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Strawberry Box Houses
Strawberry box houses

This style has also been called the "Simplified Cape Cod", or "Victory Houses" in the case of certain Government Advertisements.

The type known as the Strawberry Box House was largely used in Canadian communities for quick mass constructed housing complexes. Examples exist in the area of Queensway park, Toronto. In this example of a suburban neighborhood there are roughly 200 homes built on winding streets, all originally in the small Strawberry Box style. They were built to be small homes for workers surrounding a park using the simple plans the government had released in 1945 as part of the Wartime Housing Corporation. This is just a small example of a situation that repeated around other major Canadian cities during the period following WWII.

Due to the large demand for new housing to accommodate workers and later veterans the houses were designed to be sturdy but economic. Much of the small building was prefabricated and then shipped to the sites to be constructed. This resulted in very homogenous and uniform developments that sprung up in almost every major city in Canada during the war and post war periods. The houses were often one and a half stories tall with gabled roofs and clapboard siding. The streets of these instant neighborhoods were often given names that recalled their place in the time following the war, such as Victory or Churchill.

Veterans' Land Act

A reason this small house type was so abundant was because the Veterans' Land Act of 1942, which was initiated by the Canadian Government to provide housing for returning veterans and their families. The act was designed to avoid the disaster of an earlier act in 1919, the Soldier Settlement Act, which failed to meet the needs of returning soldiers, this act put into place measures to build or finance housing for those returning from war. The main objective was to get people working, specifically by getting them land to farm in order to provide for themselves. In this way the houses ended up being very small to allow for a large portion of the property to remain open for potential farming.

Campeau Construction

Another proliferator of the one and a half story simple design was a certain construction company in the Ottawa area. Campeau Construction was one of the largest building firms in Ottawa in the two decades following WWII, responsible for building several neighborhood such as Alta Vista, Applewood Acres, Elmvale Acres, Queensway Terrace, and Bel-Air Heights. The dominating style of these communities were the one to one and a half story homes which marked the Strawberry Box or Simplified Cape Cod style. At the time the style had actually become very popular, and very few two story homes were constructed. These designs were taken almost directly from the books released by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (now called Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation), which were published from 1940 to 1970 and detailed such designs that could be appropriate for the Canadian landscape. The areas where the houses were constructed had small but wider lots than historically narrower properties. In this way constructing the small one and a half story Strawberry Box gave the illusion of having a sprawling property with a ranch house.

Article Evaluation
Evaluating "Giza Pyramid Complex" Article []

- The second paragraph seems a little awkward grammatically. I.E. the article says "The pyramids, which have historically been common as emblems of ancient Egypt in the Western imagination, were popularized..." This makes it seem as if the pyramids, themselves, were popularized, when I believe the intent was to say the pyramids as emblems were popularised.

- In the last sentence of the second paragraph it states "It is by far the oldest of the ancient Wonders and the only one still in existence". This is a vague statement that does not seem to correspond directly to any supporting data (no citation). It seems like it could be articulated better.

- Further down in the 'Construction' section it goes into moderate detail about the assemblage of the pyramids themselves. There is no mention however to the surround structures which include some routes and temple like structures that were likely once equally as impressive as the pyramids themselves.

- In the 'Purpose' section it sounds like the author is attempting to avoid error by skirting around the subject with the statement "The pyramids of Giza are thought to have been constructed to house the remains of deceased pharaohs". From what I understand though there is actual proof to suggest that these were mortuary complexes. Even if a actual body was not found in the temple, I thought it was widely excepted that they were meant as tombs. In contrary to the ambivalence of the first sentence it then goes on to talk more about Egyptian practices of viewing their deceased. It seems like there is either too much data, or not enough data depending on wether further information about Egyptian finery practices is necessary.

- The 'Astronomy' section seems to be poorly conceived. At the very least I think it should be called "Positioning" or "Orientation", rather than "Astronomy". In this way the accuracy in lining up with the cardinal compass directions can be mentioned without going to far into speculation. It can also make space to mention the possibly intended relation to the Orion constellation while maintaining slightly more cohesion and relevance to the article as a whole.

- In the "Tombs of the Pyramid builds" section there is an exact repetition of the information that says "10,00 laborers working in three-moth shirts took around 30 years to build a pyramid" from the first paragraph of the earlier section "Workers' village".

- The section "New Kingdom and Late Period" is a good addition suggesting that Giza was continued to be used after the finishing of construction. I think that this would be a good place to add even more information as to the importance of funerary rituals that most likely took place at Giza. It is my understanding that large finery complexes such as the pyramid sites were places (Necropolis) where people would return yearly to pay homage to the dead, hence such an importance placed on building such monumental tombs.