The Design Exchange and the Clean and Beautiful City Secretariat, City of Toronto, invite you to create a design team to participate in Orphan Spaces: Retail/Commercial. The call is open to design professionals, community members and students who are interested in orphaned retail/commercial spaces and their surrounding areas and in contributing to their beautification. Individuals working in the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban and regional design/planning and geographic analysis are highly encouraged to participate. The Phase 1 exploratory/brainstorming session will take place on Friday, April 21 from 1:00pm to 5:00pm. The Phase 2 critique will take place on Wednesday, May 10 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.
The Spring 2006 series will focus on the modification of retail/commercial spaces that will be presented as a component of digifest: 2006: MODS, the Design Exchange’s annual festival of design and media culture that takes place from May 10-14, 2006. Orphan Spaces: Retail/Commercial will also be presented during the city-wide Festival of Architecture & Design. Ian Chodikoff will work with the Design Exchange, the City of Toronto and participating teams to reinterpret underutilized spaces throughout the city of Toronto in areas that are not currently represented by Business Improvement Areas (BIA) but which are located in neighbourhoods that are economically or urbanistically underdeveloped, have tremendous cultural or historical value and tremendous design opportunities.
For more information, please visit www.dx.org/orphanspaces/