Migrating Landscape Organizers’ seventh and final regional exhibition is now open at Brookfield Place (181 Bay St) in Toronto. The exhibition includes the personal videos and architectural models of more than twenty-five teams of architects.   In usual form DoUC has completed a timeline for exhibition exploring the development of Toronto through the lens of migration. Winning models from each of the 7 regional exhibitions will brought to Winnipeg for the National Exhibition which opens at the Winnipeg Art Gallery on March 15th.

ML_ON exhibition runs from Feb 6 – 24, 2012

the Story Begins…

formation of North York Center’s skyline…

former Ontario Premiere Mike Harris reflecting on the impact of his political career…

Project 1: World and Home 

Appeared in Onsite 25 - Identity . An attempt to reflect on Canada’s illustrious past and fledgling present. By comparing Canada’s actions on the world stage and the policies of the CMHC we come to a quick conclusion that the bold thinking that once made this country great has been left in the past.

Below is the text which accompanied the graphic.

World and Home

A comparison of Canada’s post WWII global identity and major CMHC events.

In 1946 the CMHC (Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation) was founded to do two important things: House returning soldiers from the second world war and lead the nations housing strategy.

A bold task for a bold nation, this is what Canada was. We were world leaders not because of what we said but because of what we did, this was Canada’s global identity- action. This identity permeated through Canada and in particular the policies and actions of the CMHC. The World at Home is more than a comparison between Canada’s post war identity and the CMHC, but is instead a reminder of what Canada was and what it could be again.

A look into our recent past reveals not a nation of hockey loving, Tim Hortons coffee drinkers, who dwell on a vast plain of sprawling suburbs, and are passive by nature; but a people who acted on their values. It reveals a country who initiated the UN peacekeeping force, came out strongly against the Vietnam War (Then took in over 69 000 refugees from Indo-China), and housed over 30 000 war veterans and their families who returned home from fighting WWII. It is a country that experimented with housing and density (Habitat 67′) and shared its housing knowledge with the world (The CMHC was awarded a UN peace medal in 1982 for sharing its practices on housing, building and planning with the Economic Commission for Europe). It was a country built on action.

Identity Now

Canada is not what it was. It no longer leads the world and in most cases, does not even follow. The housing situation in the country is embarrassing. The Toronto Community Housing Corporation is in shambles and is being threatened with privatization and in Vancouver, housing prices have soared to beyond the ridiculous(Ironically a Second World War Bungalow is going for $889 000). On the world stage we are constantly being condemned for our lack of action on climate change; and for the first time since the UN was established, Canada has gone more than a decade without a seat on the security council.

The Canada of the future will for now have to take inspiration from its past. The Diefenbaker’s and Pearson’s of this country are long since passed. The world leader that was Canada has rested for too long on it laurels and is not even a shadow of its former self. Political dithering, uninspired urbanism, and a country intent on thinking about meaningless economies, while productive ones disappear. This however is the Canada of the present, and moving forward if we do take one thing from our past it seems abundantly clear- action!

Action(s)

Planners and Architects can no longer sit on the sidelines, we must get our hands dirty in the everyday. Housing solutions in this country can no longer wait for non existent government procurements or high priced clients. We must start creating new typologies unsolicited, which deal with liveable densities, associated economic models, and a multicultural ideology. We must rethink the economy beyond consumerism. Creating new design solutions for both the goods and services we consume, meaning, planning for and designing the spaces of where this production will occur; and finally maintaining/protecting our cities productive lands from speculation.

The Graph

World and Home is an exercise in understanding relationships. The hope is that the reader extends this chart, adding on new bits of information. What if we over-layed immigration numbers? Existing housing stocks? Or even the history of the Canadian deficit? Relationships like identity reveal themselves through both time and experience. It is important to note that the only event which directly corresponds to each other is EXPO 67′, where Moshe Safdie’s CMHC funded Habitat project was showcased.

Project 2: Poster from Extraction to Reaction, Visualizar ’11

You may remember that this past summer DoUC was very fortunate to lead a project at Visualizar ’11 at the Prado Media Lab in Madrid (you can see the full project here ). The following is a poster which was created for the project.

Migrating Landscapes Organization has a booth designed and built by Department of Unusual Certainties as a part of IDS 2012′s Offsite Onsite exhibition at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Constructed using ABS piping and tarp, it is light, easy to erect, collapse, and move to its next required site. The Climate Migrant Pavilion performs three tasks. It informs IDS visitors about Migrating Landscapes- Canada’s entry into the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Provides updates from world citizens residing in Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax*. And gives the climate migrant access to a select range of goods they may need for their journey; including, canned goods, wadding boots, an acid rain responsive umbrella**, and a form of dignity.

Migrating Landscapes Ontario Regional Exhibition is opening February 6th at Brookfield Place in Toronto.

*The projections present MLO project renderings, Migrating Landscapes contestant’s migration story videos, and DoUC’s timelines from Vancouver, Calgary, and Halifax.

**The concept and creation of the acid rain responsive umbrella is by Kar Yan Cheung.

Climate Migrant Pavilion was created with the support of the Migrating Landscapes Organization, Design Exchange, Aliya Tejani, Natasha Basacchi and Kar Yan Cheung.

Natasha listens to a Migrating Landscapes contest’s migration story and watches DoUC’s Calgary timeline

An MLO rendering of Migrating Landscapes at the Canadian Pavilion in Venice

Detail from a Migrating Landscapes contestant’s migration story video

Detail from DoUC’s Migrating Timelines: Calgary

ML_QC is the first Migrating Landscapes exhibition we’ve been able to attend.  We arrived to witness the jury considering the architectural landscape/model installations.  The installation was suppose to use an additional  40000 lbs of wood. With the exhibition taking place on the second floor of Parisian Laundry there was concern that the structure of the building couldn’t support it- MLO improvised another approach.  The undulating thick wooden pillars were replaced with these slightly raised plywood platforms that marked the intended footprint of the first approach. It maintained the immersive quality of the installation while also making the models very approachable.

Here are some photos of our timeline and map projection video from the ML_QC opening; we’ll be posting pictures from Halifax, and Saskatoon at a later tine

ML_AB

ML_BC

DoUC in Conversation with BCL

The coming year holds much work for  DoUC, including the Migrating Landscapes  exhibition series which will finish at the 2012 Venice Architectural Biennale opening in August; with upcoming exhibitions in Halifax, Montreal, Saskatoon, Toronto, and Winnipeg. Stay posted, more  projects to be announced later.

The Dept.’s Christopher Pandolfi and Simon Rabyniuk are pleased to be joined by collaborators Amy Peebles, Natasha Basacchi, and Aliya Tejani. DoUC has been working with Amy for  the past year. She has provided excellent research support on numerous projects. Currently Amy is heading up the Dept’s fund raising efforts with Migrating Landscapes. Natasha and Aliya started working with the studio at the start of Migrating Landscapes and have been contributing to the research and layout of the timelines.

We are excited to see how the ever present End Times of 2012 will unfold.

Amy Peebles is the Creative Director of Urban Synergies, a small consulting firm specializing in arts and culture based community engagement. Her passion for community planning came from a childhood spent overseas observing the beautifully hospitable and resourceful cultures in Indonesia and Cambodia, as well as completing a Bachelors Degree of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University. She has had the great pleasure of working in Guyana from September 2010 to March of this year, bringing the practice of community planning to the forefront alongside the Central Housing and Planning Authority. An avid wanderer and writer, you can check out her ramblings at www.urbansynergies.ca.

Natasha Basacchi grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario until moving to Toronto to attend Ryerson University. She graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Architectural Science. Her thesis focused on incremental housing for the displaced population of Tbilisi, Georgia. The following year and a half she worked with the City of Toronto in the Employment and Social Services division, in both Ontario Works and Employment Centre offices. Natasha is currently volunteering for SKETCH, an arts initiative for street-involved and homeless youth, and the DoUC. She is excited to be back in a creative setting and looking forward expanding her design portfolio with the DoUC.

Aliya Tejani is a recent graduate of York University’s Master in Environmental Studies (Planning) program. Aliya also has a B.Sc. in Physiology and a Diploma in Environmental Studies from McGill University. Always trying to use her interdisciplinary brain, she is interested in the formation of variegated urban spaces that merge cultural and natural processes in innovative ways through the use of design. She is motivated by social and environmental justice issues, and has been involved with numerous grassroots organizations throughout the years. Inspired by DoUC’s work, she strives to use creativity as a mechanism for social change. In her spare time, she helps a downtown community group in resolving some of their urban planning issues, volunteers with Project Neutral, and serves as a peer reviewer for the Plan Canada publication.

Migrating landscapes is a cross-Canada architectural competition exploring the experience of migration through oral histories and architectural expressions. DoUC is creating ‘preambles’ for  each exhibition in the form of timelines and interactive map projections.  Here are some pictures from the exhibition courtesy the Migrating Landscapes Organizers.

ML_AB Migrating Timelines: Calgary

Past ML Exhibitions:

Migrating Landscapes @ Museum of Vancouver

On the weekend of October 11th-13th DoUC took part in the Move Transportation charrette (part of the Move Expo) hosted by Evergreen and the Institute without Boundaries. The Charrette focused on ten different themes all revolving around a core theme of transportation. DoUC was given with the role of lead designers for the Food not Crude team tasked with imagining local agriculture integrated into the urban, suburban, and regional fabric, increasing food security within cities, raising incomes of local farmers, and finally reducing the overall “costs” of distance associated with moving food.

The team, made up of both designers and various food experts quickly gravitated to the idea of looking at the whole system of food delivery and began to think about ways in which we could disrupt it. After insightful talks around the problems of food monopolies, where and how food was produced, and issues around equality regarding the access and consumption of food from both the users and producers perspective we moved towards the concept of a Diffused Network.

The Diffused Network

A food network that breaks down the hierarchies and bottle neck which plagues our current food system. The problem of food monopolies is that they not only have control of pricing and location but also on transportation methods. Our system attempts to open up both the possibilites of food delivery as well as the market place. Providing the opportunity for small operations to thrive and support one another.

Key Concepts

1. A large digital network acting as a marketplace where producers,storage, processors, distributors, waste, and consumers can meet buy and sell and choose the different options available to them regarding the kind of food they eat and how it gets delivered to them. The user is sometimes a producer, sometimes a consumer, and sometimes both.

2. The majority of food delivery trip will be done by existing regional and city level public transport systems. Creating a system where trips are piggy backing off existing trips that are already being made. The focus is create a system where the last mile of food is always car free.

3. A system of hierarchal nodes that allow for both storage, processing, and distribution at different scales allowing for the system to be flexible.

The project was presented to the public on October 20th at Evergreen. The project will be further developed as part of the Move Expo to be held at Evergreen at the Brickworks in May of 2012. DoUC would like to thank all the team members, stakeholders, Evergreen, and IwB for including us in this great event. You can see the presentation here.

When: December 8th 2011 6:30-7:30pm

Where: The Design Exchange, 234 Bay Street, Toronto.

This is event is pay-what-you-can.

Drinks will be served.

This is the third instalment of the Design Exchange’s Salon Nights : In Conversation Series. http://www.dx.org/index.cfm?id=6582#salon

Preliminary discoveries include: Wild factory development speculation in Saskatoon, an alternate City Beautiful in Calgary, the sheer logistical feat of the Dominion Land Survey, crumbling bridges, uncontrollable floods, and Tolstoy’s relations with the Doukhobors. Look to the CAUSE website shortly for new additions, as well as the Migrating Landscapes shows in Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Halifax, Toronto and Montreal.

A big thanks to the CCA for offering this opportunity.