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Post-Post-Modernism
It seems strange to hook up your lean green biking machine to the pollution pumper itself, but a new kind of gas pump in Toronto might be greening up the urban landscape.
This new bike stand is just one of ten finalists in OCAD’s design competition, a project put in place to create new posts that are both “feasible and functional.” Last month, OCAD students were asked to think up new posts for the corner of Queen and McCaul, nearby the school, businesses, and galleries that help make up the city’s “Art Corridor.” The owner and architect of the property at 226 Queen Street West has plans to expand the sidewalk at the intersection’s northwest corner, leaving a little extra breathing (and biking) room to put new posts in place―and that’s where the students come in.
The project was inspired by David Byrne’s nine stands in NYC, which he submitted last summer after judging a similar competition. While the students’ designs may not be as cool, they’re certainly more creative (after all, they are attending what was almost the University of Imagination). And students aren’t doling out their designs without incentive―there’s a $6,000 reward set aside for the winning design, not for a shopping spree, but for its implementation. Constructions costs will be covered by the site’s developer. The top five of the ten designs shown above will receive rewards in the $1000s for their efforts, but first, the top ten must complete phase two of the competition―creating scale models of their design for presentation to a group of adjudicators. The jury’s made up of members from Pages Books, Urbane Cyclist, The Globe and Mail, and maybe you. Judgement day, March 30, is open to the public beginning at 9 a.m.
Photos courtesy of OCAD.