The new global economic realities: where architects should hunt for work next.
With Canadian investment funds looking to Europe amidst a zero-growth domestic economy, Canadian architects should be looking to expand their professional services across Europe.
CPP Investments supports the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Fund. This month, it closed the purchase of Livensa's residences through Nido for €1.2 billion from Brookfield, who sold one of the largest university housing platforms on the Iberian Peninsula.
Canada's macro dashboard paints a cautious picture. Real GDP eked out 0.5% growth in Q1 2025, as exports carried the load, while inflation eased to 1.7% in May. The Bank of Canada is holding the overnight rate at 2.75% while hinting at cuts later this year. There is a reason why many architecture firms across the country are feeling a chill: according to Statistics Canada, the construction pipeline is wobbling. April building permit values decreased 6.6% to $11.7 billion, representing a 16.4% year-over-year decrease, following a strong upward movement in April 2024.
The American Institute of Architects' North American Architecture Billings Index sits at 47.2—still below the 50 expansion line, but keeping our interests focused on Canada, the indefatigable CIBC economist Benjamin Tal calls the current economic phase "short-term pain, long-term gain," expecting GDP to crawl at 0% into the fall with unemployment peaking around 7.1 %, Tal's deepest concern is the condo sector: up to 20 000 unsold or failed-closing units will hit the GTA over the next 18 months, likely pushing resale prices another 10 % lower and consolidating the developer landscape. Fewer towers are expected to start in 2025-26, creating a supply crunch—and fresh design demand—once inventories clear.
Enter the UK (and Europe) safety valve
While domestic momentum cools, trade diplomacy is busy building an exit ramp for professional services. Ottawa and London have resumed negotiations on a bespoke Canada-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) aimed at replacing the interim Trade Continuity Agreement and enhancing market access, including professional qualifications and government procurement. At the same time, the UK's accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) entered into force with most members in December 2024, is promising streamlined rules of origin for construction services once Canada ratifies the deal. For architects, that combination keeps British public-sector tenders open and could grant Canadian firms a streamlined compliance framework that spans a Pacific-Atlantic arc.
Follow the pension money.
Canada's giant institutional investors are already voting with their wallets, exiting some sectors in the US markets and looking abroad. Here, there is an opportunity for Canadian architects to stay informed about where that capital is going. There is a definite trend happening with Canadian investment funds seeking out new opportunities in Europe. Here are some recent news items worth noting:
CPP Investments paid €1.2 billion for Livensa's 9,000-bed student-housing portfolio via Nido this month and earmarked €460 million for further expansion
PSP Investments teamed with Eurazeo on a €300 million hospitality upgrade fund across Europe.
Ivanhoé Cambridge bolstered its London team to scale EU deals alongside new logistics acquisitions in northern France.
Ontario Teachers' is exiting mature airport stakes—freeing capital for fresh UK property play.
Oxford Properties signalled a return to London offices after a decade-long pause.
Brookfield closed a US $16 billion flagship fund, hunting distressed European assets at up to 40% discounts.
What it means for real estate.
Retrofits over greenfields. Governments still need climate-aligned housing and civic upgrades, but fixed budgets will favour retrofit and design-build models that lock costs early. Expect more RFPs to ask architects to guarantee approvals and value engineering.
Condos to consolidations. Tal's predicted shake-out will see larger, better-capitalized developers absorb stalled projects, creating opportunities for work-out design teams adept at re-phasing, enlarging unit mixes, or converting partial shells to rental or co-living formats.
European specialty niches. Canadian pension capital is chasing purpose-built student accommodation, hospitality refurbishments, logistics parks and value-add offices—asset classes driven by ESG retrofits rather than ground-up build. Firms with proven carbon-calculation tools, adaptive reuse portfolios, and digital delivery capabilities can capitalize on these evolving trends.
Trade frameworks reduce friction. A deeper UK FTA and forthcoming CPTPP ratification would enable Canadian architects to bid, sign, and insure UK projects with fewer legal hurdles—an obvious hedge against a softening home market.
What can Canadian architects do right now?
Pivot your pipeline: Rebalancing your marketing toward student housing, urban logistics, and hospitality retrofits in EU capitals where Canadian capital is active.
Sharpen ESG storytelling: Pension funds must still hit decarbonization targets; architects who quantify embodied carbon savings.
Stay mindful of interest rates: if Tal's prediction of an interest rate cut materializes, shelved multifamily designs could rebound in 2026—keep those concept packages warm.
Canada's economic slowdown is real, but so is the outbound wave of capital and the scaffolding of new trade rules. For architects willing to follow the money—and tweak their service mix—the next growth cycle may begin 5,000 km east of home.
Going Global: International Opportunities for Canadian Architects
I will be organizing a one-day workshop on Monday, July 7th, at MJMA Architecture & Design in Toronto with my Copenhagen-based colleague, Jack Renteria, from Generation Global. This workshop will bring together developers, government officials, and practitioners in the architectural profession to gain insight into international opportunities for Canadian architects.
With a particular focus on Europe and the Nordic countries, attendees will gain valuable insights from developers, investors, and design firms that are already operating abroad. We will combine strategic tools with firsthand case studies to elevate your firm's global potential.
In a time of geopolitical shifts, shifting capital flows, and evolving global values, we look forward to welcoming those interested in the European market to this opportunity to help Canadian architects explore and prepare for international growth. Topics will include the logistical implications of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and insights from developers, investors, and design firms currently operating abroad. You will be able to combine strategic tools with firsthand case studies to reach your firm's global potential.
Whether you're considering new markets or want to future-proof your practice, this workshop will help you sharpen your direction and connect with others navigating similar questions. ULI Toronto and MJMA Architecture & Design generously support this event.
In the News…
Chodikoff & Ideas empowers architects, developers, and civic leaders with strategic foresight. I help clients position themselves as thought leaders who shape more resilient, equitable, and sustainable communities.Reach out to me if you have concerns about how to keep your business relevant in today’s market, and how to cultivate leadership within your organization to stay competitive and relevant in today’s economy and political reality.
Cities everywhere are being stress-tested—from the increasing realities caused by climate
change to stalled construction cranes and governance models buckling under political pressure. This week's reading list maps three battlegrounds and the innovators pushing them forward.
Reimagining Cities for a Hotter Planet opens with an unlikely standoff: Toronto versus Queen's Park over the City's Green Standard guidelines. While the debate between our various levels of government over addressing climate change continues, designers around the world are already prototyping solutions—a lush Utrecht "vertical forest," Venice Biennale flood labs, Chief Heat Officers rewriting building codes, and inspiration demonstrated by Anishnawbe Health Toronto's new building. Even The Bentway turns an expressway's shadow into a climate-era theatre. Regulation matters, but culture and craft move faster.
Housing Under Pressure confronts Canada's other existential threat: affordability. Benjamin Tal's grim macro forecast frames pieces on slumping GTA starts and condo free-falls. CMHC's models suggest that we must nearly double annual housing starts and grassroots fixes—such as gentle-density zoning, non-profit supply, and co-housing. Increasing housing supply isn't just a number; it's an ecosystem of policy, capital and community imagination.
Finally, Shaping Urban Futures zooms out to the systems that stitch it all together. Toronto's Crosstown and Finch LRTs hint at better surface transit; Highway 413 bulldozes ahead as a throwback to a pre-climate-change-awareness era; Vancouver's planning culture battles stealth centralization; and a "sixplex versus development charges" debate reveals how fine-print fees throttle missing-middle housing.
Threaded through every piece is a simple provocation: who gets to decide the form—and fairness—of the next Canadian city?
Reimagining Cities for a Hotter Planet
No impact to Toronto’s green standard under new Ontario law, city staff says (Building) Toronto staff conclude Bill 17 does not restrict the city’s authority to enforce its Green Standard for new developments, keeping climate and sustainability requirements intact. The interpretation clashes with provincial messaging, underscoring ongoing confusion over the legislation’s reach and municipal powers.
Why Climate Adaptation Must Become Architecture’s Central Project (Bloomberg) 2025 Venice Biennale curator argues architecture should embrace climate adaptation as creative resistance, using Venice’s fragile context as a laboratory. Decentralized exhibitions test flood-ready prototypes, urging institutions to prioritize planetary resilience without abandoning beauty, spectacle, community-driven collaboration, and equity values.
Can Toronto still enforce its green building standard? Ontario says no, but the city disagrees (The Narwhal) Ontario claims Bill 17 strips Toronto’s authority to mandate eco-friendly features under the Toronto Green Standard, but city officials insist Tier 1 requirements like EV chargers, flood mitigation, and rooftop gardens remain enforceable, exposing a policy standoff and industry uncertainty over implementation.
A vertical forest growing in the Netherlands: in pictures (The Guardian) Wonderwoods Vertical Forest, a mixed-use Utrecht tower by Stefano Boeri and MVSA, integrates apartments, offices, and one hectare of planted balconies, advancing urban biodiversity and climate mitigation while illustrating how dense developments can weave greenery into city skylines for inspiration.
Heat Resilient Design: How City Leaders Use Building Materials to Fight Urban Heat (ArchDaily) Cities appoint Chief Heat Officers—often women from public-health or planning backgrounds—to coordinate strategies combating extreme heat. Initiatives include reflective materials, shaded streets, and long-term climate policies, integrating design and governance to protect vulnerable residents as heatwaves intensify globally and locally.
New Indigenous health centre offers care and a feeling of belonging (The Globe and Mail) Anishnawbe Health Toronto’s new Don River facility unites primary, dental, diabetes, counselling, cultural, and housing services within curved, perforated aluminum walls adorned with shimmering bead fringes, creating welcoming acoustics and symbolism that honour Indigenous traditions and foster community healing spaces.
The Bentway’s summer exhibition explores the role of shade in a warming world (The Globe and Mail) The Bentway’s 2025 Sun/Shade season commissions artworks and performances—including a six-metre sand dune and mobile maple trees—examining shade’s cultural and climatic importance under Toronto’s elevated Gardiner. Installations propose creative refuges as urban heat intensifies and public spaces evolve for resilience.
Housing Under Pressure: Supply, Cost & Community Solutions
‘Short-term pain, long-term gain’: CIBC’s Benjamin Tal on his latest economic, tariffs and housing views (The Globe and Mail) Deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal warns tariffs and uncertainty will slow Canada’s growth, investment, consumer spending, housing, and employment in coming months. He predicts stabilization later as rates adjust and trade clarifies, framing near-term weakness as groundwork for future recovery.
RioCan, Milestone Bringing 8-Building Master Plan To Lawrence Plaza In Toronto (Storeys) RioCan REIT and Milestone Group propose redeveloping Lawrence Plaza into eight buildings between six and 40 storeys, creating 2,693 rental homes across the 10-acre, 1950s retail site, marking a significant shift from auto-oriented plaza to mixed-use, transit-friendly community for Toronto.
Explore Canada's housing affordability challenge and the need for more homes by 2035 (CMHC) CMHC modelling indicates Canada must nearly double housing starts to 430,000-480,000 annually until 2035 to restore affordability. New demographic and economic scenarios emphasize supply expansion as essential, enabling broader analysis of policy options to meet future housing demand across Canada.
GTA Homebuilding Slowdown Could Cost 41,000 Jobs, $10B In Investment: Report (Storeys) Altus analysis for BILD/OHBA warns GTA housing starts may drop over 60% by 2027, slashing 41,000 jobs and $10 billion investment if obstacles persist. Reduced construction would dramatically curtail economic activity, amplifying urgency for policy reforms boosting building and market stability.
‘Sales have stopped’: Ontario developers predict layoffs if cost to build doesn’t fall (Urban Toronto) BILD warns plummeting Toronto-area new-home sales—single-detached down 50%, condos 65% year-over-year—signal looming layoffs unless government reduces taxes and fees. Industry argues cost relief is essential to revive construction activity and safeguard tens of thousands of threatened jobs in coming months.
Condominium apartment market risks in Toronto and Vancouver (CMHC) CMHC reports condo sales in Toronto and Vancouver fell 75% and 37% respectively by Q1 2025 after interest-rate hikes erased investor returns and buyer affordability. Persistent downturn raises risks of supply imbalances, price volatility, and delayed project completions across both cities.
The Overhead: Non-Profit Housing and Gentle Density (Spacing) Podcast explores research showing expanded social housing and missing-middle infill can temper prices by boosting competition and supply. Experts discuss Canadian and international examples, urging federal action plus local zoning reforms to unlock small-scale, community-integrated affordable developments across urban neighborhoods.
For these seniors, co-housing offers autonomy rarely found in long-term care homes (The Globe and Mail) Aging Canadians, including LGBTQ seniors, pursue co-housing models providing mutual support, affordability, and belonging. Example: a 17-acre Bancroft property envisioned for 40 residents illustrates how collective living fosters independence and community compared with conventional long-term care institutions for older adults.
Shaping Urban Futures: Transit, Infrastructure & Governance
Future Transit: Learnings From the LRTs (Urban Toronto) Two new light-rail lines—Eglinton Crosstown 5 and Finch West 6—will extend Toronto’s rail network for the first time in decades, converting busy bus corridors into faster transit. Their design lessons could improve existing streetcar service and future rapid-transit projects.
Understanding the elusiveness of Smart Cities (Spacing) Smart-city rhetoric rarely delivers without clear goals, integrated governance, public trust, and citizen-centric outcomes. Successful examples focus on strategy and leadership rather than gadgets, reframing the question from what technology can do to how cities can truly serve residents’ needs.
From Bill 5 to ‘build, baby, build’: what’s going on with Highway 413? (The Narwhal) Construction crews already mobilized along the proposed Highway 413 corridor despite environmental concerns. Legislative fast-tracking by Ontario and supportive federal rhetoric leave residents uncertain about impacts on Greenbelt habitats, endangered species, and community planning as the controversial megaproject advances toward approval.
The Trifecta of Control: Stealth. Speed. Complexity. (Spacing) Spacing argues Vancouver’s hard-won participatory planning culture is eroding under centralized, developer-driven processes mirroring 1960s urban renewal tactics. Provincial mandates and industry lobbying accelerate decision-making, limiting community oversight and jeopardizing equitable, transparent city-building once forged through grassroots activism and engagement.
If We're Serious About Sixplexes, We Need To Get Serious About DCs (Storeys) Toronto City Council prepares to vote on legalizing sixplexes. Toronto currently has a DC waiver for multiplexes with four units or fewer, but there’s a catch: as soon as someone wants to build a fifth unit, the waiver disappears, and DCs apply to all the units. That creates a bizarre incentive to stop at four units even when there is space and demand for more.