Dan Doctoroff, the CEO of Sidewalk Labs (and the former deputy mayor of New York City), was recently interviewed by BNN Bloomberg about the company’s plans and ambitions for Quayside here in Toronto.
He talks about the project; their interest in timber construction; how the company, Sidewalk Labs, might ultimately make money; and how their mission is to create a global hub for urban innovation.
This last point is, of course, the most exciting opportunity – both for Sidewalk Labs/Alphabet and for Toronto. And it’s why many people believe that Quayside will end up a far greater (economic development) coup compared to HQ2.
The interview is only 10 minutes. If you can’t see it embedded below, click here.
Politico Magazine recently published this article about Sidewalk Toronto. It’s called: Google Is Building a City of the Future in Toronto. Would Anyone Want to Live There?
If you’re familiar with what Sidewalk Toronto is up to, the first bit will likely cover things you already know. But later on it gets into an interesting discussion around data privacy, among other things.
One argument is that if you strip any personal identifiers from the data you collect, then you’ve effectively eliminated the issue of privacy.
But what about “collective privacy?”
What if you could, for example, identity signs of concentrated drug usage within certain districts, communities, or even buildings? Does that start to get a little too personal?
This is the great debate surrounding Quayside, the area that Sidewalk is focused on. The article also touches on what Quayside could mean for the future of Toronto.
Just about all players involved believe that if Sidewalk can be successful at Quayside, it has a shot at the adjoining 800-acre Port Lands, a swath of problem space big enough to become home to a dozen new neighborhoods in a growing metropolis. Townsend, the consultant, says of the Port Lands: “That’s a city they’re going to build there. This is just the warmup, this little piece.”
Full article, here. There’s also an audio version in case that’s your preferred consumption method. It’s about 40 minutes long if you do it that way (and don’t speed it up).
Today’s post is going to be about a handful of things that have caught my attention.
- Gary Hack, who is the former dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, recently published a book called Site Planning: International Practice. It is a textbookish guide to planning processes, new technologies, and sustainability, with an emphasis on rapidly urbanizing countries. Thank you to my friend Michael Geller for bringing this to my attention.
- Sidewalk Labs Toronto is opening a new experimental workspace here in Toronto at 307 Lake Shore Boulevard East (Queens Quay & Parliament) on Saturday, June 16th from 12 - 6pm. It’s an old fish processing plant that they have turned into their office. The team will work there during the week and on the weekends they will open to the public to showcase what they’re up to. Register for the June 16th event, here. I just did.
- Alexandra Lange has a recent piece in the New Yorker called, The Hidden Women of Architecture and Design. It’s about the important role that women have played in the “design of childhood”, which is the title of a book by Lange. There’s also a short but interesting story about Detroit’s Lafayette Park (Mies van der Rohe) at the beginning of the article.
- Finally, here is a blog post by Witold Rybczynski where he talks about the shortcomings of architectural education. Obscure theories. Technical or made-up jargon. And no concern for budgets and schedules. I have always shared a similar view and have long felt that there needs to be more business school in architecture school.
Hopefully there’s something in here that is of interest to you.