Theme park

This week the challenge was to design a multi-age indoor playground to fit inside the towering Canadian malting silo. This building is located on the waterfront just behind the Harbourfront Community Centre. 

Our students may have noticed the outside of this building -which has been given a heritage designation by the city. The inside of the malting silo may be less familiar.

Various plans for this building have emerged over the years. None of them has yet come to fruition.

In planning a playground, we asked our students to think about taking advantage of the verticality of the structure: how could we make the most of all that height?

We started off this challenge with a 2D space planning design.  The indoor floor plan of the silo already suggests a playground with various different areas. Our students instantly think about different types of play areas and how these can accommodate different age groups.

 Next step:  we asked our young designers to build a 3D cardboard prototype on top of their plan.

These boys are brainstorming a survival playground. Even the entrance chute is an adrenaline inducing challenge!

The girls decide to build a nature themed playground and here is the end of the snake mouth slide.

 This design has an indoor garden plot, a small trampoline and a climbing jump tower. It also exploits the location of the malting silo with a water connection to the lake itself (for those brave souls wanting to go for a swim in the lake!)

City Building

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody..only when they are created by everybody. (Jane Jacobs)

Our imaginary city took shape at Artscape Youngplace's Recess 2 event. City building was an activity devised by the Givins ShawYouth Advisory Group and facilitated by Invention Squad. Our special guests Sipo Maphangoh and Daniel Fusca from the Toronto City Planning office shared insights about city development with the kids and parents.

Before

After

Daniel (right)

Sipo (left)

The first task was to fill the brainstorming centre with ideas for the evolving city:

And then the kids and parents built something awesome:

Community centre next to a park

The all edible restaurant

The gondola connecting different parts of the city together

Sidewalks, walkways and bike paths.

Cats were given pride of place in the city, with two cat play centres and even a cat bus.

Community housing

A concert hall by the lake.

An elevator to a viewing tower

Solar panel roofs on small houses.

Thanks to everyone -young and old- who participated in our city building event. It was fantastic seeing our city grow over time. Invention Squad encourages young people to design cities that work for people of all ages and abilities (and cats of course).