Azure Awards 2024: Winner People's Choice for Environmental Leadership
The Parks in Action exhibition highlights the role of parks, open spaces, and the public realm in fostering climate action in Toronto’s inner suburbs. Urban green spaces range from expansive ravine networks to pocket gardens, and from street rights-of-ways to school yards and green roofs. Regardless of their scale, they are valuable tools for urban climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Toronto’s parks fulfill essential social and environmental prerogatives, including mitigating urban heat island effect, supporting biodiversity, and improving air quality. Similarly, they offer crucial water management goals and reduce the impact of extreme weather events. Well designed parks also act as inclusive gathering places, fostering social interaction, health, and well-being.
“Parks in Action” aims to demonstrate how climate action in the public realm is generative of participatory design and social engagement—from the scale of small local installations “hubs” to“tower communities” along urban watersheds. Central to this work is the link between social equity and climate adaptation—ensuring that all communities, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, have equal access to green spaces and their benefits.
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS
Fadi Masoud
Victor Perez-Amado
RESEARCH & DESIGN LEADS
Alex Sheinbaum
Rashmi Sirkar
EXHIBITION PARTNER - SCHOOL OF CITIES
Cassandra Alves
Austin Grant
Felicity Heyworth
Cara Krmpotich
Lara Muldoon
TOWERS IN THE PARK RESEARCH (2020-2022)
- COMMUNITY PARTNER - CENTRE FOR CONNECTED COMMUNITIES
Anne Gloger
Umema Sharafali
- RESEARCH PARTNERS - UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Paul Kushner
Oya Mercan
Blake Poland
John Robinson
Imara Rolston
Karen Smith
Marianne Touchie
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS - TOWERS IN THE PARK
Luis Felipe Bendezu
Nadia Chan
Tina Cui
Louisa Kennett
Negar Ferdosi
Mena Hameed
Marie-Ellen Houde Hostland
Thi Ngo Anh Luu
Becky Martin
Garrett Morgan
Maria Alonso Novo
Irene Patrinos
Ambika Pharma
Ecem Sungur
Coco Wang
Yue Wang
Ruiqui Zhao
Ying Zheng
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS - CLIMATE ACTION HUBS
Ryan Cheng
Marienka Bishop-Kovac
Noah Spivak
Ying Zheng
WEBSITE DESIGN
Ecem Sungur
The work in this exhibition is the result of collaborative efforts between community members and researchers from across the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. It was guided by interdisciplinary research initiated by a 2020-21 School of Cities Urban Challenge Grant titled “Towers in the Park: A Prospective for Equitable Resilience,” and housed at the Daniels Faculty Centre for Landscape Research led by Assistant Professor Fadi Masoud. The Climate Action Hubs are a collaboration with the City of Toronto’s TransformTO climate action and TMU’sSchool of Urban and Regional Planning led by Assistant Professor Victor Perez-Amado.
Parks in Action was designed to include a range of active to passive participation opportunities that are both educational and procreative. Throughout July and August, engagement activities were hosted in the exhibition space, designed to bring together community members, climate research experts, NGOs and policy-makers. At these activities, a new participatory design tool was be piloted where participants tackled one of four pressing urban issues (urban heat, urban flooding, ecology & green infrastructure, or public space activation). Through this activity, players took a deep dive into Toronto’s unique towers-in-the-park landscapes and were encouraged to think critically about ways landscape can be infrastructure when we talk about climate mitigation and adaptation.
While working through this activity collaboratively, the ultimate goal is for all participants, regardless of background, was to walk away feeling more empowered and able to advocate for the types of changes they would like to see in Toronto, as well as have a better understanding of infrastructural solutions to climate risk. The dates and themes of the four workshops were as follows:
July 19: Public Space Activation
July 26: Urban Heat
August 9: Urban Flooding
August 23: Ecology & Green Infrastructure
The exhibition was designed to include a range of active to passive participation opportunities that are both educational and procreative - with the goal of shedding light on the critical role of the public realm in our communities. It highlighted a new form of knowledge sharing through a democratic, participatory process. The goal was to provide a unique opportunity to a diverse group of community members, researchers and policy-makers to have collaborative and solution-oriented discussions regarding ongoing urban issues.