The tectonic plates, they are a-shiftin’. With apologies to Bob Dylan, one reason for members of the A&D community to attend IIDEXCanada 2015, taking place December 2 and 3 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, is to get up to speed on two emerging, must-know industry trends: inclusive design and wellness. Unless you doggedly read the trade journals, you might not be aware that “universal design” and “accessible design” are yesterday’s terms, and that “wellness” and “wellbeing” is a pursuit distinct from healthcare.
IIDEXCanada aims to bring attendees up to speed on these fields with intensive summits featuring international teams of panelists. Or, if you’d prefer a brief overview of the emerging realms, one-hour sessions will also be held.
Last year, IIDEXCanada, Canada’s largest design expo and conference, co-located with Construct Canada and seven related events to create the Buildings Show, boasting 1,600 exhibitors, 350 seminars and tours and, last year, 30,000 attendees. The umbrella brand is billed as North America’s largest annual exposition, networking and educational event focusing on the design, construction and management of real estate.
What justifies the Buildings Show’s Guinness World Records-like claim? As George Przybylowski, VP of Real Estate/Construction at Buildings Show manager Informa Canada, explained in the run-up to last year’s show, in the U.S., “you’ll see something that is just the International Roofing Exposition, Tile Expo or World of Concrete. Because the States is 10 times larger, generally, the market is so large that it justifies having one of these mega-shows that just focuses on one category. Whereas in Canada, it is the flipside because we are so much smaller. The opportunity was there for us to create a horizontal show that deals with all aspects of anything to do with buildings.”
IIDEXCanada, co-presented by Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), focuses on all areas of design including workplace, healthcare, hospitality, retail, residential, education, architecture, landscape architecture and lighting, as well as sustainability, wellness and accessibility. It occupies the streetscape-friendly, glass-sheathed North Building on Front Street, a few blocks away from Canada’s financial nerve center, the intersection of King and Bay Streets, with its cluster of skyscrapers housing the country’s big-bank headquarters. Major showrooms, such as Steelcase and Teknion, and hotels are an easy stroll.
Construct Canada, along with PM Expo Toronto, World of Concrete Pavilion, Homebuilder & Renovator Expo and The Real Estate Forum Toronto will take place in the South Building, which overlooks the former railroad-tracks no-man’s land near Union Station that has blossomed in recent years into the hot South Core; this area is Toronto’s fastest-growing office sub-market, with a vacancy rate of 1.7%, according to international real estate company Cushman & Wakefield.
Highlights of the North Building show floor map range from high-tech to artsy-craftsy. Who, besides teenybopper gamers, cares about virtual reality? Real estate professionals, that’s who. The ArchDaily + IIDEXCanada Virtual Spaces Exhibition will show winning entries in a design competition using Toronto-based Invent Dev’s high-definition 3D interactive visualization software, which enables clients to walk through a virtual space while changing colors and finishes in real time.
At IIDEX Woodshop, the City of Toronto, IIDEXCanada and ideacious.com will team up to present 15 innovative prototypes using Toronto’s untapped resource of ashwood lumber. The exhibit showcases the work of 10 established designers and woodworkers and five emerging designers. The back story is a sad one: The lumber was made available to artisans and furniture designers as the city’s 200,000-plus ash trees were being felled to fight the onslaught of the emerald ash borer.
Seminars are paid events, but the keynote addresses throughout both days are free. Speakers will include such heavy hitters as Los Angeles-based architect, Interior Design Hall of Fame member and writer Clive Wilkinson talking about The Theatre of Work. His notable projects include Google and Fox headquarters, and the New York offices of advertising giant TBWA\Chiat\Day.
Bill Browning, chair of the Greening America Board of Directors, will speak on Biophilic Design: Implications for Climate, Culture and Business. The neuroscience research of his consulting firm, Terrapin Bright Green, has demonstrated that biophilic design (connecting the built environment to the natural world) improves employee health, productivity, creativity, mood and healing.
Belén Moneo will present Interiors from Spain and ICEX. Ms. Moneo, daughter of Spanish starchitect Rafael Moneo, collaborated with him on several notable projects, including Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art and Architecture and Columbia University’s Interdisciplinary Sciences Building.
For a glimpse at the summits, the National Summit on Accessibility will kick off Wednesday at 8 a.m. with the Canadian premiere of the hour-long “Inclusive” by filmmaker Miao Wang in the (free, open to all visitors) Keilhauer Theatre, with an introduction by Jutta Treviranus, director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). The three-hour summit will conclude with team presentations from an Inclusive Design Sprint/Hackathon.
There will also be two panels. The Promise of Inclusive Design and Accessibility will be moderated by Vera Roberts, academic research manager at OCADU’s Inclusive Design Research Centre, and feature panelists Ms. Treviranus; Rich Donovan, founder of Lime, the headhunting firm for talent with disabilities, whose clients include Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Google, IBM, PepsiCo and Royal Bank of Canada; and David Rose, developmental neuropsychologist, Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty member and co-founder of non-profit research group CAST, whose work stimulated a new field called Universal Design for Learning that influences educational policy throughout the U.S.
Ms. Treviranus will moderate the second panel, Wicked and Gnarly Accessibility Challenges for Inclusive Design, comprising Judy Heumann, special advisor for International Disability Rights at the U.S. State Department; Susan Goltsman, founding principal of Moore, Iacofano, Goltsman, which specializes in applying social science to site-specific environmental design for children, youth and families in projects ranging from schools and community parks to zoos and museums; Lizbeth Goodman, professor of Inclusive Design and chair of Creative Technology Innovation at University College Dublin, where she directs SMARTlab and the Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland at UCD; and Hal Plotkin, senior Open Policy Fellow at Creative Commons, USA and former senior policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Education.
Accessible design, universal design, inclusive design. While it might seem like buzzword cha-cha, there are important differences, as Ms. Treviranus explained in an interview.
“There’s a very nuanced story about the issues of accessibility and universal design, and inclusive design. Disability isn’t something that is a personal trait. You aren’t either disabled or not disabled; it comes about because there’s a mismatch between the design of the product, environment or service and what you actually need as an individual. We can all experience a disability if something isn’t designed in such a way that it really addresses our needs. So accessibility is determined not with a fixed set of criteria, but with whether it addresses the needs that you have.”
Another area of the show that an aura of mystery clings to is GO AWAY! The Best of Design Workplace. The exhibit’s tagline is, “No one really knows what the future workplace will be, but it will be everywhere.” The show website proclaims, “This transformative installation combines elements of stage design, sight, sound, scent and interaction, challenging preconceptions of what makes a workplace.”
Beyond that teaser, no one would open the kimono during an interview with Informa Canada VP and principal IIDEXCanada mover and shaker Tracy Bowie, and exhibit design-team heads Caroline Robbie and George Foussias of Quadrangle Architects. In follow-up inquiries, furniture installation contributors Keilhauer’s and Teknion’s lips were similarly sealed.
The 2,000 square foot space will be a box shrouded in reflective Mylar “so it just reflects the show back to you and it doesn’t give away its secrets inside,” said Mr. Foussias. On the way in, visitors will pass along a “compression wall” with graphic displays of the new workplace inside. It will also be a fun zone, with activities changing every few hours.
Ms. Robbie did allow as to how the exhibit would jibe with the office design “pendulum swing to open office and swing back again to quiet,” and how sitting – remember sitting in ergonomic task chairs? – is old hat.
“I have a president [of a client firm] who only wants to stand or lie…A lot of work takes place in airplanes and cottages: people work from a lot of unexpected workplaces,” said Ms. Bowie. “Carolyn and I have kids in their twenties, and they like to work lying down; that’s what they’re used to.”
Yes, but. Don’t these workers need a full-size keyboard to type on? Certainly not, admonished Ms. Robbie:
“These people are communicators, not writers. You can do all that on your cellphone if you’re a communicator, answering email. We’re using our cellphones now more than laptops or desktops.”
Lest the foregoing leave the impression of a hothouse atmosphere, Ms. Bowie reiterated the show’s accent on real estate as exemplified by the high-rise office towers nearby.
“This will be a place where companies that will order 5,000 desks or chairs will get an idea of how the furniture looks in the new work settings.” Indeed, manufacturer’s donations won’t be entirely altruistic because, Ms. Bowie avers, “this exhibit will wet your appetite to see more of the product and pique your curiosity to send you to the big showrooms that are literally within five minutes’ walk of the Convention Centre.”