What you see is what you get (almost) at Morningstar's Pepin Brook homes.'We try to present the homes as you will buy them, and keep the options to a minimum,' the company's Deborah Calahan says. 'I want people to know what they're going to get. However, some upgrades are available.' Customers would be hard pressed to do better than the Morningstar all-granite kitchen island -- "a truly hot feature," Calahan says. The Pepin Brook homes from Morningstar are certified green homes. Features include low-E windows that moderate interior temperatures year-round; a power-vented hot-water heater that reduces standby heat loss; low-flush toilets that conserve water; and low-VOC paints and flooring.

Homes now selling in the third of four Plaza 88 residential towers, the Marinus highrise, in New Westminster

Vancouver's Olympic experience was a huge experiment on a number of fronts, not the least of which involved putting the city's urbanism under a microscope.

OTTAWA, TORONTO, CALGARY: New homes, and new or renewed forms of homes, are a year-round attachment of Canadian home-and-garden journalism. Generating newspaper attention recently was the growing appreciation for the townhouse in Ottawa, top; the showhome of a highrise-development in the Toronto suburb of Brampton, above left; and a showhome for a tract-housing development in north Calgary. You can learn a lot about your town when you read the out-of-town newspapers. Consider this, from the Ottawa Citizen townhouse story: "To a large extent, their proliferation comes from the maturing of Ottawa as an urban centre and the municipality's professed commitment to housing intensification to combat urban sprawl." Every life-long Ottawa resident who thinks a townhouse an exemplar of intense residency owes himself or herself a trip to Vancouver or, perhaps, a moment's reflection on those television skyshots broadcast between Winter Games coverage.