Back in the winter of 2009, Jeremy Vandermeij (left) and his designer pals Adam Harris, Katherine Ngui and Parimal Gosai were brainstorming about how to put their skills and talents to better use in their community; simply put, they wanted to make a difference in their West Queen West neighbourhood.
Their local City Councillor Gord Perks put them in touch with Victor Willis, the Executive Director of Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC), a social agency that’s been operating a storefront drop-in centre in Parkdale for decades. As it happened PARC had recently won the opportunity to redevelop a derelict property at Queen West and Dowling Avenue with the goal of transforming the site into affordable housing for the disadvantaged.
Within weeks of connecting with PARC, Vandermeij and company had organized weekly design/build workshops with the aim of creating furnishings for the housing project, christened Edmond Place.
“We brought in pieces of furniture that we found on the street and we worked with members of PARC to remake or refurbish them,” explains Vandermeij. “Some of the members were more experienced artists and we worked with them to design pieces from scratch.”
As the housing project gained steam, Vandermeij’s gang recruited a cast of well-known local designers like Brothers Dressler (that’s their Slab Table, below), Studio Junction, Boychuk+Fuller and TUG (Toronto Upcycling Group), among many others, to create original furniture for Edmond Place’s shared public spaces. Ryerson School of Interior Design and Sheridan College’s furniture program both worked the project into their 2010 winter curriculums.
“The project guidelines were that the pieces had to be made from 80 per cent reclaimed, refurbished or found objects,” says Vandermeij. “Most of the pieces the designers created were produced from Spruce salvaged when the building was gutted; we stored the wood (top pic) until we could use it.”
PARC Executive Director Victor Willis, left, and designer Parimal Gosai on a tour of Edmond Place
Vandermeij confesses that what provoked him and his crew to get involved was a sense of “dissatisfaction at how inaccessible social and sustainable design projects were within the interior design community. We didn’t have access to a project we wanted to get behind so we just made one ourselves.”
Dubbed Public Displays of Affection (PDA for Edmond Place), the more than 60 pieces of furniture and accessories created for the project will be on display at the Gladstone Hotel beginning Thursday (September 23) with an opening reception from 6 – 10 pm. Curatorial tours of the work are planned for Saturday and Sunday from 1 – 2 pm and a panel discussion on the subject of “What is good design?” is slated for 11 am Saturday morning.
When I ask Vandermeij to articulate what he and his fellow designers got out of the experience, he says, “I discovered that everything that makes me happy creatively can be done for the benefit of someone else, not just for somebody who already has comfort.”
“There’s a great divide between people who are in extreme need and the people who aren’t. Meeting with people who are marginalized in our society is a good experience to go through, it expands your understanding and compassion for others and I think we all felt enlightened. It also makes you feel safer in your community by meeting the people who live there and not just the people who are like you.”
Social bookmarks
Scroll to the Form to leave a comment.
Currently there are no comments related to article "Design Do-Gooders".