Kipling Station Maps

Occupancy vs. Business Overlay

We chose to overlay these maps because they signify the opposite ends of the spectrum. They indicate, together, that the two forces play in close proximity to each other. The two maps together really fill up our constraints of our base map.

Occupancy vs. Available Transit Overlay

In this overlay, the maps seem to frame each other into sections. The transit hubs, or stops, indicate the outer extremities of each individual neighborhood. It is also very easy to see the areas in the occupied zones, where transit is not readily available, and a moderate walk is necessary to reach a specific stop. It also readily displays the direct relationship between the transit routes, and the railway system the flows through the middle. It is simple to identify the only main passage over the tracks.

Exercise Five: Tiffany Huta

Scotia Bank Headquarters: 44 king street, toronto.

Three interesting facts about the historic west corner of the Scotia Plaza are the buildings rich Canadian history which can still be seen today in the buildings architecture, a frightening raid back in 2005, and the overall welcoming feeling provided by the buildings many services.

1. In march of 1900, the Bank of Nova Scotia moved it's headquarters to toronto in order to take advantages of opportunities provided by the expansion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Klondike Gold-rush, and being closer to areas where the company was planing on expanding to. As a way to show Canada's progress to become what we are today, there is a marble bas-relief sculpture portraying workers from Canada's past, which is counter-pointed on the south wall of the atrium with one of the largest oil paintings commissioned in Canada (measures over 100' tall). This sculpture and oil painting are used to connect new with old just as the plaza itself does.

2. As reported by CTV, on February 2nd, 2005 the RCMP raided Scotia Bank Toronto headquarters to continue their investigation into financial activities of Royal Group Technologies Ltd.  Supposedly six men were under investigation for six criminal charges and also eleven companies and 24 bank accounts figured in the investigation.

3. As part of the community feel of the Plaza, there are main services available. One service that i found which was phenomenal and would help me out a great deal on those rain days is an umbrella rental service. If you forget your umbrella all you have to do is go up to the security desk and ask them for one. Crazy isn't it? There are also other services that are very helpful like concierge services, underground parking, car wash and valet services, dry cleaning and last but not least a daycare! 

Exercise Five: Katie Felton

COMMERCE COURT BUILDING WEST-located at Wellington and Bay St.



1. Last winter, initiating the fall of capitalism (literally), a piece of the CIBC sign fell onto Bay Street, thankfully, injuring no one.


2.On site Commerce Court Health Centre offers, chiropractic, physio, acupuncture art, massage, naturopathy, and psychotherapy. Obviously, its hard to stay healthy/sane, when the market is crashing around you. Stressed investment bankers can read about the full body and mind health opportunities in the health centre's quarterly Body Health, or look at their website www.commercecourthelth.com. The clinic director is Dr. Shannon Dales.


3. During Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the building complex oversaw the projection of Winnipeg-native and film maker Noam Gonick's short flim, Commerce Court. The film depicted the psychological breakdowns of CEOs and investment bankers inside the walls of the building during the week and featured a series of expressions used in market-jargon. It was played 240 times from dusk to dawn and ended with the echo of the Wall Street protest, "you broke it, you bought it."
The wife of the CIBC Wood Gundy vice president even turned out among the viewers, once she learned how long the film would be, quoted saying, "oh well, we all have three minutes."

A Short Introduction

I suppose this is not the first time I am to introduce my self in a formal way, and discuss the predictability of my unpredictable future. We find ourselves lost in an abyss of possibilities in front of a question such as this, so quickly our imagination surpass our rationality, that I often think too much reflection could lead to a misleading reality.
Yet how ironic it is that I, so aware of the deceiving mind, should decide to become a designer. A master of deception and a practitioner of the theoretical and so called philosophy. A jester who attempts to sum up the whole of human experience in a single speech, on a single piece of paper. A prisoner under the heavy fortress of my assumed knowledge.
Yet, how happy it makes me, to think, to lavish my self with the succulent juice of the forbidden fruit. A thousand thanks to Adam, for making my life so exciting, so full of colors and games. I take flight in the ultimate conditions of nihilism, and to embrace life for what it is.

... and in ten years, I will have a degree in architecture and be doing CAD drawings with collage interns.

Project One, Part Three. Anna Totska. Katie Felton, Alanna McFarland

McCowan Station.

Katie Felton. Greenery.

Transportation. Alanna McFarland

Base Map. Anna Totska

Human Occupatin. Anna Totska

Downsview Station: Karen Lee, Claudia Kwon, Hobeen Lee, Nicol Berinstein

Label for Exercise Five

Please use the label 3.5 Exercise Five Submissions for Exercise Five: A Sectional Tour of Downtown Toronto.

Field Trip and Exercise Five: A Sectional Tour of Downtown Toronto

As a prologue to Project Two, we will begin next class with a tour of Downtown Toronto. This tour will take advantage of Toronto's PATH system and other non-street interconnections to explore the sectional relationships that exist in this urban environment.
I have assigned each of you a site, shown below (click to enlarge).
For Thursday, please research your site and be prepared to present a minimum of three interesting facts. Be creative about the facts you choose to present, and remember - the site includes more than its resident buildings. In order to acheive an "exceptional" grade for this Exercise, you will need to present at least one fact that I don't already know. Hint: if it's on Wikipedia, then I probably know it. Post your facts to the blog before 830AM on Thursday, October 16.

Click here to download a PDF of the tour map above.

PLEASE MEET AT 8:30AM AT THE NORTH-EAST CORNER OF UNION STATION.

We will conclude the tour with the launch of Project Two, back in room 556.

Project One, Part Three - Final Blog Post

Project One
Suburbia
Social Space in the Planametric City


PART THREE BLOG POST: DUE OCTOBER 16, 2008, 8:30AM

Having presented your final synthetic maps to me and the rest of the class, your group should now post them to the blog.

Please create one post per group that includes the following:

• Your group's final base map
• Each member of your group's final synthetic map,
• One or more overlays of your group's maps, possibly but not necessarily including your base map, with brief commentary describing the insights into the challenges and potentials of your site that this final creative recombination provides.

Please note:

• Each image should have a title.
• The overlays should be creative and well considered. It is unlikely that combining all of your maps into one will be a successful strategy. Instead, judiciously choose two or three maps that best combine to generate insight.
• Photographing your maps and overlay(s) may be a challenge, so don't leave it to the last minute.
• Please resize your images to 1600 pixels wide before posting them.
• Please include the name of your site and the names of all the members of your group in the post title.

Remember, this post is your last chance to curate your response to Project One, so prepare it with care. The quality of your post will largely determine your Group Co-ordination mark.

This final blog post for Project One is due at 8:30AM on Thursday, October 16.

Label for Project One, Part Three

Please use the label 2.1.3 Project One (Part Three) Submissions for Project One, Part Three.

Project One/Part Two: Katie Felton

The Agency of Mapping

This passage reminds me of how when photography first came out it was considered to be the absolute truth, an exact representation of what was on the other side of the lens, and how the camera was a completely objective tool to use. However, nobody took into to account the artistic merit of a photo such as the cropping, the colour etc.
James Corner is saying that people consider a map to be an objective truth and never take into account the decisions the mapper made when creating a map. So when one simply traces a map he/she takes on the biases of creator leaving no room for further interpretation or creativity. Through this Corner is saying there are two different kinds of maps, a traced map and a creative map which aids even further in the planning and design process.

Project One Support

Hi Class:

My apologies for not being able to cover everything I wanted to in class today. The fire alarm cost us an essential 15 minutes.

I will be available for questions during the following times:

Friday, October 3: 5:00PM-6:00PM
Monday, October 6: 9:00PM-10:00PM

I will either be in room 556 (our classroom) or in the 6th floor computer lab. If you have questions, but can't make either of these times, please email me before Tuesday morning.

Below are some notes regarding the things we didn't quite get to today. Note the links.

• John Snow's map of central London, showing the location of deaths from cholera in September 1854, is a historic example of how creative mapping practice can generate insight and precipitate change. I encourage you to watch this brief video that tells the story of this groundbreaking map.
• Exercise Four: Corner Reading Summary remains due. I understand that this reading is difficult. Please try your best and post what you can. We will be going over this reading next week. The Mapping Operations portion of the reading is especially pertinent to Project One.
• I have now established specific "Submission" labels for all deliverables, including Exercise Four. Please double check one last time that your blog posts are correctly labeled.
• I realize that some of you have not dealt with the Service Bureau before. This Project is an excellent opportunity to learn what they can do for you. They're very friendly and helpful, just don't leave everything until the last minute.

Lastly, below are a selection of maps from my aborted Parkdale mapping presentation. Note that these are not necessarily all examples of excellence - but they do provide an excellent demonstration of the variety of forces at play on a site, and different strategies for representing these forces.

Good luck with your maps, and see you next week.

Project One Marking Scheme Summary

The marking scheme for Project One is summarized below.

Annotated Observations: /5
Force Maps: /5
Base Map: /3
Quality of Information Collected: /3
Representation Style, Craft and Care: /3
Group Co-ordination: /3
Insights Derived: /3

Total: /25 (25% of your final mark)

Note that in order to promote creativity and permit flexibility, the marking scheme does not explicitly differentiate between Parts One, Two and Three, nor does it explicitly differentiate between group and individual activity. For example, your Base Map may improve between Parts Two and Three, and your Annotated Observations may have been a group effort.

Project One, Part Three

Project One
Suburbia
Social Space in the Planametric City


PART THREE: DUE OCTOBER 9, 2008, 8:30AM

Through imagery and prose, you have each identified five different forces affecting the social space of your site. You subsequently developed a base map, over which you created drawings which represented the spatial character of these forces. You will now prepare a final series of presentation quality maps which, through creative recombination, will synthesize your group's research and bring new insight into the challenges and potentials of your site.

Although drawn from measured observations in the world, mappings are neither depictions nor representations but mental constructs, ideas that enable and effect change. In describing and visualizing otherwise hidden facts, maps set the stage for future work. Mapping is always already a project in the making.

from The Agency of Mapping by James Corner, 1999

The orchid does not reproduce the tracing of the wasp; it forms a map with the wasp . . .

from A Thousand Plateau by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 1980

With your group and your instructor, discuss the base and force maps you prepared in Part Two. Is the field of your base map appropriate? Does it include inadequate or superfluous spatial information? What other data might inform your individual force maps? How might you sort the different maps created by your group into categories, and what titles might you assign to these categories? How can the information your group has collectively collected and represented be creatively recombined?

With your group, plot your base map, scaled such that its largest dimension is no more than 35 inches and its smallest dimension is no less than 25 inches. You may need to alter or augment the quality or quantity of information provided by your initial base map as a result of discussion with your group and your instructor.

Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin for Paris, as reproduced in
Crisis of the Object: Predicament of Texture
by Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, 1980

Collectively determine provisional titles for a series of synthetic maps that combine the information your group has collected and represented. Each member of your group is responsible for the creation one of the maps in your series. These maps are to be drawn or plotted onto sheets of mylar film that will be provided by your instructor. They should be presentation quality, and your group's efforts should be closely co-ordinated so that your maps, in combination, form a cohesive whole. Your maps will be overlain onto your base map, and onto each other, but they should also stand alone as analytical compositions of spatial information. Again, you may need to alter or augment the quality or quantity of information provided by your force maps as a result of discussion with your group and your instructor.

John Snow's map of central London, showing the location
of deaths from cholera in September 1854, as reproduced in
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
by Edward Tufte, 1983

Notes:

• To summarize, the task at hand is to sort your group's force maps into categories, title each category, and draw or plot new maps that creatively combine the information in each category that can each be accurately overlain onto a plot of your base map.
• Plot your base map as soon as possible so that it can be employed by all the members of your group. Your group may choose to plot one copy of the base map for each member, but this is not required.
• If you are plotting onto mylar, you must bring your file to Mark at the main Service Bureau desk (located on the 2nd floor of 100 McCaul) by 12PM on Tuesday, October 7 in order to ensure that he has sufficient time to handle your file. Please review the instructions provided on the Service Bureau website, especially with regards to file preparation. Take care in handling your plot, as the ink doesn't dry immediately.
• If you are drawing onto mylar, take care to keep your sheet clean, as per John Reed's demonstration in class. You only have one sheet, so work judiciously.
• Your group's base map should include a scale; each individual synthetic map should include a legend and a title. In general, minimize all other text as much as possible.

Please be prepared for a formal review of your maps at 8:30AM on Thursday, October 9. It is not necessary to upload your maps to the blog prior to this review, though this will ultimately be required.


EVALUATION

Quality of Information Collected: /3
Representation Style, Craft and Care: /3
Group Co-ordination: /3
Insights Derived: /3

Blog Hall of Shame

With the deadline for "cleaning up the blog" long since past. . . I'd like to announce the following inductees to the newly created Blog Hall of Shame.

In the category of "Random Draft Posts," members of which have left their lingering presence littered across the behind-the-scenes landscape, we have:

Mehdi
Sahar
Nicol
Nathan
Karen
Amanda

And in the "I Refuse To Be Labeled: Who Cares About My Exercise Mark?" category, we have:

Nathan
Anahita
Ho Been

Note: to be removed from the Hall of Shame, please do your part and help clean up the blog as soon as possible. Members, your Participation mark will suffer precipitously if you don't get yourself out of the Hall.

Exercise Four: Amin shahinbakhsh

Mapping is a technique that brings new possibilities. It is more than tracing what is real. It can bring the past and possibility of future together in one perspective. Mapping is a design tool for the urban developers. Mapping is known to be an analytical process that records the facts for our use. This does not make the science of mapping any less imaginary or inventive. It stands to be as important as any other part of design. The initiative is to make the existing condition evident. This part of the design is the most important since it creates the platform for creation. The technique of mapping has integrated over time with changes in technology, although the scheme and overall process has remained the same. It is important to consider the influence of mapping on our perception of future. Mapping influences our perception of the world and imagination of the future world. Mapping brings the present and future together. The new techniques have to take these into consideration.

Project One: Part Two- ANAHITA KIANI ( FINCH STATION)

project one part2 - Amin shahinbakhsh