Archinect - News

After the Sidewalk Labs split, Waterfront Toronto has plans for a more 'locally-led vision'

2021-03-18T21:34:00-04:00

Waterfront Toronto, established by the Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario, and the City of Toronto, launched a competition last week to select a development partner for the Quayside lands. The announcement comes close to a year after Sidewalk Labs announced it would drop its smart city plans for the area, citing "unprecedented economic uncertainty."

Sidewalk Labs presented an ambitious plan to transform Quayside into a "smart city." Yet, during our reporting of the project's cancelation last year in May, the reason for the project being called off was tied to the pandemic according to a report from the Toronto Star.

However, Waterfront Toronto recently shared its new plans for the site and what they plan to accomplish. Waterfront Toronto CEO George Zegarac shared with Smart Cities Dive: "A critical difference for Quayside now will be that the design of public realm, parks, streetscapes, and open community spaces will be led by Waterfront Toronto. As we move to build Quayside we are now looking for development teams that have the experience, capacity and passion to deliver a distinctive neighborhood that gives expression to our vision."

Infrastructure is not neutral; case studies of communities decimated by highways

2018-02-22T15:06:00-05:00

Making the case that infrastructure itself can be exclusionary is hardly straightforward. Many of the worst decisions in US planning were made decades ago to intentionally disenfranchise, marginalise and separate communities; policies such as redlining and “blight clearing” are well-documented embarrassments. But many decisions that segregated communities were unintentional. The stop sign and one-way street might seem benign, but they shape our lives in ways we sometimes don’t even realise.

Through focusing in on 5 case studies where communities have been obliterated by infrastructure decisions, the direct impact of highways and walls take on greater levels of meaning and urgency. The power of city planning also comes into greater consideration presently as the US takes on a massive infrastructure revitalization project.

"Too big to replace, too expensive to tear down", Miller emphasizes the importance of digging into the history of our country's development in order to understand past injustices, prevent future abuse, and address current issues as they stand right now.

An in depth look focuses on Detroit’s 8 Mile and historical Black Bottom neighborhoods, West Oakland in California, West Baltimore, and Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia. Arresting images of overlapping interstates where communities used to be reveal a truth many of us drive on in our everyday lives.

Please read Johnny Miller's full piece on how infrastructure decisions impact communities and are dir...

How Chicago's reviving Chinatown is building upon its history

2016-02-23T21:02:00-05:00

Most modern Chinatowns are serving less as a singular manifestation of Chinese-American life than as a central gathering place for people to experience Chinese culture...And indeed, Chinatowns themselves were often built on the ground of former ethnic enclaves that had organically dissolved...But as Chicago’s Chinatown demonstrates, this is not a predictable story. More than a hundred years after its founding, the neighborhood has a dynamism that can’t be neatly scripted.

As Chinatowns across the U.S. succumb to gentrification and shifting cultural preferences, writer Anna Clark spotlights the particular booming growth and expansion taking place in Chicago's Chinatown.

Design for an Aging Population

2013-02-06T23:23:00-05:00

A new multidisciplinary field has emerged in several universities in which sociologists, psychologists and urban planners work to tailor architectural designs to seniors as that demographic continues to grow. In America, 54 million people are over the age of 55 and that number is predicted to increase over the next 30 years by nearly 50 per cent. Despite most people’s desire to age in their own homes, most will be required to seek alternative arrangements.

The Collaborative Design of Ancient Hive Cities

2012-01-24T14:12:00-05:00

The structures in Architecture Without Architects reveal a kind of purposeful, iterative, social design process that, while dating back centuries and originating in primitive cultures, offers a powerful parallel to contemporary shifts towards collaborative creation.