There are deeper shows, but none broader. The United States, with 10 times Canada’s population, can support mega-shows that zoom in on just one design silo such as lighting, roofing or tile. Yet Toronto’s Buildings Show remains unique as a horizontal show dealing with all aspects of buildings. It is billed as North America’s largest annual exposition, networking and educational event focusing on the design, construction and management of real estate.
The Buildings Show originated in 2014 when IIDEXCanada joined up and co-located with Construct Canada. IIDEX, Canada’s largest design expo and conference, is presented by Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and focuses on design. Construct Canada focuses on materials and technics, as the Brits say. Last year the combined show boasted 1,600 exhibitors and 30,000 attendees.

The 2016 Buildings Show will take place Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre; exhibitor bookings are up over last year. Programs will include more than 350 continuing-education seminars; Canadian Architect and Canadian Interiors awards presentations; and keynotes by marquee names such as New York-based hospitality and furniture designer Vicente Wolf; San Francisco architect Chris Downey, who started designing for the visually impaired after he suddenly and unexpectedly became blind; and Toronto-born product designer Karim Rashid. Author Pierre Berton defined a Canadian as someone who can make love in a canoe. A design-conscious Canadian is someone who owns at least one Garbino, the ubiquitous Rashid-designed molded-plastic wastebasket with swerving rim, flowing curves and negative spaces made by Toronto-based housewares manufacturer Umbra.

If there’s a guiding theme this year, it would be “cross”, as in crossover, cross-disciplinary, cross-pollination, cross-promoting and cross-disciplinary. The terms popped up repeatedly during our interview with Tracy Bowie, vice president, IIDEXCanada, and Ian Chodikoff, IIDEX’s new director of marketing and programming, who is taking over from the departing Johane Deignan.
Through the years, IIDEX has strayed from its original mandate as an interior design show. The appointment of Chodikoff, the first senior staffer to be an architect, more or less makes the policy official. “If you look at the population of professional interior designers in Canada, there about 5,000, with 3,500 in Ontario and the rest spread out across the country,” said Ms. Bowie. “If we have every ARIDO [Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario] and IDC member come to IIDEX, which obviously isn’t going to happen, by schedule and happenstance, it’s not enough. We need architects and facility managers, and we’re diversifying the show into other categories, to attract industrial designers, graphic designers, landscape architects, lighting designers, property managers etc.”
Yet, if the pivot away from a pure interior design show serves the interests of IIDEX, it also jibes with the broader industry zeitgeist. “More design firms are becoming interdisciplinary amongst themselves. They’ll have interior designers and graphic designers and graphic designers,” Mr. Chodikoff pointed out. And he’s not just referring to big integrated firms such as Kasian, with 300 staffers.
“Even smaller firms need to be nimble to attract whatever market they’re in. Their own associations aren’t always able to address this. The Building Show will offer that cross-disciplinary messaging. For firms looking for business insights into how to offer design services to clients, IIDEX and the Building Show will become increasingly valuable as a trade show.”

The alphabet soup trailing after Chodikoff’s name includes not merely the designation OAA, indicating that he is an architect duly licensed by the province’s governing body, the Ontario Association of Architects; but FRAIC, signifying his membership in the College of Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, if you please. The Harvard University Graduate School of Design alum’s previous gigs include RAIC Executive Director; Editor of The Canadian Architect; Director at urban-issues consultancy Fora Strategic Planning; and Director, Urban Health and Design at Farrow Partnership Architects. With such a background and connections, it’s not surprising that as IIDEX’s programmer, “Ian has done an amazing job of targeting areas we wouldn’t have been able to target in the past,” said Ms. Bowie.
Among them is women in design, a topic to be addressed not just in a seminar, but with the full panoply of a summit. Explaining the nomenclature, Mr. Chodikoff said, “Delivered as a thought leadership package, IIDEXCanada summits are half-day events where attendees can learn from and network with colleagues who share similar professional interests – whether that be senior living, sustainability-related topics or business leadership issues such as the role of women in the various design profession. The intention behind our summits is to cover broader design-related issues through several learning formats that include seminars [a one- or two-hour classroom-style presentation] but also comprise panel discussions or even keynote-related presentations.”
But, why a summit on women in design? Is it because of the Year of the Hillary? And, to be LGTB PC, shouldn’t the summit topic be “Persons of the female-gender persuasion in design?” Women, after all, have always been very well represented in design.
“In interiors. Not as much in architecture and other professions,” said Ms. Bowie.
“Even though you see inroads, sexism in the design professions exists,” said Chodikoff, whose rollouts will include a session on “the way a lot of firms are financially structuring their succession plan so that women often are not included in that plan to the extent that they should be.”

The summit will include seminars on the design, philosophy and vision of; an exhibit and healthcare conference about; and a tour of—whew!—Women’s Women’s College Hospital. A seminar and the tour will be led by Susan Black, Founding Partner of Perkins Eastman Black Architects in Toronto and team lead architect for the facility’s recent 630,000-square-foot renovation, which features a big, hanging-over-the-street-corner atrium clad with in-your-face pink curtainwall. The seminar Storytelling: Responding to the Hospital of the Future will showcase the book documenting how the planners canvassed 1,000 women about what they wanted in a hospital. “The way stakeholders were engaged tried to be inclusive of a lot of women’s voices. It was led by a woman architect and I think the outcome would not have been achieved if it was led by an architect who was not a woman,” said Mr. Chodikoff.

The summit, in turn, is part of the Healthcare and Senior Living Design Expo at IIDEX, which will also focus on the latest products, trends and education in the healthcare design field, and embrace a National Summit on Senior Living and a National Summit on Accessibility.
Also on the lineup are an exhibit and keynote on Spanish architecture abroad; and, new for this year, a “best of” product exhibit of award-winning products from around the world, curated by a team led by Beverly Hori, managing director of Interior Architects’ Toronto office.
Among previous years’ attractions held over by popular demand are the IIDEX Woodshop competition, an exhibit showcasing the work of young as well as established artisans and designers in creating cool furniture prototypes using ashwood lumber from city trees chopped down in the fight against the emerald ash borer.
Back once again is Think Material – some would call it a George Beylerian’s Material Connection lite – exhibit “about new materials that you can come and play with, touch and explore, to keep [your knowledge] current and relevant,” says Mr. Chodikoff. And much, much – as they say – more.
“I think Toronto has reached a tipping point, certainly from a real estate standpoint,” said Mr. Chodikoff. “Developers from all over the world are coming to Toronto to find out what we’re doing and to invest in Canada. The market is healthy and growing, so it offers great opportunities for designers doing workplace and commercial buildings. We’re trying to reinforce that at the show. That’s why the Buildings Show is more of a hub than ever.”
David Lasker is president of David Lasker Communications in Toronto. He can be reached at david@davidlaskercommunications.com.