World House Systems Timeline – 2007

The 2007 IDS IwB student booth showcased the IwB’s students’ work on the World House Timeline, specifically the housing trends that had been uncovered by the World House Systems Timeline and the System Home Report. The Timeline was broken up into four posters hanging on the booth, representing four different lenses through which to look at housing systems: terrain, climate, economy, and culture. On the opposite side of the booth the students projected a documentary on the meaning of ‘home’ from around the world, beside which, IwB students with cameras, interviewed IDS visitors on their personal meaning of ‘home.’

To the left a detail from the World House Systems Timeline. More on this project on the World House Systems project page.

Ideator Newspaper – 2008

For the 2008 IDS show, the IwB students developed a newspaper explaining the IwB and World House projects for the government of Costa Rica. During 2008, the IwB was working on rural renewal in the developing Guanacaste region. The Institute was exploring ways to balance the impact of global tourism on local communities.

The Ideator discussed the IwB’s experiences in Costa Rica and showcased the Institute’s designs for a social housing prototype unit, its work to make vibrant sustainable public village squares in the area, and the completion of a regional plan linking resorts with villages to make a holistic tourist ecosystem. For the 2008 IDS booth, the students transformed the Ideator Newspaper, scaling it up, stretching and exhibiting it over an illuminated showcase.

For more information on the IwB’s work in the Guanacaste region see the Costa Rica project page.

How do you see the street? – 2009

In the third year of the World House Project, the IwB students designed an interactive display that showcased their work on the Renovate Your Neighbourhood project. The students exhibit displayed graphics and quotes in response to the question, “How do you see the street?”

The booth was a sketch of a ‘complete street.’ It was designed for playful interaction with image and text inscribed rotating cubes that could be adjusted by IDS visitors. The exhibition showed ways that individuals could renovate a street in their neighbourhood into a ‘complete street’ through individual interventions and projects. It demonstrated the the dynamic and direct relationship between the individual and neighbourhood-scale change.

The 2009 IwB IDS booth won the Best Student Exhibit Rado DesignGenNext Award.

People Power Public Space – 2010

The students of City Systems year 1 (2009-2010) created an IDS display that explored urban life as a series of systems. The concept for the exhibit came out of the work the students were doing with the Toronto Community Housing Corporation on the rejuvenation of Flemingdon Park (see the Flemingdon Park project page).

The exhibit tied together individual and collective experiences with the systems that make the city possible and illustrated the power of individuals to activate public space. The booth was in part composed of a systems diagram and videos of individual and community led change initiatives. The audience was also invited to join in the process through a pedal-powered light-up sign that illuminated the central message: “People Power Public Space.”

The People Power Public Spaces IDS booth won the Best Student Exhibit Rado DesignGenNext Award. The booth also travelled to Milan for a renowned International Design Exhibition.

Lota, Chile – 2011

In 2010-2011, the IwB was working on a revitalization plan for a small municipality in Chile called Lota, a city that was devastated by an earthquake and was facing serious economic decline. The IwB students created an installation at the IDS that intended to build awareness for the Lota Project and showcase their range of experiences in Chile.

The front of the booth had a brief project description and showcased a large black and white image of the City of Lota and asked users to bring the image to life by placing translucent coloured tiles over the cityscape. Through the collective efforts of the audience, the image was transformed overtime and began to reflect the colours and optimism that the Institute’s students and staff experienced while visiting Lota. An unintended consequence of this was that users began signing their names on the tiles using dry-erase markers and contributing messages of hope, inspiration, and support for the project.

The back of the booth displayed the rich experiences gained by the students working on the project, relaying the central message of the project: “people change places.”

The booth was extremely successful at the IDS 2011 and was widely written and blogged about, including features in Azure Magazine as well as Design DNA’s Blog.

“This is where you live” – 2012

At the 2012 IDS the IwB students developed an installation mimicking supermarket aisles, together with large-scale ‘for sale’ signs and receipts. On the ‘store’ shelves were a range of products in boxes and cans, only the products were not actual items but instead were lined with messages about life choices in contemporary city suburbs. ‘Walk,’ ‘eat local,’ ‘commute to work,’ and ‘be your own boss’ were some of the ‘products’ that visitors could pick up at the booth.

The concept for the 2012 installation came from the Institute’s work with the City of Markham. In 2012, the IwB looked at ways to change infrastructure and make service design improvements in Markham to promote public pride and engagement and proposed COLAB–a pilot change lab for the city that would enable implementation of new ideas and introduce an interdisciplinary perspective.