Community Engagement

Running on Hamilton’s Waterfront Trail has been a great stress reliever over the years. In the above photo, I am preparing to run a 400 m interval with my running buddy, Dr. Will Coleman of Political Science (Will is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at both McMaster University and the University of Waterloo).

CityLAB

My early professional goals were to be a County Engineer, or a Director of Public Works for an intermediate-sized city. But instead I went down the university professor path, and have no regrets. But now, at this stage of my career, the opportunity arose to work with a broad spectrum of students on projects of direct interest to the City of Hamilton. CityLAB's Semester in Residence program allows me the opportunity and privilege to explore design-related concepts with amazingly motivated students and City staff, and to get back to my municipal engineering roots.

2020 CityLAB Reports

Dundas EcoPark

For 30 years, my family has been involved with the Dundas Chapter of the Conservers Society of Hamilton and District in the preservation of the Pleasant View lands in Dundas, which are the open space connectors between Cootes Paradise and the Niagara Escarpment. This has evolved to be known as the Dundas EcoPark, which is a significant component of the broader Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark System. The work is ongoing, but with the vision and support of the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Hamilton Conservation Authority, the City of Hamilton, Conservation Halton, Hamilton Naturalists Club and countless locally-based individuals, this has become a legacy project with very positive benefits for downstream generations.

Lyrics by Deborah Smaluck, Music and Vocals by Rory Lavelle, with permission of Peter Smaluck

Miscellaneous Media Articles Relating to Local Issues

Over the last ten years, many books have been written about labyrinths and they have been constructed in churchyards, private backyards, public parks and on the grounds of businesses and a range of institutions for the purposes of walking meditation. What has been lacking up to this point is a systematic method for planning and laying out a labyrinth for a specific area under consideration.

To address this need, Nick Giles, a mathematics student at the University of Waterloo, and Brian Baetz, Director of the Engineering and Society programme at McMaster University, have developed a series of computerized files for labyrinth construction. These are available as free downloads at the links listed below. For each of these labyrinth configurations, an associated Excel spreadsheet file has been developed, into which the user specifies the available area dimensions for the labyrinth. The labyrinth details are then calculated by the spreadsheet, including the layout particulars and the amount of the building or natural materials required for the labyrinth. The spreadsheet file is linked to an adjoining PowerPoint presentation file, which takes the user through a step-by-step graphical procedure for laying out and constructing the labyrinth for their specific situation. So consider constructing a labyrinth in your backyard, at work or in your community and use these computer-based tools to help you along the path.