World Town Planning Day – Toronto

With the premise “the best way to know your city is to walk it”, a ‘walkshop’ exploring Toronto was organized for the annual World Town Planning Day 2011, uniting young planners and urban thinkers alike.

The November 8^th event was hosted by members of the Canadian Association of Planning Students. A few dozen civic-minded people with varied backgrounds joined the guided walking tour that connected five significant local destinations where keynote speakers shared their insights on the city’s planning matters.

The tour teed-off at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) where Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, Manager of Diversity Management and Community Engagement at the City of Toronto, wowed the group with stories from her 40-year involvement in neighbourhood activities, for which she and others have championed an array of successful urban initiatives. Ramkhalawansingh described the planning undertaken for significant cultural buildings and how they were enriched as a result of community engaged processes, such as the AGO, which expanded its outreach programs; and OCAD University, whose ”building as a bridge” design addressed residents’ concerns of blocking views to the adjacent park and increased street access. Along the way, she pointed out various social housing projects that have been well integrated into the fabric of the built environment.

The second stop on the tour was Union Station, the central hub for all inter-city transit in Toronto. Armed with a steel railroad spike from back in the day, Glenn Miller, Vice President of Education and Research with the Canadian Urban Institute, enlightened the troops with the history of Union Station and its revolutionary role in the development of the city. An advocate for public transit and transit-oriented land use, Miller explained that the station’s multi-million dollar refurbishment in progress will increase its functionality, and stressed the need for more hubs of this scale in the city, in conjunction with, what else, good land use plans. (Fingers crossed!)

The tour continued onwards to St. Lawrence Market where Christopher Hume, notable architecture and urban critic for the Toronto Star, addressed the city’s ongoing waterfront revitalization project. Hume generally encourages planners to be more proactive, emphasizing that planning cannot be left to the private sector exclusively – it needs rules and clarity. “Planners should take back their profession from the lawyers”, said Hume. (Amen to that!) While discussions of the built landscape frequently centre on the predominance of high-rises, at least in this city, Hume stated that it’s the condition at street level that often makes for a great building project, and that “it’s not always about height.” Many can agree that the planning process of Toronto is flawed but the city is still growing at a massive rate – it’s one of the biggest condo booms in the world. “The future is not about houses anymore but about condos/apartments, social housing, tower renewal, co-ops, transit, suburbs and a focus on inner Toronto,” Hume remarked. He re-iterated the need for thoughtful city planning, emphasizing that is not an “abstract process” that the average person cannot understand or get involved with in a meaningful way. It requires a commitment and collaboration with members actively engaged in the community.

With 40 years of urban planning experience and the title of Toronto’s Chief City Planner (1996-2004), Paul Bedford has seen it all. The passionate advocate and public speaker continues to serve on various boards and advisory committees and is adjunct professor at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. Bedford’s advice for the young planners in the group: 1) make a difference; 2) give the best professional opinion you can; 3) connect with people and constantly work at that relationship using effective media. (Get them behind your planning vision!); 4) have good priorities and principles and stick to them; and, 5) take calculated risks and be prepared to push the envelope. “Be both in tune with and ahead of where folks are in your city,” noted Bedford.

Bedford praised nearby Berczy Park as “a bold move that took political will and courage.” Once an asphalt parking lot adjacent to the historic Gooderham ‘Flatiron’ Building, the site was converted to a beautiful park, an oasis in a busy downtown environment. For him, the creation of this public space is an example of the design theory ‘urban acupuncture’ as it, in turn, lead to a broader restoration of the area, adding value and infusing new energy.

The tour marched onwards, convening next at planning and urban design firm Urban Strategies’ downtown office where associates Andrew Goodyear and Shonda Wang presented the Alexandra Park project, the revitalization of an existing site and what will be “the first public housing community in Toronto’s history without government funds.”

Alexandra Park is a residential area with a strong sense of community but suffers from an aging building stock and a fractured layout. Goodyear talked of the planning process and described the site-wide redevelopment, whose master plan will provide better housing options, improve community amenities, and increase open space and pedestrian priority areas. The presentation was followed by a walking tour of the nearby site, giving the group a hands-on experience of some of the challenges it currently faces. This innovative model introduces market housing (and some retail) as well as zero displacement, the housing component of which will generate sufficient reserves to cover the cost of the revitalization, giving the project near economic self-sufficiency.

The last stop of the tour was 401 Richmond St. W, a historic 200,000sf building in downtown Toronto that is home to anything and everything under the creative umbrella. Once a factory, the building was purchased in 1994 with the purpose of revitalizing, restoring and creating an arts-focused centre. The interior, with its exposed brick and original post and beam construction, lends itself beautifully to spaces for a varied tenant directory: galleries, studios, day care, micro-enterprises, and Swipe – one of the last independent bookstores in Toronto, and focusing exclusively on design.

There are plenty of examples of resourcefulness and inventiveness in keeping with the spirit of the building, like glass-filled passageways and an expanding roof garden. “We’re interested in things that really fit well with what’s already here … nothing too fancy … to keep things simple,” says Erin MacKeen, Director of Community Development and Communications for Urbanspace Property Group who owns and operates the facility.

Most fittingly, the tour wrapped up in front of a portrait of the legendary Jane Jacobs, who called Toronto ‘home’. 401 Richmond contributes to the vibrant culture in this city by hosting countless events and exhibits, by encouraging idea sharing and dialogue, and by promoting urban revitalization. Positive transformations in the city need sustained public engagement and transparency, and each begs the question, “What Would Jane Jacobs Do?”

[A panel discussion entitled "Staying the Course – What Have Planners Learned About Implementation?" was held later that evening at the University of Toronto. This public event was organized by the Canadian Urban Institute in collaboration with Association of Ontario Land Economists. It was a full house.]

Five steps to Teeple Architects’ design process

(cross-posted from Azure magazine)

A look at the process behind five projects – including 60 Richmond Street East housing, Langara College Library and River of Death and Discovery Dinosaur Museum – by the Toronto firm.

When Stephen Teeple, the principal of Toronto firm Teeple Architects, delivered a talk at the University of Toronto architecture school last month, he gave the audience a behind-the-scenes look at his studio’s design strategy through several buildings either completed or under development. For each project, the outcome from the outset is unknown, and while each begins with a different starting point, the firm’s open process leads to multiple possibilities. “We’re interested in how you can make boring realities inspirational,” the architect said. “You take those actual facts, needs, necessities and come up with solutions.” Ironically titled “Enough is never enough,” his presentation was organized under the five major themes – intriguing banalities, dislodging, fear condition, warped productions and measured space shaping – that guide the firm’s work.

60 Richmond St E Housing Co-op in Toronto, Ontario

Exploring the theme of “intriguing banalities, where everyday things can be inspirational,” Teeple described his firm’s approach to environmentally conscious design – a main feature in each project’s main architectural idea that’s also expressed in the completed work’s spatial experience.

Completed in 2010, the 60 Richmond Street East housing co-op was created for hospitality workers that had to relocate from Regent Park during its redevelopment. The architects took the simple starting point, “If you grow and prepare food, how would that inform the design?” What resulted is an almost self-sustaining community through an almost self-sufficient architecture: a solid cubic mass fronting the street is eroded at various levels to create openings and terraces; these become both social spaces for the residents as well as gardens for herbs and veggies that are used in the ground-floor restaurant. The process comes full circle when the resto’s organic waste becomes compost for those growing beds.

River of Death and Discovery Dinosaur Museum, Wembley, Alberta 

Discussing the idea, “Dislodging – design as a form of research,” Teeple explained that it’s important to keep the obvious in mind but also to be open to other possible outcomes. One example where this theme came into play was in this museum, which honours the famous Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Bonebed, one of the five most significant dinosaur bonebeds in the world. The museum’s circulation route follows the discovery and excavation of the bonebed, the paleontological reconstruction of the dinosaurs, and culminates with the re-creation of the experience of this prehistoric time.

In developing the flow through various schemes, a dynamic entry sequence takes visitors back in time through spaces that expand and compress, past viewing galleries where they can observe scientists at work in laboratories. Set to open in December 2012, this educational resource and learning centre, whose form recalls that of the dinosaur, will thrill researchers, dinosaur enthusiasts and the general public alike – especially kids.

 

Langara College Library in Vancouver, British Columbia

According to Teeple, the “fear condition” – heightened by our awareness of diminishing natural resources – is fertile ground for architectural and artistic expression.

With a sustainable, highly energy-efficient design that informs its strong aesthetic identity, the Langara College Library (featured in Azure‘s June 2008 issue) makes the most of the site’s renewable resources. The environmental forces acting on the building, most notably variable wind conditions, generate its form; the inflected roof gathers wind and directs it into atria that ventilate the building entirely through this natural “stack effect.” These wind towers also serve as iconic elements in the student quadrangle and orienting devices that organize pedestrian circulation. By replacing typical HVAC systems with geothermal heating and cooling, and by incorporating rainwater harvesting and internal courtyards that pull in daylight, the firm achieved a beautiful building that functions as a green machine.

Montrose Cultural Centre at Grande Prairie, Alberta            

Conflict avoidance is not the answer. Discussing the idea of “warped productions,” Teeple says that since architecture is financed and produced through complex systems of management, it’s in the architect’s best interest to engage in these modes of production, rather than pretend they don’t exist.

Teeple Architects approached the Montrose Cultural Centre, which opened in 2009, from a standpoint of cost effectiveness – using simple strategies and common building materials – asking, “how do you make that condition beautiful?” The key design focus was to capture the beauty of the northern prairie light, known for its dramatically long shadows. This building houses a library, art gallery, café, meeting and event spaces that look to the expansive skies and surrounding iconic prairie landscape. Its curtain wall, clerestory windows and colourful low trusses let in natural light and modulate and channel it deep inside the building. Its multi-textured palette of standing-seam zinc cladding, pitted brick and textured glazing, creates different light and shadow conditions as time of day and seasons change.

Sisters of St. Joseph Convent in Peterborough, Ontario

The main idea behind this convent, a comfortable, environmentally responsible home for the Sisters’ aging members, was “measured space shaping: shaping human experience and enhancing life.”

Nestled into a woodlot site, the building reads as two long arms that flow over the terrain and open out with views of the small town of Peterborough, Ontario. Its sculptural form and gleaming white panels contrast with the surrounding greenery, a landscape that the architects were careful to thread through the spatial experience of the whole. While the residential suites pick up the rectilinear rhythm of the street and neighbouring agricultural grid, the building curves toward the communal gathering spaces, converging in the double-height chapel – a flexible and welcoming space that looks onto nature. Completed in 2009, the building expresses its members’ ecological values and incorporates sustainable strategies, including a structure of fly-ash concrete and recycled steel, occupancy sensors and dimmers, and ample apertures that maximize daylight.

Architectural photography by Shai Gil

How green is your garden?

Deborah Nagan’s installation at Canada Blooms, the country’s largest flower expo, challenges how we perceive our gardens and their impact on the environment.

The London-based landscape architect was invited by the Jardins de Métis/Redford Gardens, which presents her thought-provoking garden to the annual event’s 100,000 visitors.

Entitled “How green is the garden?”, it features five colourful sheds each displayed on its own parterre of materials, as minimal individual plots. This set-up is intended to make gardeners think of the environmental impact of their own garden. While we’re busy tending, primping and preening, our own sheds often contain pesticides, chemicals, broken tools, accumulated junk and unfinished projects. The exhibition provokes such questions as: Are gardens and our landscaping efforts as green as they seem? Is it time to stop exploiting our natural resources, or is it time to harvest and use them with more care?

The presentation is a variant of “Every Garden Needs a Shed and a Lawn!”, an ironic exploration of the idea of the traditional domestic garden that Nagan showed at the International Garden Festival in 2009. Her conceptual exhibit dissected the garden, revealing the very elements, such as pollination, seeds, and carbon, that can transform it from ordinary to perfect. The crowd favourite returns this summer to the festival, which was established by the Jardins de Métis/Redford Gardens in 2000 and continues to be North America’s leading contemporary garden exhibition. It’s also a unique forum for innovation and experimentation bringing together the visual arts, architecture, design, landscape and nature.

A partner at NaganJohnson in London, Nagan has worked at the extremes of scale, creating small gardens in England, Luxembourg and Canada, and large landscapes in Qatar, Barbados, Bahrain, Italy, the United Arab Emirates and the UK. While strong concepts are at the core of her designs, she is also a very practical gardener, growing fruit and vegetables from her front garden in central London.

The garden is sponsored by Le Groupe Germain and presented with the assistance of Landscape Ontario.

The Canada Blooms festival continues until March 20 at the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto. The International Garden Festival is held at Les Jardins de Métis / Redford Gardens in Grand- Métis, Québec from June 25 to October 2.

(Cross-posted from Azure, a Toronto-based magazine of architecture and design)

Vitra miniatures in Toronto

On exhibit:  Vitra’s scaled-down classics

A tour of miniature chairs from the Vitra Design Museum has landed in Toronto.

Situated on the 25th floor of a Toronto highrise, the exhibition space affords a sweeping view of the city skyline as well as an equally far-reaching view through design history. Hosted by the Goethe Institute and the German Consulate General in Toronto, “Dimensions of Design” features mini reproductions of 100 of the most classical seats from the late 1800s to about 1990. Each is individually presented on identical tapered white pedestals capped by glass covers that wind throughout the room in a chronological order. Accompanying the chairs on display are 40 different posters presenting the timeline of industrial chair production.

The Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, which has one of the most important collections of modern furniture design, has been manufacturing 1:6 scale versions of these iconic pieces since 1992. Each carefully crafted reproduction is true to the original, replicating it in workmanship, detail and material; the miniatures have even become sought-after collectors’ articles in their own right.

Beginning with easily mass-produced curved wooden furniture like Michael Thonet’s bentwood bistro chair No. 14, the retrospective includes work by Gerrit Rietveld, Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, and Jean Prouvé. All the usual suspects are here, like Hans J. Wegner’ 3-benet Skalstol and Verner Panton’s eponymous chair; as well as rarer models, like Joe Colombo’s stackable Universale and Gaetano Pesce’s Pop Art inspired Donna.

The exhibition is on display at the German Consulate General in Toronto, 2 Bloor Street East until March 9.

(This is a copy of a post I wrote for Azure magazine’s blog)

Luigi Ferrara for Dekla

The Toronto International Design Festival wrapped up this past weekend. I attended numerous events (read: parties) as well as the country’s largest contemporary design fair. Here is a copy of a post-show write-up that I did for Azure magazine’s blog:

Canadian architect Luigi Ferrara has created an art installation entitled The Open Lattice for Dekla, the exclusive Toronto dealer for Scavolini kitchens.

Unveiled during the Interior Design Show, the partition was inspired by the IDS gala theme, “All You Need is Love.” It’s built of acrylic elements using the open lattice system. On one side, its 25 panel cabinets feature universal icons of love, while on the other, quotations and graphics in evolving combinations of crosses and squares conjure a meditation on love, belief and time, with a sweep through religion.

Ferrara is the Director of the Centre for Arts and Design and the Institute without Boundaries at George Brown College in Toronto. (IwB featured Imaginando Lota at IDS 2011, a project that invites students to imagine, rethink and propose solutions for the revitalization of the Chilean city of Lota, devastated by a lost mining industry and last year’s earthquake.)

His open lattice structure is based on his theory of scalable interactive modular simulations, or SIMS. This he sees as the future of design. He believes that by giving people the tools to develop furniture to suit their specific needs, they participate in the design process, rather than merely selecting ready-made products and systems. He has created software that is intuitive, with built-in construction parameters; by manipulating it, the end-user customizes and personalizes the design, or ‘co-creates.’ There is an inherent flexibility in the systems – pieces are reusable and can be adapted and rearranged as needs change.

The installation has since moved on to the Dekla showroom where it will be on display with samples of SIMS furniture from Ferrara’s Benchmark series launched last year. Interactive animations will allow visitors to experience design through the SIMS process.

The exhibition at the Dekla showroom, located at 1220 Yonge Street in Toronto, will run until early spring.