Keynote
Speaker
6:00
–
7:30
pm
Stephen
Gray,
Harvard
University
Over the past two decades the city of Toronto has witnessed an unprecedented transformation, outstripping all other major North American cities with the development of urban core residential buildings, shifting the balance from primarily 9-5 weekday employment occupation to a more mixed use and continuously occupied city centre.
This trend built on earlier precedent setting developments of the 1970’s and 80’s like Toronto’s St Lawrence neighbourhood, as well as the influence of urban theorist Jane Jacobs, the built form analysis and urban design guidelines of George Baird and others. Other celebrated urban densification projects of architects like Diamond and Myers, Hydro Block and Sherbourne Lanes, during this period, enhanced residential intensification and diversity of activity in the urban core.
As the urban-core tall building sites have largely been exhausted, the city of Toronto is witnessing a shift in major urban redevelopment from central urban core sites to redevelopment of former industrial sites in the immediate periphery of the urban core, frequently associated with railway infrastructure. Toronto’s smart growth plan anticipates a population increase from 2.77 million to 3.64 million in less than 25 years, a significant proportion of which will occur as densification in established urban areas.
The Next Cities Symposium responds to the trend in urban intensification of smart growth and re-development, shifting focus away from central core urban tall building sites, to the former industrial employment zones of the urban mosaic. Development in many of these areas has been impeded by industrial and employment zone restrictions that many cities are currently relaxing. These zoning relaxations allow for greater mixed use development, combining housing with educational and recreational programming, in conjunction with smart growth, light industrial maker and incubator spaces for creative industry business start-ups, as well as public amenity green space and cultural infrastructure, securing quality of life and diversity.
The axiomatic coincidence with many of these sites with under-utilized railway infrastructure, offers the potential for rail-path pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, which in conjunction with electrifying rail lines, facilitates the enhancement of mobility networks, as part of the urban greening process and the potential of decreasing fossil fuel dependency.
The Next Cities Symposium is held in conjunction with the 3rd year Urban Building Design program at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture.
The symposium will consist of the morning devoted to contributions from several recent University of Waterloo Master of Architecture graduates, with the afternoon featuring leading professionals from Toronto speaking about architecture, public open space planning and mobility infrastructure related to mid-rise urban redevelopment strategies.