What if, in Toronto, “great” was the only acceptable standard? What It Is And What It Should Be thinks about ways to improve the cityspace, a few bits at a time.

The fourteen new bike stands designed by students at OCAD University probably won’t mark the beginning of the end for the old ring and post bike stands, which have long been a fixture—and a favorite target of bike thieves—on Toronto’s streets. That might be too much to ask at a time when cycling itself has [...]

City Hall during this year’s Doors Open. Photo by Bryson Gilbert from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. If talk about Toronto has taken a negative turn, a new collection of essays called Local Motion is trying to get us out of the doldrums. Edited by Dave Meslin, Christina Palassio, and Alana Wilcox, Local Motion features fourteen [...]

Design by Laurence Lui/Torontoist. Click here to view it bigger. During this year’s election campaign, there was a lot of talk of new subways in the suburbs, but very little discussion of how we could improve transit for the part of Toronto that depends on it most: the downtown. With dust now settling, and a [...]

Photo by Eric Yip/Torontoist. Bruce Mau, the OCAD-dropout-turned-graphic-designer best known for dropping the “graphic” from his title to become an authority on all things just, good, and beautiful, was the guest of honour at the now-two-weeks-past Design Exchange Black & White Fundraising Gala. It was at said gala, on the cusp of our city’s mayoral [...]

What if, in Toronto, “great” was the only acceptable standard? What It Is And What It Should Be thinks about ways to improve the cityspace, a few bits at a time. References: Werk Magazine, January 1973, Der Golem von Niki de St-Phalle Dwell Magazine, May 2007, Structured Play

Summing a city up in a phrase, we said when our better Toronto slogan competition started, isn’t easy. But hundreds of Torontonians tried, and when our judging panel of city thinkers was tasked with narrowing the submissions down, they had more than a thousand Toronto slogans to choose from. Those thousand somehow became ten finalists—some [...]

OneToronto’s PowerPoint presentation, as presented Friday morning during their press conference. Toronto has been an angry place during this municipal election. OneToronto is angry about that. A coalition of community and political organizations, as well as concerned individuals, OneToronto was formed about three weeks ago with a goal in mind: engage voters in a positive, [...]

One by one, we’re revealing the finalists for our better Toronto slogan competition, complete with mock tourism posters. Vote for your favourite starting October 6. NAME: Visit Toronto. See the World. SUBMITTED BY: Todd Aiken PHOTOGRAPHED BY: Remi Carreiro/Torontoist POSTER DESIGNED BY: Marc Lostracco/Torontoist JUDGES’ COMMENTS: “Another slogan with ‘world’ in it, this one benefits [...]

Will Alsop speaks at the Universities as City Builders discussion at the Design Exchange. Photo by Dario Ruberto/Ryerson University. Let’s get this out of the way right off the top: Will Alsop doesn’t like Rob Ford. And, before we get to that, one more important thing about this story: it’s not really a story at [...]