Halifax and one in Toronto, founded by Jennifer Esposito, Duncan Patterson, and Will Perkins. The three first worked together at MacKay Lyons Sweetapple Architects, and when COVID shook everything loose they realized a practice built on trust and shared shorthand could live in two cities. Today they design mostly houses, with a deep interest in the rituals that happen inside them, and the studio was featured in the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026. The name comes from a term in a Canadian construction contract, where it simply means the site, but they loved how it also speaks to place and to work. Will was born in Halifax, spent his early years in Los Angeles and New Zealand while his luthier father worked abroad, and trained in lighting design at the National Theatre School of Canada before starting architecture school at 26. Duncan grew up between Regina and his dad’s cattle ranch, sketching in colored Conte and building fences, then came to Dalhousie by way of an architectural technology program. Jennifer, a Toronto native and former varsity swimmer, followed Carleton and Harvard’s GSD with practice in Yellowknife and Halifax, and now teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University while advocating for equity in the profession through BEAT. Away from the studio, Will cooks ambitious dinners, meditates early in the morning, and is learning tennis for the joy of not being good at it. Duncan hikes, camps, plays rec league basketball, and joins his brother’s nonprofit that turns basketball courts into murals. Jennifer reads, travels, and dreams of a shack on the ocean. ⁠⁠Place of Work⁠⁠ Upcoming Episode: JPZ Interiors Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Caplan's Appliances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Doors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To connect with our sponsors, email me: [email protected] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Issued For Construction⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Oct 8, 2026

Michelle grew up in Richmond, BC, the daughter of Australian parents who made sure she was born a proud Canadian, and she has rarely stood still since. Ballet started at two, followed by the French horn, the trumpet, basketball as a point guard, and a string of provincial titles in the 800, 1500 and 3000 metres. Her first business lessons came from rolling coins at her parents’ laundromat and restocking a pop machine, and a sports scholarship carried her to California, where she studied English literature and competed in the heptathlon. Advertising, a move to Toronto and a renovation of her own home led her to the Academy of Design, where she graduated in 1999. London and Amsterdam came next, along with a hot pink Swedish army bike she brought home. Around 2005 she launched Lucid Interior Design, named for clarity and light, and built it on full gut renovations, additions and custom homes, from a Tip Top Lofts residence to a heritage home on Spadina Circle. A Registered Interior Designer, her work has reached television too, through Weekend Reno on Cottage Life, Junk Raiders and Room to Grow. Today Michelle is principal designer of Georgian Custom Homes, where she stepped in during 2019 to help run its architecture and design department. Here she shares what design school taught her, why a good mentor matters, and what to do when a specified product suddenly disappears. Away from work, you will find her scuba diving, planning her next trip, or singing karaoke at her Prince Edward County farmhouse. ⁠⁠Michelle Mawby⁠⁠ Upcoming Episode: Place of Work Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Caplan's Appliances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Doors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To connect with our sponsors, email me: [email protected] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Issued For Construction⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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