This week’s free lectures in Toronto include a talk on whether getting rid of the OMB is really such a good idea, a discussion about we can do to improve our high-rise neighbourhoods, and a conversation between two collectives interested in urban design, art, and civic change.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6
Villain or Scapegoat?: The Ontario Municipal Board and Land Use Planning in Ontario
Guest speaker: Aaron Moore, a Post-Doctoral Fellow from the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, Munk School of Global Affairs
This presentation will contrast the institutions, law, and practices of planning in Ontario with other jurisdictions in Canada and the US. It will argue that the public’s frustration with the OMB masks larger issues present in Ontario’s planning regime, issues that the removal of the OMB will not address.
Where: Jackman Humanities Institute Conference Room, Main Floor, 170 St. George
When: 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Re-imagining our vertical city: introducing the NFB documentary One Millionth Tower
Toronto is a city of high-rise residential buildings. Yet, many are aging and in disrepair. How can we reimagine these buildings as tremendous assets to the city and the many thousands of people who live in them? Meet the highrise residents, ERA architects, representatives from the United Way, City of Toronto, the NFB and the Mozilla Foundation who all worked together to create the world’s first open-source documentary,
One Millionth Tower.
Where: Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West
When: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8
DX Salon Nights — In conversation
The Department of Unusual Certainties (a Toronto-based research and design collective working at the interstices of urban design, planning, public art, spatial research and mapping) will interview Broken City Lab (an artist-led interdisciplinary creative research collective and non-profit organization working to explore and unfold curiosities around locality, infrastructures, and creative practice leading toward civic change.)
Where: The Design Exchange, 234 Bay Street
When: 6:30 – 7:30 PM
