Josie Harrison

Indrit Alushani and Craig Deebank have had a behind-the-scenes look at the many things cities must do to make large sporting events such as the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games possible.

The two recent Master of Architecture grads scored contract positions doing what’s known as Games overlay – designing and overseeing the construction of the temporary infrastructure required for venues hosting the Games.

Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies student Josie Harrison spoke with them about their experience, what they have learned about designing venues for accessible international sporting events, and how the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design helped prepare them for their roles.

What exactly is “Games overlay”?

Alushani: Games overlay deals with the temporary infrastructure that is needed to run the Games. This includes but is not limited to commodities and spaces that are necessary to meet the standards of an international sporting event. Overlay managers collaborate closely with stakeholders and others who will use the venue to ensure the space that meets everyone’s requirements.

Deebank: I was told when I started that no venue is 100 per cent ready to host a game. There is always an alteration process that takes place based on the game’s unique standards and protocol. There are a lot of different client groups you have to please at the end of the day within the design and budget parameters you’ve been given.

In some cases, venues are 100 per cent overlay. For example, some venues are constructed over parking lots – such as the beach volleyball venue. The overlay team would bring in the temporary seating, sand, power, platforms, grandstands, broadcast stands and all of the other things required to make the venue and sport function. These are removed at the end of the Games and can be repurposed for other things.

Could you describe your role for the Games?

Alushani: I was first assigned to the East Zone team to help out six site managers who were in charge of designing and delivering the infrastructure of one or more venue. At first you would jump from one task to another, one venue to another. As things progressed I was assigned to assist in the delivery of the President’s Choice Pan Am Ballpark in Ajax where baseball and softball was held, as well as the General Motors Center in Oshawa for the weightlifting and boxing. Lately I've been working at the Abilities Centre in Whitby, which is hosting boccia and judo during the Parapan Am Games.

(Image below: Alushani at President's Choice Pan Am ballpark)

Deebank: As an overlay site manager in the West Zone, I was involved in managing the design of several venues and delivery phase of the Cisco Milton Pan Am / Parapan Am Velodrome. It’s a high-pressure environment. One day you’re working on coordinating the Velodrome cycling track; the next day you’re trying to plan the cycling time trial race. During the design phase you jump around from venue to venue, sport to sport, so there’s a lot of learning that takes place. A lot of the people working in our overlay department are architects or architecturally trained. It’s very much like a studio environment. We don’t do physical models, but we sketch a lot and use similar software. So it’s like being in a studio, but you are putting on the Games.

What kind of things did you have to consider when designing overlay with the Parapan Am Games in mind?

Alushani: The Abilities Centre building in Whitby has won a number of awards for design excellence with respect to accessibility. It serves as a center for rehabilitation and is a true celebration of barrier-free design, which made things quite easy for us in overlay as the building was already so well designed for individuals with physical limitations. The striking element in the building is the gradual ramp that starts from the ground floor and leads to the upper level. There was a great level of consideration for ramp slopes or demarcation of raised steps or cable flies in areas with high traffic. I have learned so much about accessible design. It was inspiring to see how design can create so many opportunities and become a means of inclusion.

Deebank: The Cisco Milton Velodrome is both a Pan and Parapan Am venue which I have been stationed at for the duration of the Games – it's a beautiful facility specifically designed to function for large track cycling events and accommodate a variety of accessible needs. During the design phase we had incorporated many barrier-free design features to our verlay spaces in order to reduce the amount of transition required.

In the West Zone, The Mississauga Sport Centre had the most Pan to Parapan changes as the overlay, sport and venue teams had transformed the venue to host combat sports (judo, taikwondo, karate and wrestling) and then wheelchair rugby, powerlifting and goalball. It was really impressive how that team transformed the hockey arenas into their current Games-ready state.

From an overlay perspective, the key things to consider were the Parapan user experience and to find design and cost efficiencies that would work for both Pan and Parapan's needs. I thought the TO2015 Organizing Committee had strong, experienced leadership with Parapan Planning and Integration and were able to help us collaborate through this unique process.

What have you learned from your experience working on overlay for the Games?

Alushani: Where do I even begin? This has been such a unique experience, and I consider myself lucky to have been part of it. Project management is one of the first things that comes to mind: being able to work with schedulers in order to have contractors build on time, meeting budgets and legal requirements, ensuring that the work is conducted safely, communicating and delegating work to a large number of people, from your own contractors to your colleagues. It is a huge role with great responsibility.

Deebank: It’s a very high tempo, fast paced, social, and collaborative environment. You have to be able to think quickly and be adaptable, and that’s been a fun challenge. I worked with many great people who have experience with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the World Cup in Brazil. Hearing what they did in these particular locations and the challenges they faced – be it a labour shortage or the need to use local materials – and how they problem-solved in those cases was really interesting. You learn more about the sports as well. I have spent a lot of time at the Cisco Milton Pan Am / Parapan Am Velodrome in Milton, so I learned a lot about track cycling; it’s incredible what the athletes can do. You don’t know how steep those curved walls are until you see it in person. And then you see the athletes ride at 70 km or more around it – it’s really cool.

(Image below: Deebank at Velodrome)

It has been great to see the large selection of Parapan sports offered. A few days ago I went to watch wheelchair rugby, a.k.a “Murderball,” at the Mississauga Sport Centre. As one would expect with a nickname of “Murderball,” this is a contact sport – those athletes are fierce competitors and can hit really hard! It was really entertaining and an amazing display of athleticism.

Speaking with a few of the athletes, coaches, sport organizers and volunteers throughout the Parapan Am Games, I've had the opportunity to learn about some of the athletes' stories and how they came to specialize in their Parapan sports. It's incredible what these athletes have accomplished and their commitment to their sport.

How did your time at the University of Toronto prepare you for this role?

Alushani: The Daniels Faculty is a world-class school of design in part because it emphasizes on collaboration and creativity. The Faculty welcomes people from different backgrounds both cultural and academic because diversity and collaboration is key to successful design ideas. The Toronto 2015 office has been one of the most diverse offices I have been to. People were coming from all ends of the world with different career backgrounds, working together to create one unique and remarkable final product, the Pan Am games.

Deebank: The Daniels Faculty really promotes the City as an organism, understanding the city, and where architecture and design fits within it. This has stuck with me, and I try to apply it wherever I go. The Faculty also provides a diverse and collaborative environment between landscape architecture, visual studies, urbanism, and architecture, and people coming into these programs with completely varied academic backgrounds. There is a cross-disciplinary approach to problem solving. That, I think, was very applicable to this job. I’m really thankful for what I’ve learned at Daniels, and how I’ve been able to apply it in a professional setting.

(Above: the President’s Choice Pan Am Ballpark in Ajax)

Josie Harrison is a student and Dale Duncan is a writer with the University of Toronto's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design where this article originally appeared. Read more news from the Faculty.

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Jane's Walk: exploring the city with Denise Pinto

sgupta — Fri, 01 May 2015 10:32:48 +0000

Jane's Walk: exploring the city with Denise Pinto sgupta Fri, 05/01/2015 - 06:32

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A Jane's Walk weaves along Spadina to explore women's labour in the city. Walk led by Tanya Ferguson / Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, 2014 (photo by Moe Laverty)

Josie Harrison

Author legacy

Josie Harrison

Topic

Since graduating from the University of Toronto's master of landscape architecture program in 2011 with a specialization in knowledge media design, Denise Pinto has piloted an impressive multi-disciplinary career, incorporating civic engagement into a diverse range of fields.

These days, Pinto is taking the work she does locally – which includes advocating for safe, accessible and stimulating pedestrian environments and encouraging people to explore their city on foot – to a global level. As global director of Jane’s Walk, an annual international festival of citizen-led walking tours, she has been convening conversations within communities in cities around the world.

Architectural studies undergrad student Josie Harrison met with Pinto (pictured at right) in advance of this year’s Jane’s Walks (taking place May 1-3) to learn more about walking tours as a form of civic engagement, Jane Jacobs’ influence in the online virtual world in Second Life, and how her landscape architecture degree helped prepare her for the work she does today.

Can you describe Jane’s Walk?
Jane’s Walk is a global project of citizen-led walking tours inspired by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. On the first weekend of May, we host an annual festival which takes place in over 100 cities. Last year, in Toronto alone, over 150 walking tours were held over the course of three days!

The project isn’t an expert-led initiative – we encourage people of all ages and abilities to explore and discuss the places they live, work and play. Everybody has a perspective or experience that can offer real insight into making better, more inclusive cities. The walks are an incredible platform for civic dialogue because people don’t feel intimidated to attend and participate like they might at a town hall meeting. Walkers are encouraged to explore neighbourhoods in a way that means something to them, and in some cases that even creates an appetite for grassroots action.

What are your responsibilities as global director?
As the global director, my responsibilities are to think about the project’s broad impacts. For example, we’ve grown Jane’s Walk to include in-class education for high school students, workshops in priority neighbourhoods, and facilitated conversations between organizers across different continents. I manage our staff and help build partnerships in Toronto, across Canada and in the United States. My goal is to bring together the constellation of people who are part of the project and engage them in a discussion about what civic dialogue looks like in different places, and what the walks can teach us about shaping good cities.

Your past work experience has involved a diverse range of projects that incorporate various forms of civic engagement. What inspired your interest in this area?
I started with an interest in human-centered design research, and that interest has stayed with me. HCD focuses on human interactions, persuasions and habits. It understands messy systems and contradictions and incentives. Urban landscapes are some of the most complex and messy systems, so making them legible and understandable at the community scale is vital. Figuring out how and why people engage with, invest in and steward public spaces is an intensely interesting question.

Podcast

(Click the down-pointing arrow button in the player to download episode and transfer to your listening device. Transcript available here. Also available on iTunes and The Cities Podcast home)

How did your experience at the Daniels Faculty prepare you for the work that you do today?
One of our goals is to increase "urban literacy." Urban literacy is about understanding that the city is a made thing, it can be reworked and appropriated. My background in landscape architecture gave me a set of methods and technical skills to design and critique public spaces which is essential to the advocacy part of my job. I also think that toggling between a great many scales, from a human interaction right up to regional and watershed issues, requires a mental flexibility that is sorely needed to take on today’s civic challenges.

Although you haven’t pursued a traditional career as a landscape architect, you have remained well connected to the field as a regular contributor to Ground, the magazine of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects. How do you see your relationship to the field and your future within it?
What landscape architecture was when it first became a professional body is very different from where we are now. I see myself as occupying an “edge space” that explores where the profession is going, what it intersects with, and how to make sense of the overlaps. We have just started to think about how an age of pervasive data affects our relationship with urban places. That brings up all sorts of questions about how our experience with urban landscapes is mediated, amplified or enabled by our devices. Jane’s Walk deals with stewarding a global face-to-face movement through a website, so it looks to technology as an ally. Landscape architects are uniquely positioned to think about the world in terms of these kinds of spatial and social relationships.

That reminds me, I noticed that there’s going to be a digital Jane’s Walk this year.
It’s true! Vanessa Blaylock, an artist with a virtual-reality-based practice and an interest in walking, has signed on to organize a ‘walk’ in Second Life. Inspired by Jane Jacobs, she and her colleagues see the critique of car-centric culture paralleled in this massive virtual world, which has taken on a culture of its own. In Second Life, users are able to fly and teleport as a method of travel. Flying and teleporting, Baylock noticed, is the equivalent of driving – it’s detrimental to the community and social fabric in Second Life. They were moved by the idea that if we seal ourselves off from the world and the city’s streets (as we often do when driving), then we can’t observe, relate to, and engage deeply with the wonderful diversity of things around us. She and others launched a project called Pedestrian Access, which includes “no-fly, no-teleport” zones. In these zones, Second Life users have to walk around so that they will come across and interact with the stuff they would miss if they were simply going from point A to point B through flight or teleportation.

I’m excited that this walk will be happening. It’s a novel context. It is the kind of mental flexing that I think we should encourage – a cross-pollination between two concepts that are not obviously similar. What can we learn from melding ideas like this?

(Walkers ascend the staircase to Mabelle Park in Etobicoke to talk about "idea gardening." Walk led by Leah Houston / MabelleArts, 2013 - photo by Jeremy Kai)

When I was doing the research for this interview, I thought, “If I led a walk, what would I discuss?” – and I realized that I had no idea. Do you know of any good brainstorming strategies?
This is a big, big question for us. One approach is to start using some of the existing tours given by citizen walk leaders in other places as story templates.

We also have tools that people can use to jump start the process. We take an asset-based community development approach (ABCD) to our workshops, which we host in libraries and community centres to draw in a wide audience. ABCD is about taking an inventory of all the things that are of value to a person in the places around them. We ask questions like “What spaces do you feel safe to walk around in? What’s one neighbourhood you go to often and why? What’s something that happened to you near where you live?” These prompts can become fodder for a really good tour.

The other thing you can do is to go for a walk with a friend. That’s often a really great way of sussing out topics that might come up in conversation. To capture the ideas that come up while you wander, we’re introducing an Instagram plugin so that people can walk around, take photos, tag them onto a map, and think about whether there’s a narrative arc that they can turn into a story.

The very last thing is a series of video tips for walk leaders, which you can access once you register on janeswalk.org. One of the videos discusses how to create dialogue by inviting responses and stories from people in the crowd. I went on a great walk that did this. The walk leader got to one of the stops, and said, “You know, I don’t know anything about this space,” and then passed the mic off. It was truly a conversation because everybody was able to share something.

That moment when you learn about how varied and storied the places around you are, and that you only have one slice of the experience, that’s what’s so special and wonderful. I haven’t yet found a project outside of Jane’s Walk that gets at community engagement in quite that way.

For more information on Jane’s Walk, visit janeswalk.org

Josie Harrison is a student of architectural studies at the University of Toronto.

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