Notes

For my projects, applied research and professional background, visit pria.ca

About the Practice

These notes are a practice of attention.They are written from ordinary moments - public spaces, shared systems, quiet encounters - where something becomes visible when time is allowed to slow. The aim is not explanation or instruction, but careful observation: noticing what is present before it is interpreted, resolved or used.The practice begins with careful observation: noticing what is present before rushing to interpret, resolve or use it.Each note offers a perspective rather than a demand for agreement. Some remain with an observation; others open into questions, inquiry or an invitation to look more closely.If there is healing in this work, it arises indirectly - through restored attention, respect for complexity, and the quiet freedom that comes from seeing more clearly.These notes are written in public, but they are not performances. They are a record of learning how to look, and a space where pause becomes possible.

Canada through Story

Montréal, 15 October 2026

Field Note 007 - What comes to light

I went to pick up a candlestick today.I am still settling into my Montréal apartment. Small things matter when you are making a home, and something about this piece drew me to it: three curved branches, wooden holders, a shared base.The pickup address was 400 Place D’Youville. Standing among the beautiful buildings of Old Montréal, I wanted to know more about the buildings history. That’s when I discovered an unexpected coincidence: today was Marguerite d’Youville’s birthday—the founder of the Grey Nuns, whose former Mother House I had been researching.Her birthday prompted me to learn more about her life. Meanwhile, my reading had been taking me through histories of injustice and resistance in Canada. Suddenly, the reading, the city and its familiar names—D’Youville, McGill, Concordia—were speaking to each other.D’Youville’s charitable work and her founding of the Grey Nuns are well remembered. Her ownership of enslaved people is also documented. I became curious about the human being behind these accounts. How did she understand the relationship between care and power? What could we know about the experiences of those she held in slavery?And what happens when their perspectives are missing?An ownership record tells us that someone was denied freedom. It cannot tell us everything about their life. Someone might have resisted without leaving a written account. An act of care might also have gone unrecorded. Neither possibility allows us to fill the silence with the story we would prefer.That is the difficulty I want to stay with: how to seek a fuller history without claiming more than we know, while recognizing and questioning what might be missing.Later this morning, I also visited Cartographier les mémoires / Mapping Memories at INRS. The exhibition prompted me to think about the many ways of capturing memories and their connections to place. It also raised a question for my housing research: how can we document the experiences of people who live in a place without allowing those with greater power to erase or reshape their accounts? How can we strengthen and empower what is missing—while ensuring people have a say in how their stories are being represented? How do we reverse the legacies of silence?It sparked a question: what stories emerge when people feel safe enough to share? How might that safety reveal memories, daily journeys, and moments of belonging—or invisibility—that conventional maps miss?For classmates exploring qualitative methods, this is the connection I am beginning to see: a place can open a question, but understanding it requires honesty, courage, the ability to sit with our interpretations, and allowing people to complicate the story.There is a small exercise here for any of us. Choose one familiar place. The place you call home. Write down what you notice, what you have verified, and what you still wonder. Then ask: whose perspective, or what evidence, could change my understanding?I went out looking for something for my home. I came back with a candlestick and a reason to look more carefully at the city and the things we hold within.For me, light holds a quiet power. Like truth, even a little can help us question what surrounds us and begin to see how we might rebuild more just foundations for the world we share. There will still be questions. I choose to stand in the light.

<<Follow the questions>>
Explore d’Youville’s history through Alanna Loucks and Dominique Laperle.
Visit Mapping Memories: INRS, 385 Sherbrooke Est, until November 20, 2026.What place shaped your sense of belonging—and whose story is missing from its map? I welcome your thoughts and reading suggestions.

Field Note 006 - Two doors opened

Sometimes, learning a city begins with noticing a date.On October 14, 1966, Montréal officially inaugurated its métro. That same day, Sir George Williams University officially opened its Henry F. Hall Building—now part of Concordia.Sixty years later, I am finding my own way through these places as a doctoral student and teaching assistant: following signs, entering buildings, pausing beside a tree, and discovering where I feel at home.The shared opening date invites a question. A transport network connects people to places; a university creates spaces for learning. But what makes those places accessible—and what turns arrival into belonging?For students I have taught at the University of Ottawa and those I now support in URBS 250, this is an invitation to look again at an ordinary journey. A station entrance, staircase, window or gathering place can become the beginning of an inquiry.What does its design invite you to do? What history sits behind it? Whose experiences might be missing from the familiar account?These illustrations began with photographs of places encountered today—histories hidden in plain sight. The spaces made me pause and consider how familiar places quietly witness generations of journeys, encounters and moments of learning.Begin with one place along your own route. Photograph or sketch it, investigate one detail of its history, and share a question it raises. What might we learn about our cities—and one another—by paying closer attention?Pria · Espace Créatif

AI-assisted illustrations based on my photographs and reflections; not archival records.

21 July 2026

Field Note 005 – Housing Is More Than Shelter

What if we’ve been measuring the wrong thing?We often measure housing by the number of homes we build, the cost of rent, vacancy rates, or square footage. These measures matter. They help us understand supply, affordability, and access.But what if they are only part of the story?

What if the more important question is not simply whether people have housing, but what that housing makes possible?Over time, through my work in architecture, humanitarian response, building stewardship, and community development, I have come to believe that the purpose of housing is not merely to provide shelter, but to create the conditions in which people, communities, and nature can flourish together.A home is where new foundations are laid—not only for buildings, but also for lives.It is where children learn and play, where families gather around a table, where neighbours become friends, where people recover from illness, grieve loss, celebrate milestones, imagine new possibilities, and find the stability to contribute to their communities.Housing is not simply the setting in which life unfolds.It is one of the conditions that makes flourishing possible.Yet many of the challenges people experience in housing are difficult to measure.Uncertainty.Instability.Unclear responsibilities.Limited choices.These conditions often remain invisible until they begin to affect everyday life: the ability to concentrate, to rest, to study, to care for others, to participate in community life, or simply to plan for the future.The effects extend beyond individuals.Stable housing supports resilient communities.Healthy neighbourhoods encourage trust, participation, and mutual care.Well-designed places can also strengthen the natural systems on which all life depends by respecting local ecosystems, reducing environmental impacts, and creating places where both people and nature can thrive.If housing contributes to human flourishing, perhaps we should ask different questions.Not only:How many homes were built?But also:* What opportunities did those homes make possible?
* Did they strengthen community?
* Did they improve health and well-being?
* Did they create greater resilience?
* Did they help people participate more fully in society?
* Did they contribute positively to the places and ecosystems they inhabit?These questions shift our attention from housing as a product to housing as a living system.This perspective is at the heart of The Shelter Projekt.The Shelter Projekt exists to help create the conditions in which people, communities, and nature can flourish together through participation, collaboration and stewardship.

Rather than beginning with solutions, it begins with careful observation.By understanding how housing systems function in everyday life—and where they quietly succeed or struggle—we can make better decisions before challenges become crises.Perhaps the true value of housing lies not only in what it protects, but in what it makes possible.And perhaps that is the question worth carrying forward:What does this housing make possible?

Notes.Pria is an ongoing collection of field observations exploring the relationships between people, place, community, and nature. Some notes begin as simple observations. Others grow into longer essays, research, and design projects through The Shelter Projekt.

27 May 2026

Watching a Young Garden Grow

Field Notes from the Queen Elizabeth Pollinator Garden

One of the first survivors waking up in the Queen Elizabeth pollinator garden. Do you know its name?

Meet the SurvivorsLast autumn, something small happened at Queen Elizabeth.Tiny young plants were tucked into the soil of a brand-new pollinator garden.Then came their first Ottawa winter.Snow.
Ice.
Wind.
Frozen ground.Long weeks underground in silence.And yet…
some survived.If you walk past quickly, you might only see a few small odd baby green plants in fresh spring soil.But what if they are not ordinary at all?Every plant has a name. A story. Its own unique personality.Some may grow tall and dramatic.Some may quietly feed bees.Some may become butterfly favourites.Some may seem unimpressive now — and surprise everyone later.But here’s the mystery:Who are they?And perhaps an even bigger question:Who will notice them?A Mission for Curious HumansThis summer, Queen Elizabeth’s newest garden needs observers.Young naturalists are especially welcome.Not expert botanists.Not scientists in lab coats.Just curious humans willing to look closely.Your mission, if you choose to accept it:Find one survivor.Learn its name.Sketch its leaves. Observe its outline.Watch what changes.Notice who visits.Return later.See what story unfolds.Because every great naturalist begins the same way:By paying attention.Your First ClueNot all heroes arrive dramatically.Some begin as tiny shoots pushing quietly through spring soil after surviving their very first winter.Can you find one?A young naturalist’s field guide may already be quietly taking shape nearby…

24 April 2026

Field Note 004 – Maple in Early Bloom

Maple (Acer sp.) — early flowering stage Walkley Road, near McCarthy, Ottawa. April 2026Small reddish clusters line the branches. The leaves have not yet emerged.This is a maple in its early flowering stage.By blooming before leaf-out, the tree keeps its flowers unobstructed—improving pollination by wind and early insects.In the coming weeks, these flowers will develop into paired seeds (samaras) that travel on the air.For now, the canopy remains open—a brief window where structure and process are visible at once.

11 April 2026

Field Note 003 - 24 Sussex: A House Left In Plain Sight

24 Sussex Drive sits overlooking the Ottawa River, empty.Not because it lacks importance, but because it has reached a point where no decision feels simple.From the outside, the signals are familiar: boarded windows, restricted access, quiet decline. The structure remains, but its role has dissolved. What appears unresolved is, in many ways, the result of a long sequence of decisions—each reasonable in the moment, but incomplete over time.What is visible: A house once occupied is now held at a distance. Security replaces stewardship. Absence replaces use. The building stands, but no longer participates in daily life. It is maintained just enough to remain, but not enough to recover.What is hidden: Behind the boarded windows, the failures are not dramatic—they are cumulative.• moisture has moved where it should not, and pests have moved in
• hazardous materials remain embedded within walls
• aging electrical systems no longer meet current safety expectations
• mechanical systems have exceeded their intended life
• the building envelope no longer protects what it was designed to holdNone of these conditions are unusual on their own. What makes them critical is their accumulation over time. This is not a story of sudden collapse. It is a pattern of temporary fixes, workarounds, and deferrals—each one understandable in isolation. Small interventions replaced deeper inquiry. Short-term decisions stood in for long-term care.The result is not simply deterioration, but drift: between responsibility and action, between occupancy and care, between public value and ongoing neglect. Buildings do not fail all at once. They fail slowly— in increments too small to act on, until they are too large to ignore.The real failure: The failure here is not technical. It is a failure of continuity—of stewardship. Over time, responsibility becomes diffuse. Decisions are shaped by timing, optics, and cost. Care becomes intermittent. Buildings, however, depend on consistency. Without it, even significant structures are reduced to a series of deferred decisions—each one extending decline, quietly.A different starting point: Before any decision—restoration, replacement, or removal—the building asks something simpler: that we look closely, without rushing to resolve.To follow what happened here—not in summary, but in sequence— to trace how small decisions, constraints, repairs, and delays accumulated over time, is where its real value now lies.Not as an example to replicate, but as a house that has, over time, become a witness— a maison devenue témoin of what happens when care is intermittent, when responsibility becomes unclear, and when action is delayed just long enough to feel reasonable.It shifts the question: not what should be done to this house, but what becomes visible when we are willing to understand how a house is allowed to fail.Across Canada, this kind of outcome is not inevitable. In cities such as Montreal, a longer tradition of maintaining older building stock has supported a different relationship to care—one where repair, adaptation, and continuity remain part of everyday practice.Organizations such as Héritage Montréal and Heritage Ottawa have, over time, helped sustain awareness, skill, and public engagement around the stewardship of built heritage. These efforts do not eliminate complexity or cost. But they demonstrate that continuity—of knowledge, of trades, and of attention—can change outcomes.A possible future: The future of 24 Sussex Drive need not return it to its former role. Its greater value may lie in remaining visible—not as a restored symbol, but as a working site of learning.A place where the realities of aging buildings are not concealed, but examined: where systems are opened, documented, observed, repaired, and understood over time.Not a museum in the conventional sense, but a living environment— supporting those who sustain the built world:• skilled trades
• building stewards
• retrofit practitioners
• students of housing, preservation, and infrastructureA place where maintenance is not invisible, but central. Where temporary fixes are studied, not repeated. Where continuity of care is practiced, not assumed.Care, in this context, is not held by a single office or mandate. It becomes more democratic, more shared. Through guided access, public-facing documentation, and hands-on learning, the building can invite a different kind of participation— not in deciding what should be done in the abstract, but in understanding what it takes to sustain a building over time.Engagement, here, shifts from opinion to awareness— and from distance to participation.In this way, the building does not simply return to use. It shifts purpose from residence, to witness, to place of ongoing attention.In Closing: when we avoid looking closely, we do not preserve value.We extend decline quietly, through decisions that make sense in the moment but accumulate without continuity.By the time action feels necessary, it also feels too late. And what remains is not just a building in question, but a record of how easily care can be deferred— until it is no longer possible to recover what was once maintained.

21 June 2026

In MemoryToday I find myself remembering two people whose lives continue to shape how I understand care, stewardship, and what we pass forward.My father taught me the value of attention, responsibility, and showing up faithfully for the work at hand.In Memory of Appa
[see: https://lvrassociates.carrd.co]We also remembering Harini, whose life reflected a different but equally important wisdom: that care begins with knowing.She approached people, plants, and places with curiosity, patience, and respect for what could be learned through observation and relationship.As I revisited earlier notes this morning, I found myself returning to a reflection written several months ago. Reading it again, it remains the closest expression of what I remember. The note is below

18 March 2026

Field Note 002 — Botanical Diagnosis (Malabar / Memory / Practice)

I remember that she did not begin with treatment. She began with knowledge.She spent time understanding—the plant, the person, the conditions. This was not just patience, but a form of attention. Her learning did not come from isolated information, but from an ancestral wisdom: of the plant, the place it grew, and the traditions that held it.What struck me, even then, was that action did not come quickly. It came after a quiet, much slowed process of knowing. And that knowing was not abstract—it was relational and experiential, built over time and carried forward through generations and practice.She did not turn this knowledge into a commodity. She passed it forward.
What she modelled was not expertise as authority, but cultural stewardship as responsibilityI am beginning to recognise this as a form of what I have now termed “diagnosis”.I also begin to see the absence of this kind of knowing in many contemporary systems of education and practice. Knowledge is often separated from the conditions that give rise to it.We maintain categories, but not relationships. We handle materials, but do not know their origins. Even in something as ordinary as the ingredients in a dish, we may recognise taste or flavour, yet remain unfamiliar with the plant itself—where it grows, what its leaves look like, how it flowers, or the conditions it requires to thrive. More importantly, we remain distant from the lived body of knowledge that has understood and long practiced how best to cultivate and use it.This disconnection not only limits knowledge, but also inspires us to shape how we respond.Diagnosis, in this tradition, is a form of relational knowing—born of time, interaction, and observation.In housing practice, this means observing lived conditions over time, identifying patterns and gaps before attempting intervention.The overlooked often carry the knowledge that allows a future to take root.

4 March 2026

Field Note 001 — Worker-Recovered Enterprises (Talk by Andrés Ruggeri)

Atelier d’innovation sociale Mauril-Bélanger, Université Saint-Paul
Speaker: Andrés Ruggeri, Universidad de Buenos AiresI attended a lunchtime talk on Argentine worker-recovered enterprises, framed around the themes “Occuper, résister, produire.” Although the lecture itself was delivered primarily in Spanish and I was unable to follow all of the details without translation headphones, the dynamics of the discussion and the student questions were revealing.What stood out most was a question raised by a student about the practical functioning of such collectives and whether the narratives surrounding them risk becoming somewhat detached from the lived realities of workers. Another question touched on the issue of who is speaking for whom in discussions about worker movements, raising the possibility that academic or activist frameworks can sometimes obscure the operational and economic challenges faced by those directly involved.Even without fully understanding the lecture content, this exchange highlighted an important tension in conversations about collective enterprises: the gap between ideological narratives of resistance and the practical realities of governance, production, and long-term sustainability.For my own work around cooperative housing, land stewardship, and collective governance models, this reinforced a central question: beyond moments of resistance or crisis, what institutional and governance conditions actually allow collective enterprises to function and endure over time?This observation forms part of an ongoing exploration of cooperative governance and institutional resilience.

31 January 2026

Learning Begins With Looking

The most reliable way I’ve learned anything meaningful has not been by starting with explanation, but with observation.Before method, before theory, before reproduction, there is the quieter work of learning how to look, to really see
When I slow down long enough to notice form, context, shape, proportion, rhythm, resistance—something begins to teach me without words. Not as instruction, but as truth, and through presence.Only after that comes experience: trying, testing, failing, inferring, adjusting, evaluating where understanding does not yet live in the body. Experience humbles what observation awakens.Reproduction, or response then, is not imitation. It is offering back what has been received—changed by contact, limited by honesty, shaped by care.I want to learn in the same posture in which I teach: attentive, unfinished, receptive to correction.When learning follows this order—observation, experience, offering—it remains nourishing. It does not extract. It does not rush. It carries life forward like a seed, not a claim.What grows is not mastery, but fidelity: to what has been seen, lived, and entrusted.

28 January 2026

Does Leadership Redistribute Care — or Extract from It?

Lately, I’ve been noticing how often leadership is framed as visibility:
the right words, the right platform, the right posture in the room.Yet the most consequential decisions I’ve witnessed rarely announce themselves.They show up as follow-through, quiet support, restraint, and a willingness to carry responsibility in places that actually matter—often without fanfare, without a megaphone, and without credit.Extraction, by contrast, looks efficient. It gathers energy, labour, approval, and attention, directing them upward while calling the result “impact.” The costs of this work—often invisible—are reframed as charitable effort or voluntary contribution, even when they sustain entire systems.Redistribution looks slower.
It asks different questions first:
Who is holding the cost?
Who is absorbing the risk?
Who is quietly maintaining what others benefit from?The difference is not intention, but posture*.One takes from care to fuel authority.
The other uses authority to extend care outward. I’m learning to assess leadership not by how much it commands, but by how carefully it redistributes what it has been given. Because in the end, a platform exists for greater reach of care—not to elevate the one who occupies it.

*Notes from the Margins — observing leadership, care, and accountability as lived practice. - Espace Créatif

• Read full essay

January 21, 2026

A small thing, moving quietly, shaped by air and time rather than force.