Under the Boardwalk, down by the sea, on a blanket with my baby, is where I'll be. — The Drifters

The Gardiner Expressway's form was questioned even before it was completed but, for better or worse, it has played a significant role in shaping the city and people's perception of it. There have been plenty of ideas for how to make better use of the structure, but few have been implemented.

Architects and planners can offer ideas and shape construction — but, in the end, it is people's use of spaces that make them work, or not. Many people have an interest in what happens to the Gardiner — those who drive, cycle and walk its course; those who live, work or play alongside it; and those who own property and businesses nearby — but is there a community for the public space under this piece of infrastructure?

Public Workshop is not presenting another scheme, but a call to action for the wider 'Gardiner Community' to discover the spaces under the expressway before they are lost. We offer this map for you to go on weekend rambles in this large covered public space. Find out what lies in the unused areas beneath the expressway, become familiar with the rhythm of its columns and offer your thoughts to Waterfront Toronto.

This summer, on a hot day when the yellow umbrellas at the waterfront don't provide enough shade, why not take refuge under this piece of Toronto's urban heritage. On a blanket with my baby, it's where I'll be.

Under the Gardiner Map PDF Coming Soon!

TEAM:
Helena Grdadolnik and David Colussi

Public Workshop

Public Workshop is a practice based in Toronto that engages people with the design of architecture and public space through installations, events and education programs.

Public Workshop was formed in 2009 by Helena Grdadolnik, an architectural activist and public space consultant who has worked with non-profit organisations, private developers and municipalities in Canada and the UK on creative programs and events related to public space. She has taught architectural principles to children, post-secondary students and municipal councillors. Helena has co-authored Towards an Ethical Architecture and The Contemporary Canadian Metropolis and she has written for Canadian Architect, Azure and Frame.

Helena works in collaboration with David Colussi, an architect who is interested in the relationship of buildings to public space. Colussi specialises in designing community and education buildings, with a particular expertise designing schools for students with special needs.

Public Workshop seeks to involve the people who will be most affected by physical changes to an area. Public Workshop's projects are often temporary and only sometimes physical, but they often catalyse permanent improvements to buildings or public spaces.

publicworkshop.ca

Discover the Greenway, 25 July 2009, London, UK
Image courtesy of LOCOG

Discover the Greenway developed by Helena Grdadolnik while CABE's project manager for Discovering Places.
Delivered in partnership with: Architecture Centre Network, Heritage Link and Natural England.

Toronto-based artist Martha Eleen contributes a selection of paintings to this exhibition documenting a cultural phenomena that influences how communities develop. This component of the exhibition of architecture and COMMUNITY CENTRED is presented by Visual Arts at Harbourfront Centre as part of an ongoing interdisciplinary focus.

"Necessities of Life is a new body of work in progress exploring the poetics of big box mall signage in the context of the cultural landscape. This is the fourth series investigating suburban sprawl outside Toronto, depicting an environment based on the unsustainable, and already collapsing, car culture. The language of the big box mall signage is a deeply significant description of our needs and desires. It is also an expression of our denial of the impending global ecological crisis."

"The big box mall is an institution in control of its access and activity. Marshall McLuhan talks about buildings as self-contained communication systems; the very architecture is a dynamic medium that conveys the message of a high demand for social order. He says that "architecture shapes and rearranges the patterns of human association and community." (Marshall Mcluhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964). How does something as imposing and monolithic as a big box mall fall so beneath our notice as to become almost invisible? Institutions operate to control what we are able to see. To view a building as a medium enables us to see its social function."

"The process of composing the paintings involves moving within the landscape and engaging in the local culture over a period of time. I am interested in the myriad relationships between significant objects, symbols and events: texture and temperature of air, weather, smell and sound, distances and the way things sit in space, the effect of human activity on the landscape and in reverse, the effect of the landscape on culture. My goal as a painter is to develop and increase my ability to be present in order to include these experiences in visual language. My artistic intention is that each painting, alone or in the context of each series of paintings, conveys to the viewer this passage of time."

— Martha Eleen

Martha Eleen

Martha Eleen is an honours graduate of Emily Carr College of Art, Vancouver, Canada. Her paintings have been exhibited in public galleries in Canada, U.S.A and Mexico and will be shown in Japan in 2010. Into the 905: The View From the Car, 2002-2005, Peace Village, 2006, High Tech Road 2007-2008 have been exhibited at the St.Thomas-Elgin Public Art Centre, 2009, Fringe Benefits curated by Ian Chodikoff at the Design Exchange, Toronto, 2008, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, 2007, Cambridge Public Gallery, Grimsby Public Gallery and Bricks to Babel curated by Gary Michael Dault at Lehman-Leskiw Gallery,Toronto, 2005. These works have received critical attention in the form of reviews, curatorial essays and publication. Martha Eleen is represented by Loop Gallery in Toronto. She teaches painting and drawing at Toronto School of Art.

marthaeleen.com

Martha Eleen, Dream, 2009, oil on wood. 16" x 16".
Image courtesy of the artist.