design : In The News

"The need to retain public spaces in our cities as they develop and grow requires increasingly ingenuitive thinking. A new development in Toronto shows just that sort of thinking in action," writes Gizmag about Toronto's soon-to-be-developed new green space hovering above the train tracks down near Union Station. 

The park, which will be located at 45-141 Bay Street between two buildings, is the work of real estate company Ivanhoé Cambridge for Metrolinx and is "part of the ongoing development of Union Station. The plans include the addition of a new bus terminal, two office buildings to be constructed standing either side of the rail corridor, and the park area between the buildings," the article says. 

The park will not only connect the buildings, which are designed to achieve LEED Platinum certification, but will provide the city with a public space "for recreation and leisure" while also connecting them to the underground PATH. 

Another article in Bloomberg provides additional context. That article reports that the 2.7 million square foot office complex will cost around $2 billion, with construction set to begin in spring of 2015. 

Read the full story here. 
Original Source: Gizmag

Toronto Pearson International Airport and Google Maps have collaborated to give passengers detailed indoor maps of the terminal. 

Both Google Maps and Google Maps mobile will help passengers find amenities, pre- and post security points, and other points of interest. The map allows passengers to view the floor plan, while also providing zooming capabilities. 

"It's important that we connect with passengers using the technology and platforms that meet their needs and exceed their expectations," Scott Collier, Vice President of Customer and Terminal Services, Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), said in an article that appeared on Future Travel Experience, noting that the implementation of the indoor maps "directly supports our strategic goals of improving our ability to connect with our passengers."

"For thousands of people every day, Pearson is Toronto's gateway," said Aaron Brindle, spokesperson for Google Canada, in a press release. "We are thrilled that Canadians and travellers from around the world can now navigate Toronto Pearson Airport with Google Maps."

Read the full story here. 
Original source: Future Travel Experience 

Vogue has named West Queen West the second hippest neighbourhood in the world in part thanks to its street style, arts and culture scene, and prominent indie shops and designers. 

Here's what they said: 

"Toronto is currently enjoying newfound prominence—and desirability—amongst globe-trotting tastemakers. Queen Street West is a verifiable artery of indie patisseries, homegrown labels, and hidden-from-view galleries—hallmarks of hipness, if ever they existed. It’s also the home of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, well-established “art” hotels The Drake and the Gladstone, and the charming Bicyclette, a local clothing boutique and lifestyle brand whose owners love “glitter, DIY projects, treasure hunts and details.” Soho House Toronto is nearby, as is Graffiti Alley, a block where street art is both 100 percent legal and lauded."

Toronto followed only Tokyo's Shimokitazawa. The report was surprisingly refreshing. Here is the full list of the world's hippest neighbourhoods.

1. Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, Japan
2. West Queen West, Toronto, Canada
3. Sodermalm, Stockholm, Sweden
4. Tiong Bahru, Singapore
5. Centro, Sao Paulo, Brazil
6. Canal Saint-Martin, Paris, France
7. Bushwick, New York City, U.S.
8. Brera, Milan, Italy
9. Wynwood, Miami, U.S.
10. Zona Rosa & La Condesa, Mexico City, Mexico
11. Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
12. Silver Lake, Los Angeles, U.S.
13. Hackney, London, U.K.
14. Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany
15. Dashanzi Art District, Beijing, China

Read the full story here. 
Original Source: Vogue 

Toronto’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat delivered a keynote speech at the Planning Institute Australia WA State Conference at the end of July to highlight Toronto’s “shift” to public transit and its mission to improve congestion, all while challenging the constraints of urban sprawl.

Perth and Toronto have different challenges. While Perth expands outward, Toronto’s challenge is to improve conditions within the boundaries of a city that has reached its growth boundary.  Still, Keesmaat said, Australia’s largest city with a population of just under two million could learn a thing or two from Toronto. 

“There might be some interesting lessons learned with respect to how you begin to transform to an advanced form of urbanism once you move away from that approach of continuing to develop in a very suburban way,” she said. 

“We’ve been there and gone down that trajectory over the course of the past 30 years and we’re now at a moment where we are beginning to urbanise our suburbs by focusing on adding mid-rise development along our corridors and by ensuring we have the density we need in order to make transit a real option.”

Toronto and Perth are both maturing cities, Keesmaat said, and as cities mature limits need to be put in place. She told Perth about Toronto’s protected greenbelt which caused a “fundamentally shift the land economics of the region and forced many suburban developers to become urban developers — they changed their game.” But beyond this, the focus of her speech remained on transportation and congestion, and its direct ties to population growth. 

She said planning high-density communities makes transit options more sustainable, the key to reducing traffic congestion in the long run. 

“It’s a zero-sum gain, that if you continue to plan low density communities there will never be environments that can successfully sustain public transit because there simply isn’t the critical mass to make high-frequency transit use work,” she said. 

For more from her speech, read the full story here. 
Original source: Perth Now

On Monday, Toronto's MakeWorks announced a partnership with Indiegogo Canada that will help the co-working maker studio expand their programming and potentially finance a second location.

MakeWorks is the first coworking space of its kind in Toronto, providing support to both digital and physical-focused startups. The 10,000 square-foot space houses some 30 different startups, prototyping tools and maker tools such as 3D printers, and acts as a large event space for community and hackathon events alike. 

"Toronto needed a new kind of shared workspace catered to the next generation of startups, products, and services. We built MakeWorks to serve a more diverse group of startups, and the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive,” MakeWorks founder Mike Stern said in an article that appeared in Tech Cocktail. 

The partnership with Indiegogo Canada will allow the studio to enhance their community workshop programming and expand their in house equipment offerings. MakeWorks has been working to increase the number of startups involved in the space. As such, Indiegogo will move its Canadian headquarters into the space as part of the deal. 

Read the original story here. 
Original Source: Tech Cocktail

After months of deliberations, Toronto has been selected as the Intelligent Community of the Year at the Intelligent Community Forum, held in New York last week. 

This comes after years of "knocking on the door," as Network World put it, for many years now. Toronto ranked in the top seven in 2005, 2013, and 2014. The annual title celebrates cities that use smart IT infrastructure to grow communities, create jobs, and contribute to economic growth, among other things. 

"Toronto was selected because it performed impressively against a set of diverse criteria and focused its academic, creative and private sectors, as well as its City Council leadership on the work and continued success of the entire community. In our view, Toronto offers a glimpse of how to flourish in the new economy and of how to adjust to the changes of the digital era," said ICF co-founder Lou Zacharilla in a press release.

Zacharilla also apparently called Toronto "New York City with manners."

Really, it was the efforts of Waterfront Toronto that solidified this year's crown. The organization has been pushing to make Toronto's contributions in this realm known. Waterfront Toronto's forthcoming "innovation district" will "provide 12,000 new residences with 100 Mpbs broadband to individual homes, and 10 Gbps networking to businesses…with the goal of providing design and media companies in Toronto with the highest transmission rates in the world," Network World reports. 

"This is a significant win for Toronto; one that recognizes the great efforts made in the city to work together on using information technology to create jobs, attract investment and make us more competitive," said Toronto Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly in the press release. "The work of Waterfront Toronto to collaborate with government, businesses, and the education and research community is helping establish Toronto's waterfront as an example of how to use future-ready information and communication infrastructure to attract jobs and residents."

Read the full story here. 
Original Source: Network World

Toronto-based nonprofit the Bowery Project was highlighted in a recent article for its forward-thinking approach to urban farming and for taking advantage of vacant lots. 

The Fast Company article describes the Bowery Project as follows: "Using a simple modular system built from milk crates, a new Toronto nonprofit plans to convert vacant city lots into instantly mobile urban farms that can supply neighborhoods with local produce."

The Bowery Project, founded by Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto, works with the city of Toronto and various developers to maximize space in the city and use it for good.

“If developers buy a piece of land, usually there’s a long period of time where the land sits vacant until they’ve gotten permits, finished their designs, and raised the money they need,” Kimel explains in the article. “We’re hoping to be kind of a transformative application for an interim project for these lots."

The food will be split three ways with one third going to local hunger organizations, another to the volunteers who work on the farm, and the last will be sold to local chefs to help sustain the organization. "They expect that chefs will request specific food items that are otherwise difficult to get in Toronto, such as shishito peppers," the article says. 

Kimel and DelZotto met while volunteering at another local food access organization, the Stop.

“We love the energy that comes along with growing food,” Kimel says in the article. “We wanted to engage the community and transform a part of the neighborhood that would otherwise be left as concrete and weeds.”

Read the full story here. 
Original Source: Fast Company

IBM has announced plans to open 18 new mobile application development studios internationally, including one here in Toronto. 

The company made the announcement at its Impact conference, which took place in Las Vegas last week. 

"The mobile lab will be part of the new Interactive Experience Lab for creating apps for the Web, kiosks and other multi-channel outlets in downtown Toronto and expected to open in a few months, said Warren Tomlin, IBM's North American labs leader. It will focus helping customers creating mobile applications based on industry-specific, pre-configured Ready Apps created by IBM," Computer Dealer News reports. 

The MobileFirst studios are designed, in part, to widen IBM's consumer base and attract new business—including startups—that are looking to move into or further develop their mobile platforms.

For IBM, one of the goals of launching the portfolio is to widen its customer base and to appeal to companies both large and small.

"We are transforming ourselves in the context of where the market is going," Nancy Pearson, vice-president of IBM’s cloud category marketing, is quoted as saying in the article. "It's the whole channel of IBM as a service."

Although IBM has announced the studio will open within the next few months, details on the location of the studio and the number of jobs this will create was not yet available.

To read the full article, click here. 
Original Source:  Computer Dealer News