Tower Renewal Blog

Toronto the Good & Tower Renewal Symposium

 

Cities Centre, ERA Architects and the City of Toronto Tower Renewal Office are hosting the second Tower Neighbourhood Renewal Symposium on May 12, 2011 from 1- 5pm at U of T’s Hart House. The Symposium is being held in conjunction with the annual Toronto the Good Party, which will begin immediately following the symposium.

The second symposium will consist of a plenary session with international and local speakers, a panel discussion and a poster expo in the Great Hall showcasing regional Tower Renewal projects and research.  The aim of the symposium is to showcase the wide range of research and initiatives related to Tower Renewal in a visual format, and provide a venue for those engaged in these initiatives to network, compare notes, and collaborate.

International speakers will include Peter Head, Chairmen of Global Planning for Arup, and Prof. Frank Wassenberg, a Senior Researcher with TU Delft and the Hague’s Nicis Institute in the Netherlands. Headquartered in London, Peter Head leads regional sustainability projects throughout the world, and has lent his expertise to Toronto’s Tower Renewal Project.  Prof. Wassenberg is an expert in urban renewal and governance, with specific expertise in the large Tower Renewal initiative in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer Neighbourhood.

The Toronto the Good parties bring together a broad cross-section of Torontonians who are interested in the City and in city building. The first Toronto the Good parties took place at the Distillery District, but there was one at Fort York, when the Mayor shot off a cannon. The 2011 invasion of Hart House is a new venture to celebrate Cities Centre at the University of Toronto.

With Toronto the Good’s founding partners Spacing Magazine and the Toronto Society of Architects, this year, the list of partners is growing and currently includes the National Film Board, the United Way, the Carpenters’ Union, Coach House Books, and the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

More information for Toronto the Good can be found here.

To attend the Tower Renewal Symposium, contact Kathryn Grond at Cities Centre.