Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: nxt city

  • Fall event roundup

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    It’s still sunny and beautiful outside, so I don’t mean to be the one who prematurely calls fall. But I would like to get 3 Toronto events on your radar for the coming two months. 

    Full disclosure: These are all events that I support and/or my company supports in some way. 

    If you’re not based in Toronto and you don’t plan to be here this fall, you can stop reading right now and check back tomorrow. I promise to will try to be less Toronto-centric.

    1. EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation and Technology, September 28 – October 8

    This is a 10-day immersive experience that will showcase how the intersection of design, technology and innovation can change the world. Think exhibits by Bruce Mau and Carlo Ratti; talks by David Suzuki and Scott Dadich (former editor-in-chief of WIRED and creator of the Netflix series The Art of Design); and projects spanning 3D-printed prosthetics to indigenous housing solutions. 70 speakers. 40 workshops. And over 150,000 sf of exhibits. Too much to write about here, but all topics and themes we frequently explore on this blog. Ticketing information here.

    2. NXT City Public Space Symposium, October 13 – 14

    This is a two day symposium about public space on a global stage. Talks. Public space tours. Round table sessions. And an epic after-party. Some of the speakers include Jeff Risom (Partner at Gehl Architects); Enrique Norten (Founder of TEN Arquitectos in Mexico City – and one of my grad school professors); and Mirik Milan (Amsterdam’s Night Mayor and someone who has gotten quite a bit of airtime on this blog). If you click here to grab your tickets, you’ll get 15% off. If for whatever reason that doesn’t work, use the code BDONN15.

    3. lost&gone: Romeo & Juliet, October 19 – 21 and October 27 – 28

    This is, I think, Toronto’s first truly immersive theater experience. For those of you who aren’t familiar, immersive theater is about turning the audience into participants of the production. It eliminates the “fourth wall” that traditionally divides audience and performers. I’ve heard great things about similar productions elsewhere in the world. The venue is a secret, so the show starts today with you having to try and figure out where it is in the core of Toronto. When you buy your tickets, you’ll also have to let them know if you’re a guest of the Capulets (Juliet’s family) or a guest of the Montagues (Romeo’s family). 

    Enjoy 🙂

    Photo by Brxxto on Unsplash

  • Short term, lasting impact

    NXT City and Pavilion Project are hosting an event on March 23, 2017 here in Toronto (at the Drake Hotel) called Short Term, Lasting Impact. 

    It’s all about how “temporary, low-cost and scalable [urban] interventions” can bring about lasting / meaningful change within our cities.

    Here’s some info on the panelists / topics:

    Matt Rubinoff, Tusk Global // STACKT

    This temporary shipping container market proposes a visionary complex with everything from retail and restaurants to studio spaces and a brewery. What are some of the challenges of bringing an unconventional project to life?

    Rui Pimenta & Layne Hinton, Art Spin // IN/FUTURE ART FESTIVAL

    This art experience reclaimed a beloved Toronto space, transforming it briefly through a multidisciplinary art and music festival. What opportunities can site-specific events bring to celebrate underused spaces?

    Michael McLelland, ERA Architects // PORTLANDS PROJECT

    There are many long-term and competing visions for Toronto’s Portlands. How do we make best use of this prime city site today? How can short-term planning inform a future agenda and create critical cultural space in the near-term?

    I know the folks behind both of these non-profits (NXT City and Pavilion Project), and so I am happy to support this event. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased here.

  • re:Public + NXT City Night

    On Friday, November 25th, NXT City will be hosting a one-day symposium here in Toronto (re:Public) that brings together some of the top people, projects, and ideas in the world of public spaces. Following that will be an after party (called NXT City Night) that runs from 8pm to very late. 🙂

    Here are some of the organizations that will be represented at the symposium: City of Toronto, Uber, CivicAction, Monocle, Arup, STEPS Initiative, Breather, The Laneway Project, Oxford Properties, as well as many others. It will be a great event.

    For the full speaker list, the agenda, and to buy tickets, click here. There’s an under 35 / student offering for both the symposium during the day and the after party at night. If you attend during the day though, you automatically get a pass to the after-party. I hope to see you there.

    Here’s a time lapse video from NXT City Night (edition 2015). If you can’t see it below, click here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i6R687sdk0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

  • Urban change through rapid prototyping

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    The Market Street Prototyping Festival is just finishing up in San Francisco. The festival, which is now in its 3rd year, is centered around urban interventions that can be rapidly prototyped and tested. The goal is to discover new ideas that could be used to transform and improve Market Street – the city’s civic spine. It is a joint effort of both the San Francisco Planning Department and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

    Here is a list of all the prototypes. You can “like” projects, but I wish they would have made it easier to filter and see which ones are the most popular.

    One project that I liked is Vote With Your Feet. It consists of two doorways and a single crowdsourced YES/NO question above it. You vote by choosing a doorway. Once you walk through, you are then shown the results. Here’s a Boomerang video of it in action. I like it because it provides a frictionless way to acquire lots of ground-up feedback. Imagine placing something like this at the exit of a busy train station or transforming the existing doors.

    Tactical urbanism can be a great mechanism for investigating and instigating positive change. This is hugely important considering how slow moving and bureaucratic city building can be. It’s not the same format, but NXT City here in Toronto has similar ambitions. They source new ideas for our public spaces from young people. I am thrilled that both of these initiatives exist.

  • A new vision of Yonge Street

    Back in April I wrote about a competition for young people to reimagine public space in Toronto. It was called NXT City. Well that prize has been awarded and the winner was Richard Valenzona for his vision–called Yonge-Redux–of a new and reimagined Yonge Street. To download the PDF of his entry (the image shown above), click here.

    The proposal encompasses a stretch of Yonge Street that runs from Queen Street in the south, to College Street in the north. It would capture the Toronto Eaton Centre (mall), Yonge-Dundas Square, Ryerson University’s expanded Yonge Street footprint, and the massive mixed-use developments happening in the College Park area (see Aura Tower). To quickly simplify, the proposal is essentially about enhancing the urban experience, prioritizing pedestrians, and reducing the flow of cars to two lanes.

    Overall, I think it’s a wonderful proposal and I’m not surprised it won NXT City. This type of intervention is on so many of our minds. In fact, it’s somewhat surprising that we’ve been as slow as we have to improve our main street. There are so many anchor institutions, such as the Eaton Centre and Ryerson University, that plug into this section of Yonge Street. It makes a lot of sense.

    But as I said in my original post, one of the most exciting things about the NXT City Prize is that it has always been about execution. This is not just an academic exercise–or at least that’s the hope. This exercise is about spurring real change in the city and I genuinely hope that they’re successful in doing so. Because then I can turn around and say: Take that Melbourne 🙂

    Kudos to Richard Valenzona, Mackenzie Keast, as well as everyone else involved in NXT City, for making this initiative a reality and for doing your part to make Toronto even more awesome.

  • Competition for young people under the age of 30 to reimagine public space in Toronto

    If you are under 30, you love Toronto and you care about public spaces in this city, I would encourage you to check out the NXT City Prize. It’s a public space competition being organized by a number of local organizations including Distl. (and my friend Mackenzie Keast), Loop, Gen Y, and the City of Toronto.

    Toronto needs great ideas for its public spaces. Ideas that are big, bold and unconventional. Ideas from champions, outsiders and geniuses. Ideas that recognize Toronto’s greatness–and its potential for the future.

    The competition opens today and anybody (under 30) can enter. The winner will receive $5,000 in cash, and then $10,000 to work on actually implementing the idea(s). What’s cool and unique about this competition is that it’s not just an ideas competition. It’s a competition based on doing and executing.

    Click here to download the competition brief.