Flemingdon Town Centre Project
Shifts in our relationship to the built environment require the destruction of silos that hold on to the status quo. In order to ensure that shared environments are representative of diverse perspectives projects must work towards involving users in the production of shared spaces. This project was a collaboration between an environmental non-profit, an academic research group and an informal grassroots organization. The physical result was a temporary pavilion that was designed with the input of 200+ residents.
Based on the principles of participatory action research, where research is a shared endeavor between subject and investigator, the goal of this project was to collectively develop a design for a gathering space in Toronto neighborhood, Flemingdon Park. The secondary goal was to investigate the effectiveness of the design process and to examine the perceptions of the participants.
Toronto is home to a North America's second largest stock of mid-century apartment tower neighborhoods. As the tower-in-a-park type now accommodates different demographics and travel patterns than they were designed for, interventions in the shared open space are necessary to create focal points and areas for programming in underused spaces.
Toronto is home to a North America's second largest stock of mid-century apartment tower neighborhoods. As the tower-in-a-park type now accommodates different demographics and travel patterns than they were designed for, interventions in the shared open space are necessary to create focal points and areas for programming in underused spaces.
