Urban Planning

School of Cities releases plan to boost mixed-use development in Toronto

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 18:20:51 +0000

School of Cities releases plan to boost mixed-use development in Toronto

geoff.vendeville Thu, 04/21/2022 - 14:20

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A plan by U of T's School of Cities calls for more mixed-use development in Toronto, blending residential, commercial and other uses, to support the creation of affordable housing (images and photo courtesy of Infrastructure Institute, School of Cities)

Peter Boisseau

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

School of Cities

City Building

Faculty of Arts & Science

Urban Planning

Family shelters below upscale condos, student housing above a rec centre and affordable housing built on top of community spaces offering social services.

Matti Siemiatycki

These are a few local examples of mixed-use development, a kind of urban planning not often found in Toronto that blends residential, commercial and other uses. Amid pandemic-related economic pressures and skyrocketing real estate prices, there is an even greater need for such development, says Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute in the University of Toronto's School of Cities.

“There's something like 50 of these buildings in Toronto, but each one of them has a long and often painful story behind it, where essentially the partners got to the end of what they could do on their own,” says Siemiatycki, who is also a professor in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

With the help of a donor, the School of Cities recently rolled out a three-pronged, city-building plan emphasizing mixed-use development. The plan includes a social purpose real estate accelerator to spur development that benefits the community, Siemiatycki says.

“We want to morph this into the norm rather than the exception and bring partners together intentionally, to turn it into a model of creative mixed-uses designed for a social purpose, because that’s what enables growth to drive community benefit.”

The infrastructure institute is partnering with the city’s real estate agency on public property development projects, such as fire and paramedic stations with affordable housing built above them, Siemiatycki adds.

A public exhibit of artists' concepts and architectural models opened this week in Regent Park, in the city's downtown, as part of the institute’s plan to spark interest in the exciting possibilities for Toronto and other urban centres, he says.

North Toronto Collegiate Institute, a high school co-located with condos.

“The idea behind the whole project is to leverage development to ensure social purpose is being built into our communities by integrating a mix of social uses into government and for-profit buildings.”

The institute’s research shows this type of development is already happening, but largely as a last resort. Examples cited in the research include the co-location of schools, libraries, recreation centres and childcare into community hubs.

Siemiatycki hopes the social purpose mixed-use model might even form a significant part of the city’s HousingTO Action Plan to approve 40,000 new affordable rental homes by 2030.

“I'm always reluctant to make claims that sound like you're grasping at the stars. But I also think you have to set the bar high,” he says.

“This is essentially about re-envisioning how we build a city. A school doesn't have to be a two-storey building with nothing above it; a recreation centre doesn't need to just be three stories with a gym and a parking lot.”

The Red Door family shelter co-located with condos.

The institute’s work on social purpose real estate is part of the School of Cities’ mission to be an incubator for innovative solutions that make cities more inclusive and prosperous, says Karen Chapple, the school’s director and a professor of geography and planning.

“As it leverages its real estate to serve broader social needs, Toronto is pioneering a powerful new model for infill development for other global cities to follow,” she says.

The institute launched a series of free training models in March for anyone interested in learning about social purpose real estate. Later this spring, it will begin admitting organizations into an accelerator program that focuses on how to undertake a social purpose real estate project. The program, which formally launches in September, will help participants develop a final business plan that will attract private, philanthropic or government funding.

“Many nonprofits have legacy properties they've been running for decades,” Siemiatycki says. “In many cases, the mortgage is paid off but the property is deteriorating for lack of money.

“There’s real opportunities through social purpose real estate for many of those organizations to leverage their assets to further the mission of their organizations and create affordable places for people to live.”

Artist’s concept of mixed-use development, housing and fire station.

The School of Cities was able to develop its ambitious city-building plan thanks to a $1.5 million gift from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The gift also helped support another project that may help the city derive social benefits from its extensive real estate holdings.

Siemiatycki says the city’s CreateTO real estate agency is keen to explore opportunities to mix existing fire and paramedic stations with affordable housing, social services and commercial uses, working with the School of Cities team to develop a proof of concept.

“We're already working on the design of a fire station that would have housing above it,” says Siemiatycki, who notes the city has more than 120 fire and paramedic stations.

“It's pretty incredible when you think of how many fire stations and paramedic hubs there are around the city. They're often one or two-storey buildings, and many of them are on arterial roads, so they're in great locations for development potential,” he says.

Measuring success in a suburban oasis: U of T students team up with neighbourhood groups to address urban challenges

Romi Levine — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 13:56:31 +0000

Measuring success in a suburban oasis: U of T students team up with neighbourhood groups to address urban challenges

Romi Levine Thu, 08/01/2019 - 09:56

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WexPOPS is a pop-up installation in a Scarborough strip mall that is designed to encourage visitors to get to know the community and local businesses (photo by Kat Rizza Photography)

Topic

Experiential Education

Graduate Students

Rotman School of Management

Urban Planning

If you happen to be near Warden and Lawrence Avenues in Scarborough this summer, you’ll likely notice an unusual sight at one the many strip malls that populate the area.

Wexford Heights Plaza is a one-storey stretch of local businesses – including a barber, a Syrian pastry shop and a 61-year-old family restaurant – bordered entirely by a parking lot. But from July 5 to Aug. 18, a portion of the lot has been transformed into a makeshift suburban oasis, complete with comfortable seating, interactive art and hundreds of potted plants.

The installation is called WexPOPS – a temporary, collaborative project that aims to create a place where community members can gather, meet each other and support local businesses.

WexPOPS serves as a pilot project that, if successful, can be replicated in different ways in other business improvement areas (BIAs) in Toronto and elsewhere.

But to prove the project is worthy of future funding means having the data to back up its success. It requires a toolbox of strategies that will help organizers measure the impact of the project on the local community and businesses. That task was given to a group of University of Toronto students.

The U of T students were part of the Rotman CityLab Fellowship, a year-long elective course that pairs MBA students from the Rotman School of Management with urban planning and industrial relations master’s students. Together, they team up with BIAs and community groups, using their expertise to help address issues faced by neighbourhoods across the GTA.

“I was really excited about working with different people from different parts of the university and the tangibility of the project seemed really cool,” says Fifile Nguyen, who graduated this spring from the Rotman MBA program.

“I was also compelled because my parents, for several decades, were small business owners so I was really excited to be able to do something related to the work I had watched them do as I grew up.”

The WexPOPS installation was created by a group out of the University of Guelph called plazaPOPS, led by Daniel Rotsztain, a recent graduate of Guelph’s master of landscape architecture program, and his faculty advisers Brendan Stewart and Karen Landman. The project originated from Rotsztain’s thesis, which was realized when the team secured funding through a number of community grant programs to create its first pop-up installation in Wexford Heights Plaza.

PlazaPOPS was also inspired by the work of Rafael Gomez, a U of T associate professor and director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, and his work on small businesses and BIAs, which he wrote about in his book Small Business and the City. Gomez is also the co-founder of the CityLab course.

“When we reached out, Rafael was very generous with his time and knowledge, and suggested and facilitated the connection with CityLab,” Stewart says.

Fifile Nguyen attaches a message to a tree sculpture at WexPOPs (photo courtesy of Fifile Nguyen)

Gomez developed the CityLab course alongside Neel Joshi, director of Rotman’s office of student engagement.

Joshi and Gomez met by chance over a decade ago in Wexford Heights Plaza where Gomez was hosting a pop-up of his own – occupying a storefront where he ran exhibits that celebrated the history and culture of the Scarborough neighbourhood.

The duo reconnected a few years later when they both coincidentally ended up working at Rotman, and decided to identify an experiential learning opportunity that could benefit both students and BIAs.

“The nature of urban problems is complex and multidisciplinary and at a local level, to assemble that kind of diversity of talent would be really expensive if these organizations were trying to do it on their own,” says Gomez. “We can come in with solutions to a challenging problem that requires all of our insights and training and academic knowledge.”

Since its inception, CityLab has placed students in BIAs across the city, working on projects that included navigating the tensions between long-standing and new businesses in a gentrifying neighbourhood, assisting with entrepreneurship programs in Scadding Court, and working with the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas to explore how big infrastructure projects are affecting small businesses.

For the plazaPOPS partnership, the U of T students provided the team with options for evaluating the strip-mall installation – including how WexPOPS affects the availability of parking, its economic impact on local businesses and the level of community engagement, says Stewart.

“They helped us work through the most efficient research data collection strategies that we can utilize in order to measure the performance of the installation,” he says.

“We’re implementing their recommendations, pretty much as we speak.”

CityLab students (from left) Igor Samardzic, Fifile Nguyen and Michael Guberman worked on the WexPOPS project along with planning student Lucy Cui (photo by Romi Levine)

Building the right metrics involved a great deal of research and community consultation. Students read up on evaluation methods used by other City of Toronto pilot projects and tapped into their combined academic knowledge of design thinking and urban planning. The students also interviewed local businesses and community members to gain insight into what they felt would make WexPOPS a success.

“[Business owners] were telling us that they were really excited about being the catalyst for people to meet each other,” says Nguyen. The students also discovered that community members felt it was important to raise the profile of the neighbourhood, telling them, “the only time our neighbourhood is ever in the news is when something bad happens … but really there is so much more vibrancy to our neighbourhood than that.”

Similarly, U of T students were keen to turn the spotlight on Scarborough – an area of Toronto that’s often overlooked when it comes to inventive design and planning.

“When it comes to certain planning elements, suburbs are not looked at the same way as the downtown core, especially with regards to investment and doing things that are more innovative,” says Igor Samardzic, who graduated with a master’s in urban planning from the Faculty of Arts & Science.

In neighbourhoods that are less dense than downtown Toronto, strip malls play a much more important role in fostering a sense of community, says Michael Guberman, a CityLab student and recent MBA graduate.

“What they are lacking is the warmth and gathering spaces that you would see in more of an urban landscape,” Guberman says.

Projects like WexPOPS can help those suburban spaces become more of a community hub, he says. “Using what they have already, building on it and getting the community buy-in is important to see that this type of infrastructure is not forgotten and not thought of as a waste of space.”

Stewart says plazaPOPS is currently in talks with a number of potential partners as they determine how the project will evolve beyond the Wexford pilot. Regardless of the outcome, the data collected from WexPOPS with the metrics designed by U of T students will play an important role in defining its future.

“The data and the feedback on how it’s received is really critical to being able to scale this up,” says Stewart.

This September, the CityLab fellowship will enter its fourth year, offering a new cohort of students the opportunity to make their mark on community projects across the city.

How to build the perfect city? Urban planner to launch new book at U of T's School of Cities

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 07 May 2019 15:05:21 +0000

How to build the perfect city? Urban planner to launch new book at U of T's School of Cities

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/07/2019 - 11:05

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Joe Berridge, an adjunct professor in the department of geography and planning and a partner at urban design consultancy Urban Strategies, says it's time for Toronto to come to grips with its big-city status (photo courtesy of Urban Strategies)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

The Ontario government expects to complete its proposed Toronto subway relief line – dubbed the “Ontario line” – by 2027. That will be a full 25 years since the city’s last new line, Line 4, began carrying passengers underneath Sheppard Avenue East.

For comparison, Joe Berridge, an adjunct professor in U of T’s department of geography and planning and a partner at urban design consultancy Urban Strategies, points to the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai.

“The Shanghai metro system, with its 12 lines, is now the most extensive in the world, yet its first line opened only in 1993,” Berridge wrote in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed based on his new book titled Perfect City: An Urban Fixer's Global Search for Magic in the Modern Metropolis.

“Four new lines are under construction and five existing lines are being extended.”

Read Joe Berridge’s op-ed about Shanghai in the Globe and Mail

Berridge, a U of T alumnus who has been a master planner for city-building projects around the world, including Manchester City Airport and the London Docklands, will be at U of T's School of Cities Wednesday to launch Perfect City at an event held in partnership with Urban Strategies and the Urban Land Institute. He will be joined by Gail Dexter Lord, president and co-founder, Lord Cultural Resources, Josh Mitchell, U of T’s new director of real estate and Bill Nankivell, the CEO of B+H Architects. The discussion, about the spirit of a perfect city, will be moderated by Shauna Brail, an associate professor, teaching stream, of urban studies and the School of Cities’ associate director of partnerships and outreach.

Berridge says Shanghai has been able to plan and build unlike any other city in China, or elsewhere in the world, in less than three decades. It is slowly halting growth of its suburban areas by developing within its city boundaries, providing better careers and quality of life for residents. However, housing prices in Shanghai are also on the rise – not unlike Toronto.

“I am convinced that Shanghai is destined for global supremacy,” Berridge writes in the Globe. “Three connected reasons: its muscular city-building strategy, its colossal scale and the entrepreneurial energy of its citizens.”

U of T’s Nina Haikara recently caught up with Berridge talk about what makes a perfect city:

What inspired you to write Perfect City?

I’ve always been fascinated by cities and have had the good fortune to work in a great number of them. Working is different from just visiting – you get to meet the people in city government, the private sector, architecture, and in culture and sports, who are trying to manage, improve and re-design the place. So, you get right inside, which makes you question, “How do these places work? What makes them simultaneously very different but essentially the same? How do you make the perfect city?” That was the question. Not expecting a singular answer, but trying to learn from what works and what doesn’t in each of the cities.

You mention the importance of the “creative class” – a term coined by U of T’s Richard Florida in his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class – as being an important factor, perhaps one that needs to be nurtured. Why does this concept resonate in the cities that you’ve worked in, including Singapore, London and New York?

There is no doubt that I have been very influenced by the work of Richard Florida, who I think has the best understanding of – and a continuing fascination with – the forces behind the contemporary big city. He’s had three very influential ideas. First, the notion of the creative class: that the success of modern cities is driven by people who work with ideas rather than things and that those people require a particular kind of city – one that is inclusive, open, flexible and creative.

The second core notion of Florida’s work is the idea of ‘spikiness’ – that fewer and fewer cities are getting more and more significant. You can see this in the financial services industry, or in the media, tech and artificial intelligence sectors. What you see in Singapore, London and New York, as I discuss in the book, are cities that are at the top of the spike. Great for them, not so great for the left-behind city. And increasingly, that spikiness is producing the problem that Florida’s third great contribution identifies: the “winner takes all” city. Spikiness seems to be exaggerating the income inequality differences not only between cities, but within them.

What are some of the most important attributes that contribute to a perfect city and why do they matter?

I try and identify the key drivers behind the success of the big cities I cover, and how each of them responds to the very similar challenges they face. Cities at the top of the spike share a number of common features – that are both cause and effect of their success. All of them have very successful financial services industries, which seem to be one of the core economic drivers. They have highly connected airports that link the city to the rest of the world. They have universities that are top-ranked and, at the same time, have entities like MaRS in Toronto, One North in Singapore or Here East in London that convert intellectual capital into economic energy. They all have very vigorous cultural sectors – and they all have really good food.

The book celebrates large-scale planning initiatives such as Roosevelt Island and the London Docklands, and juxtaposes Robert Moses’ grandiose visions with Jane Jacobs’ community-focused streetscapes. Do cities need elements of both to be successful?

The debate between Robert Moses’ and Jane Jacobs’ views of the city is a convenient way to caricature a “top-down, get it done” view of city-building from a “bottom-up, people know best” view. It’s such an epic struggle that there have been several recent exhibitions, plays and even an opera on the contest between these two larger-than-life figures. There is no doubt that, in reaction to the excesses of ‘50s and ‘60s expressway building and urban renewal, the pendulum has swung very much towards more local, street- and neighborhood-based planning. Which is as it should be.

The problem is that the big challenges for the modern city – the development of mass transit, the provision of affordable housing, the reduction of energy consumption, the renewal of the city fabric and infrastructure – to say nothing of the provision of airports, universities, tech complexes, hospitals and so on – cannot be effectively dealt with at the local level. How to successfully do these big projects while respecting the qualities of the small things that make city living a delight is the big challenge for the modern city. That’s why what’s happening in Singapore and Shanghai and other Asian cities is so fascinating. We may have a lot to learn.

Perfect City cites Toronto as one of the fastest growing urban regions in the world. What does the city need to plan for in order to handle this growth?

I characterize Toronto as “the accidental metropolis” because somehow it has joined the ranks of the top dozen world cities without any such intention that I can discover. We are the fastest growing city in the developed world – passing Chicago and Los Angeles to become the second largest city in the U.S. and Canada by mid-century. This is quite extraordinary growth for which it’s hard to find a precedent. We have also, in the process created here, a unique society – over half our citizens were not born in Canada. There’s no city in the world like it, and it is a largely peaceful, equitable and prosperous place in comparison.

But we are running at the limits of accidental good fortune, lacking the ability to plan, fund and manage the needed transit system, with airports and other infrastructure nearing capacity, with a growing crisis of housing affordability and seemingly without the energy or ambition to undertake the big city-changing initiatives undertaken by our competitors. While there are a lot of good lessons to be learned from the cities I visit in the book, I think probably the key is for Toronto to relax and finally acknowledge that it is no longer a small town.

The book is in many ways a testament to a fascinating career. What drives your passion for cities and how have your perspectives on the role of urban planning by urban planners changed and developed over the years?

Being an urban planner is one of the most fascinating of jobs. I have been incredibly lucky to work in cities all over the world and be entranced by their variety. And it’s not just the cities themselves, but the people you get to meet and work with. What other profession enables you to meet with mayors and senior politicians, businessmen and cultural impresarios, architects and engineers – and then go to a church basement and meet the people – the residents and communities who live in the place, and who have no compunction in letting you know what they really feel? No other profession has that kind of range.

And there is also the realization that the future of the world will be decided in cities. Where are we all going to live together harmoniously? Where will we ensure the benefits of economic development are equitably shared? Where will we engender a radical reduction in fossil fuel use and ensure the delight and poetry of 21^st century life is treasured and enriched? There’s lots for city planners to do.

U of T’s new Trudeau Foundation scholars explore Beirut refugee neighbourhoods and sovereign debt investors

Romi Levine — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 17:16:27 +0000

U of T’s new Trudeau Foundation scholars explore Beirut refugee neighbourhoods and sovereign debt investors

Romi Levine Thu, 06/21/2018 - 13:16

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PhD students Diala Lteif and Andrew Kaufman are the recipients of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation doctoral scholarship (photos by Sylvain Légaré/PETF)

Topic

Every minute, 20 people flee their countries to escape terror and persecution, the United Nations says – with 68 million people displaced around the world.

And Lebanon, like the U.S., Europe and other Middle Eastern countries, has a long and complicated history of hosting groups of asylum seekers.

Diala Lteif, a PhD student in urban planning at the University of Toronto, is hoping her research into that history will provide a better understanding of how refugees can shape cities like Beirut, and how migrant groups contribute to the places where they end up.

“The myth that I try to debunk is the portrayal of the immigrants – more specifically the refugee – that is here to steal your job and use the resources of a specific country and not give back,” she says. “The idea is to prove that they are active and positive participants towards the urbanization of a city that is fuller and more inclusive and accepting of everyone.”

Lteif and human geography PhD student Andrew Kaufman are two of 15 social sciences and humanities doctoral students from across Canada who have been given this year’s prestigious Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation doctoral scholarship.

The students were selected from a group of 273 applicants and chosen for their academic excellence and civic engagement. Since 2003, there have been 30 U of T PhD candidates who have received the scholarship.

Foundation scholars are each given $60,000 – opening up new research avenues and giving them more time to complete their PhDs.

“When this money came in, it let me think about how to extend my fieldwork to new areas,” says Kaufman, whose research focuses on the investors who purchase sovereign debt from countries that are struggling financially.

“My interest in urban marginalization made me curious about how larger socio-economic processes change cities,” he says.

Kaufman wants to find out how capital moves around the world through the buying and selling of debt while also exploring different perspectives on investing in sovereign debt. Those in favour of it say it is providing countries with the credit they need while critics say it can prevent countries from recovering from crises.

“I'm really interested in talking with people and understanding the financial networks and how this operates and understanding the different framings of these people’s work,” he says.

Beyond his research, Kaufman is looking forward to the mentoring and networking opportunities built into the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation scholarship.

“It's good to be placed within a space in which you encounter people from other areas, which challenges how you frame your work, how you understand your work and what other ideas you put your work in dialogue with,” he says.

For Lteif, the scholarship has allowed her to spend a year in Lebanon, sorting through archives and conducting interviews with first-, second- and third-generation refugees.

Her work focuses on four waves of refugee immigration: Armenians, who came to Lebanon after the First World War; Palestinians, then Lebanese nationals displaced during the civil war, which began in the 1970s; and the Syrian refugees who are still making their way into the country. Many of those refugees ended up settling in one specific neighbourhood in Beirut.

Lteif has personal connections to her research. Growing up in Lebanon, her family was displaced during the civil war. Her father’s family settled near the neighbourhood she is studying.

“A large realization is that Lebanon, which has been a host to many communities, has not necessarily found effective strategies to welcome these people and help get them back on their feet, despite the long experience with many communities,” she says. “In terms of practical urban and planning policies, not much has been done.”

Lteif says she hopes her research can fill the practical and intellectual gaps.

“All these crises are first framed as a crisis and are studied in isolation, and so what I'm hoping to do is through a longer duration of study, uncover some more long-term effects and patterns we can learn from and refocus our literature,” she says.

Receiving a scholarship of this magnitude is a uniquely Canadian privilege, says Lteif.

“It made me really appreciate Canada's multicultural and inclusive politics that have really allowed me to find my place and be treated equally and be given the equal opportunity as my Canadian peers, friends and colleagues,” she says.

“I hope through the work that I do, I prove that being an immigrant, being given access to such a large opportunity, is actually beneficial for everyone. I hope in one way or another I become proof of the opposite narrative that we see everywhere.”

U of T faculty, students advocate for bike-friendly Transform Yonge revitalization plan

Romi Levine — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 04:00:00 +0000

U of T faculty, students advocate for bike-friendly Transform Yonge revitalization plan

Romi Levine Tue, 03/27/2018 - 00:00

Cutline

Mayor John Tory accepted a petition from urban planning master's students Anson Ma (left) and Stuart Dow on Monday (photo courtesy of the students)

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Martin Prosperity Institute

Rotman School of Management

Urban Planning

As condo towers continue to sprout up at every corner of the city, a group of University of Toronto students and faculty members are trying to ensure that, on a small stretch of Yonge Street, city infrastructure catches up with the upward growth.

Today, Toronto city council will vote on a proposal to reduce the six-lane stretch of Yonge Street between Finch and Sheppard Avenues by two lanes, adding bike lanes and widening the sidewalk, which advocates say will improve safety and walkability.

This stretch of Yonge has seen 78 collisions involving pedestrians and five involving cyclists in the past eight years, with eight collisions involving fatalities or serious injuries, according to a study by Toronto Transportation Services.

Mayor John Tory, however, is not in support of the plan. He wants to keep the six lanes and add a bike lane on an adjacent street.

In response to Tory’s alternate proposal, a group of prominent city builders, including Jennifer Keesmaat, former chief city planner and U of T urban planning instructor, and Richard Florida, a University Professor and the director of cities at the Rotman School of Management's Martin Prosperity Institute, signed an open letter in support of the original “Transform Yonge” proposal.

“Reducing one lane of traffic in each direction allows for expanded sidewalks, greenery, and more space for patios and public life. Bike lanes are part of the package but aren’t the impetus,” the letter says.

“This is a rebuild of a street that will have implications for the next 50 years," says Keesmaat. "So we need to be looking to the future, imagining both the city that we want to create, and anticipating how we can accommodate more people, more vibrancy, and more urbanism.”

Yonge Street is in many ways Toronto’s main street, says Florida.

“It cuts clear through the city and then to the suburbs from south to north,” he says. “From the first day I arrived in Toronto more than a decade ago, I was amazed at how awful Yonge Street is. It is like a superhighway with cars speeding. It destroys the commercial character of the street and makes it very hard to operate as a main street.”

That’s why there’s a need for revitalization, says Florida, adding that there are many great commercial establishments and residential neighbourhoods along Yonge.

Planning master’s students in the Faculty of Arts & Science have also decided to advocate for the Transform Yonge proposal with a website dedicated to the proposal and two petitions: one aimed at the public and one aimed at urban-focused students.

U of T planning students Anson Ma, Cecelia Pye, Stuart Dow, Rebecca Nelson and Helen Loghrin created the Support Transform Yonge website and petitions(photo courtesy of the students)

The petitions have received over 350 signatures so far from faculty and students at U of T and other academic institutions across Ontario, as well as from residents of Toronto and surrounding communities, and even some signatures from Montreal, Vancouver and Switzerland, says Anson Ma.

Ma and five other students in Keesmaat’s planning course decided to come together to create the petition.

“It just made sense that we should be creating streets that are more livable, more accessible, safer, and friendlier for residents of our city,” says student Igor Samardzic.

It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redesign Yonge, says Cecelia Pye. “As planning students we're learning that it's really our responsibility to take care of the public's best interests. We have the resources and the knowledge to fight bad decisions by leadership if we don't feel like it's what's best for the future.”

“This is a decision about the future of our city,” says Keesmaat. “As a result, having students engaged in the dialogue, and advocating for a livable city, is essential. This is their city, their future. They ought to have a voice in shaping it.”

On Monday, some of the students behind the website and petitions hand-delivered the petitions to Mayor Tory at City Hall.

“He did take the petition and said he would read it and appreciated us coming,” says Pye.

U of T President Meric Gertler joins the Waterfront Toronto board

lanthierj — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 17:54:43 +0000

U of T President Meric Gertler joins the Waterfront Toronto board

lanthierj Fri, 01/20/2017 - 12:54

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Sugar Beach (photo by Still The Oldie via flickr)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Subheadline

“Our success as an institution rests very heavily on the quality of life in this region – and the waterfront is a huge part of that quality of life”

Toronto’s waterfront is experiencing a renaissance and University of Toronto President Meric Gertler wants the university to be a part of it.

He has been appointed by the Province to the board of Waterfront Toronto, a public agency created by the federal, provincial and municipal governments that aims to enhance community engagement, boost economic activity, and provide more public and inclusive spaces along Toronto’s waterfront.

“We know that a successful waterfront can become a huge asset for a city, helping to attract and retain talented people, helping to attract inward investment, both residential and commercial-industrial,” says President Gertler. “If we are able to get the waterfront right, Toronto will be that much more successful in achieving these goals.”

Fun in the city: U of T architect wants to bring a new game to Toronto public spaces

Romi Levine — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 19:31:42 +0000

Fun in the city: U of T architect wants to bring a new game to Toronto public spaces

Romi Levine Wed, 11/30/2016 - 14:31

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Knock a block is a cross between croquet and mini golf (photo illustration courtesy of Michael Piper)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Cities

Urban Planning

Architecture

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

International

Torontonians love to play – obsessing over escape rooms, ping pong bars and board game cafes, all of which are sprouting around the city.

Michael Piper, an architect and assistant professor at the University of Toronto's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, is tapping into the city’s fun-loving attitude to bring more people into Toronto’s most-underused open spaces with a game he's designed that's a cross between croquet and mini golf.

In some ways, it's a new form of public art – but one that is active and can be easily moved around the city.

Piper built the portable game called knock a block with his graduate architecture students. It’s fun to play and to assemble, he says.

“Setting it up is kind of a game in its own right. They’re kind of like giant Legos.”

Pieces of the knock a block game are attached using magnets (image courtesy of Michael Piper)

The game, which was created in partnership with New York City’s Department of Transportation, will show up first in New York City where it debuts this spring.

“We like the idea of an alternative form of public art – one that's engaging and playful rather than just something to look at,” says Piper.

Piper says it will find its way to New York’s provisional plazas – unused parts of streets transformed into public, recreational spaces – particularly those located in lower-income neighbourhoods.

“It provides another use for the plaza,” Piper says. “Now they serve a sedentary function, mostly adults hanging out, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee. The idea with the game is it adds another constituency to the mix – that being kids and families, mostly, to play these games.”

Piper hopes to bring it soon to Toronto. He wants to work with city builders – from the Faculty of Architecture to condo developers – to introduce the game here.

Piper poses with a component of the knock a block game. (photo by Romi Levine)

He says he’d like to see knock a block played on the U of T campuses to bring more activity to areas that don’t get a lot of use.

The game would also be a perfect fit for the city’s privately owned public spaces, says Piper.

“With all the new condo developments, you get these tiny little plazas, which have been criticized for being underutilized. Those are actually the ideal size for this sort of thing,” he says.

Architecture graduate students Michael DeGirolamo and Drew Hart enjoyed working on the project.

“It's a bit out of my comfort zone,” says DeGirolamo, who adds that he liked the challenge. “It was quite fun to piece it together and make it actually assembleable.”

Hart helped put together the elements that surround the game like the instruction manual and logos.

“It was fun to kind of dial in the tone and find the right amount of kitsch,” he says.

Piper says portable games like the one he designed are a great way to foster public engagement without the financial strain.

“When funding for the arts isn't something that's on the top of everyone's list, it's a way to share [an activity] among multiple constituencies, stakeholders, property owners, agencies.”

These “Crazy Dames” want us to rethink the way we engage with the city

lanthierj — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 14:00:58 +0000

These “Crazy Dames” want us to rethink the way we engage with the city

lanthierj Wed, 08/03/2016 - 10:00

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Jennie Suddick (left) and alumna Sara Udow in their blanket fort/artists' studio inspired by Jane Jacobs (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

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Romi Levine

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It’s not every day you get to hang out in a blanket fort.

And this is not just any blanket fort. It's a sprawling, impressively constructed tunnel of colourful sheets, high enough that you can almost stand up – taking over a big part of the Gardiner Museum’s third floor.

It may look like a child’s fantasy but it was thought up by two innovative adults – alumna and urban planner Sara Udow and artist Jennie Suddick, otherwise known as the Crazy Dames.

The duo started Crazy Dames as a nod to urban theorist Jane Jacobs – who would have turned 100 this year.

“She believed in ideas of participation and exploration in neighbourhoods and the importance of getting community members involved in city planning,” says Udow, who holds a masters in urban planning from the University of Toronto.

At the time, Jacobs’ forward-thinking ideas were met with criticism from her male counterparts, who called her a “crazy dame” with equally crazy ideas.

“We are reclaiming the name to pay homage to her and to recognize her achievements and explore her ideas through an artist’s studio,” says Udow.

That’s how they ended up at the Gardiner Musuem. Udow and Suddick have set up shop until August 5 for an event called “We Built This City.” They’re inviting the public to explore different ways of interacting with the city through crafts, a panel discussion, walking tours (they call them “walkshops”) and, of course, fort building.

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“We wanted to have an event where people came together and discussed with one another what they wanted to create and engage with that imaginative process that has many associations with fun and play but also with claiming a space and making it your own,” says Suddick, who is also the event’s artist-in-residence and an assistant professor at OCAD University.

Suddick and Udow say they want to reach demographics, communities and age groups that are outside of the “usual suspects” – the often-retired, affluent people who participate in planning meetings.

“To have a format where people feel like their voices will be heard or that there’s a place where they can express their voices – like a forum where they’re part of a bigger conversation – is really important,” says Suddick.

“And the reason why it’s important for their perspectives to be heard is because local knowledge is really important,” says Udow. “As urban planners, we go into different areas; different cities sometimes and we’re expected to understand all the issues that are affecting the area. But it’s really hard to understand the local context without actually talking to people.”

On this particular day, they’re shining a spotlight on the urbanists-in-training – a group of summer students from Maximum City. Founded by U of T grads Josh Fullan and Eleanor Rae, Maximum City is a year-round program, Maximum City teaches kids about urban design and architecture.

Earlier that week, the students went on a walking tour where they discovered parts of Toronto they never knew existed and interviewed people about what the city means to them.

“We asked them to go back and think about what they learned and come up with an idea of what a museum of Toronto may be,” says Udow.

The kids then presented their proposals to an audience of fellow students, parents and museum visitors. Some big ideas included a graffiti wall, a replica maze of downtown Toronto and a barber shop.

“I liked trying to find out more of what represented Toronto for the museum,” said 11-year-old Maximum City student Annalise, whose favourite part of the city is the waterfront.

After their week at the Gardiner Museum, the Crazy Dames are taking their show on the road – heading to a conference in Copenhagen to talk about the results of this week’s events. After that, they’re running a small arts festival in Florence.

And they’re bringing the blanket fort with them.

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Fun in the city: U of T architect wants to bring a new game to Toronto public spaces

These “Crazy Dames” want us to rethink the way we engage with the city

See a photo gallery