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CSC Design Challenge to #reimagineš 1655 Dupont
Drop in and visit the CSC Student Design Challenge exhibit in the Winner’s Lounge at Expo 2019, live off the floor at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on February 27th.Ā Sample the iGuide virtual tour of 1655 Dupont Street in Toronto, site of the 2019 Design Challenge.
šĀ meet Michael Vervena at iGuide
šmeet Cathie Schneider, Co-Chair of the Design Competition Committee
šĀ visit cscdesignchallenge.caĀ šĀ like us on facebook
šBuilding Design & Construction at George Brown College
21:31:41 CSCeXpo2019
Montage video recap of the 41st annual CSC Building Expo (21:31) shot live off the floor on February 27th, 2019.
I suited up and slew snowmaggedon on the Kitchener line GoTrain to Union Station, complete with all ten poster boards from last year’s design challenge safely in tow.
While frantically rummaging through pockets for my presto card, I caught a glimpse of Regional Councillor/City of Waterloo Mayor David Jaworsky waiting to board the train.Ā Reflecting on his 2018 year-end interview with Craig Norris on The Morning Edition (*1) put a smile on my face despite an undertone of grumpiness for neglecting to make time for morning java.
20 sec markš “Construction in Today’s Connected World” was the keynote address from Dr. Rick Huijbreigts, the VP of Strategy and Innovation at George Brown College.Ā Dr. Huijbreights expands on the convergence of IoT devices in building automation systems with low-voltage PoE, smart lighting, cloud management and analytics, all protected by emerging cybersecurity operational standards (*2) Yep, caught myself smiling again even before the aroma of coffee reached the table.
It was refreshing to see so many student volunteers from the college engaged at the expo; serving the industry, asking questions and making connections. The train has indeed left the station
2m30s markš Next stop on the tour we hear from Charles W. Skipper, partner at Foglar, Rubinoff LLP and no stranger to the Toronto Construction Association. The Queen’s University alumni cut his teeth articling with the Ministry of Attorney General before practicing commercial litigation at a major Toronto law firm.Ā At Fogler, Rubinoff LLP since 1996, his expertise in the dynamics of construction and commercial disputes is highly sought after. Charles obtained his Master’s Degree in Law (LL.M) (Civil Litigation and Dispute Resolution) from Osgoode Hall, York University in 1998, specializing in construction litigation. He is a Harvard Law School trained negotiator, a lover of ancient history, and a surprisingly funny guy with a decent throwing arm (not captured in this video) (*3)
ā this is justice and I think it’s great, but I must say that I never had any idea in my life that you could ask so many questions for so long about so littleĀ ā
6m06s markšA sobering overview of changes to the Construction Lien Act including lien registration/perfection, holdback, trust fund obligations, prompt payment rules and interim adjudication (*4)
18m01s markšĀ CSC Student Design Challenge: the top five entries of the 2018 design competition on display in the winner’s loungeš„
Cathie Schneider, Co-Chair of the CSC student design competition committee shares her enthusiasm with Michael Vervena as he demonstrates the use of iGuide’s 3D virtual tour of the 2019 Design Challenge site at 1655 Dupont Street in Toronto.
*1) Things that matter to Mayor Dave Jaworsky
*2) US legislation to improve IoT security
*3)Ā Bell Canada v. Olympia & York Developments Ltd., 1994 CanLII 239 (ON CA)
*4) Changes to the Construction ActĀ Ā
IoT Jiggidy Jig
home again home again
for the IoT Mind to Market Seminar
at Catalyst137
Presentations from Steven Fyke, Creative Director atĀ SnapPea Design, Mike Brown, Senior Director, Sales and Business Development atĀ Swift Labs, Joel Dart, Manager of Sales and Business Development for Bell – IoT Solutions,Ā Robert Rodriques for Sigma Point Technologies, Greg Dashwood, Product Lead,Ā Internet of Things & Advanced Analytics at Microsoft and Alexander Fesiak, IoT Business Development Manager at Arrow Global.Ā Opening remarks by Jean-Pierre Bhavnani of Miovision
Links:
snappeadesign.com/
swiftlabs.com/about-2/
iot.bell.ca/en/
sigmapoint.com/about-us/
azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/iot/
arrow.com/en/iot
Sue & Ryan & Sam – for the love of
Making Music
The Weber Brothers
For Sue Windover
An unexpected stroll into the heart of an artistĀ to celebrate the release of
Park Your Boots
DiscoverĀ What I Don’t Know
and
Sample the latest CD from Sue Windover
Special thanks to friend & folk artist Sandy MacDonald – for making the evening complete.Ā Happy to hear we will be seeing more of you in DTK!!
Don’t miss the Weber Brothers live
on Friday June 8th
at theĀ 
StarlightĀ
with special guest
And before you arrive
watch
Before We ArriveĀ
A feature length documentary of the Weber Duo’s musical journey
24 for 48 Ontario
Congratulations Winners!
Awards Night on May 16th held in the Atrium at Catalyst 137 – The site of last year’s design competition.Ā Gorgeous space – thank-you Frank, PM Riley & the Building Team – a pleasure!
Shout out to our esteemed judges who made it possible to narrow down from 24 inspiring and noteworthy entries.Ā Well done students!
Teams from Ryerson University, OCAD, UWaterloo, Conestoga College participated and five challengers rose to the top:
Fifth Place:Ā “Statera” – Conestoga College Team:Ā Mashael Alharbi, Chelsea Hummel & Amber MacPherson
Fourth Place: “Blues & Brews” – UWaterloo Team: Marius Hexan, Alexandra Siu, Hayley Sykes & Emmeily Zhang:
Third Place: “The Dark Room Hotel” – OCAD Team:Ā Tori Wang, Lily Ni & Feeleng Leng:
Second Place: “The Four-Eight” – UWaterloo Team: Teresa Tran, Azadeh Shayanfar, Anisha Sankar & Parisa Hassanzadegan:
First Place: “House of Tech & Blues” – UWaterloo Team: Lauren Kyle, Jeremy Jeong, Justyna Maleszyk, Michelle Piotrowski & Keegan Steeper:
Just AWEsome…for more about the Student Design Competition, visit the official website at cscdesignchallenge.ca
Glenn Smith Digs the Blues
Glenn SmithĀ shares his memories of ‘the Legion’ at 48 Ontario Street during a live interview withĀ Martin de GrootĀ shot at theĀ Commons Studio.Ā Ā Back in 1986 he began a new venture as a concert promoter, introducing an impressive rotation of blues talent to a receptive local audience.Ā Ā Revisit our walk-about in FebruaryĀ HERE
Legendary performances and Sold-Out shows at the Legion Dance Hall animate the story of Kitchenerās love affair with the Blues
48 Ontario Street, an unassuming treasure nestled in Kitchener’s downtown technology cluster is the site of the 5th annual CSC Student Design Competition
Press Release Here
The winners of this yearās Design Challenge will be announced during the annual Grand Valley Chapter Connections CafĆ© on Wednesday, May 16th in the Atrium atĀ Catalyst137Ā
Glenn – so appreciate the interview and your endorsement of the competition, but thank you most of all for the many years of gutsy investment in live music.Ā Ā You’re the real deal.
Hope to see those posters someday!
Designing the Future
Shout out to Chris Adamkowski who knows a thing or two about future proofing in the age of Artificial Intelligence. He was the keynote speaker at this year’s CSC Building Expo, on Wednesday, February 28th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Chris is the Head of Industry at Google and manages a high performance team dedicated to Government, Travel, and Tourism clients in Canada. He dropped by our display of the 2017 Design Competition winning entries from Conestoga College and was introduced to the unique Maker Space Hub atĀ http://catalyst-137.com/.
We hope to see more of him in Waterloo Region!
cscdesignchallenge.ca
to Trudy with Love
Remembering Trudy Beaulne
Trudy Beaulne passed away suddenly on Friday, January 5, 2018 at the age of 63. She was an activist who genuinely loved her community, her neighbourhood and her mission. She worked tirelessly to advocate for those suffering, especially from the effects of poverty, physical disabilities and mental illness.Ā She was the Executive Director of the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region, formerly known as K-W Social Planning Council.Ā I met her sometime in the mid nineties and she was a big fan of my vision to use primary schools as the central community hub of neighbourhoods. This was a radical idea at the time and met with strong resistance.Ā Her loving heart and strong, tenacious personality set the example that I needed to draw from to navigate through the many obstacles to come.Ā Innovative partnerships were formed with Toastmasters, Katimavik, the Food Bank, Region of Waterloo Public Health & the WCDSB to provide lunch hour and after-school programming at Smithson Public School in Kitchener as part of a pilot project to explore the school/community hub model. The project had a huge positive impact on the children who benefited the most, but was ultimately shot down. The seed was planted, but the ground proved infertile. Trudy’s guidance gave me the courage to plant anyways, no matter what the outcome.
This video is a collection of photos taken during the Festival of Neighbourhoods Celebration & Awards Ceremony at City Hall. Trudy “hired” me as the event photographer from 1997 to 1999. These photos were doubles of my prints uncovered on Valentine’s Day in a shoe box and scanned yesterday afternoon to create this slideshow.
The soundtrack “How I Got to Memphis” is one of my favourite songs by Soulstack, recorded live off the floor at the Boathouse in Kitchener on December 9th, 2017
Like Soulstack on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Soulstack/
Trudy’s signature…
Anti-Poverty Activist – Stood Up For Others
Catalyst Conestoga Co-op
Congratulations to Professors Sarah Turner & Ann Callaghan and Students of Conestoga College’s Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours)
You are all winners
The energy and enthusiasm at The Pines on the evening of May 11th was absolutely infectious.Ā Design teams from Conestoga College presented their vision for a public gathering space at Catalyst137, the subject building of the 2017 CSC Student Design Competition to an audience of AEC professionals at Connections Cafe, an annual networking event sponsored by the Grand Valley Chapter of Construction Specifications Canada.
The 475,000 sq ft building located at 137 Glasgow Street in Kitchener, historically used for warehousing tires and footwear will soon house the world’s largest maker space campus, a hub for the talent, hardware, engineering services and venture capital support needed to build the next generation of IoT companies.
The theme of the Design Competition, “public collaboration and connection” inspired student designers to create a space that would invite social interaction between building occupants and neighbours of Belmont Village. Interaction with the natural environment added a strong complement to the theme, through various strategies including the use of the Iron Horse Trail for commuting to the site.
Team Two Takes top prize of $2,000!Ā
Congratulations Team Two:Ā Thiska Meereboer, Erin Wetzel, Henry Dowling and Mike Latter for winning first place and for making such a great impression on the crowd at Connections Cafe that they voted your work for
The People’s Choice Award
Nicely done!Ā
Second Place winning $1000…
Congratulations Team Three:Ā Brooklyn Taylor, Emily Turchi, Maria Van Woundenberg & Han Xie
Third Place winning $500…
Congratulations Team One : Brianna Dancy, Jandi Gunn, Laura Kular & Tessa MacDonald
Fourth Place awesomeness…..
Congratulations Team Four:Ā Stephanie Moraweitz, Mia Bartels, Gemma Gorkes & Kelsey Elford
The scope of the design competition did not impose budget constraints on the proposals, but the inclusion of specific construction materials and a detailed product specification was required to qualify (view competition documents here) More about the 2017 CSC Student Design Competition here and Connections Cafe here
Construction Canada Announcement here
Catalyst Conestoga Co-op?
The Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours) program has been designed in consultation with the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario (ARIDO) and is on ARIDO’s list of recognized interior design programs.Ā It provides a unique co-op experience, with a focus on technical competency that stresses the importance of building code compliance, accessibility, sustainability,Ā energy efficiency, building maintenance and operations to inform design intent and provide both aesthetically pleasing and build-able solutions.
Invited guests from the local construction and design community joined event sponsors in rallying around the competing teams while students seized the opportunity to network with industry professionals, welcoming the spontaneous “peer review” of their projects while vying for the “People’s Choice Award” decided by popular vote during the evening.Ā Take in the action atĀ #connectionscafe2017
Thank-you Community Partners, Catalyst137 and iGuide and members of the Design Competition Team at CSC Grand Valley and CSC Toronto for making it happen…
See you next year!data! tada!
The Honourable Liz Sandals MPPĀ (Guelph) & President of the Treasury Board opened the 2017 GO Open Data Conference on May 5th at the City of London’s Public Library. Minister Sandals spoke about the Province of Ontario’s commitment to open, transparent governance and announced thatĀ Ontario has officially adopted theĀ International Open Data Charter
DownloadĀ a copy of the Conference Review atĀ opendata.ca
Culture, Currency & Communitech
Kevin Tuer, Ph.D., P.Eng and Managing Director of odx Canada’ Open Data Exchange, spoke at the Conference about the need on both the supply side and demand side to understand the value of open data and the need to strategizeĀ to define an outcome. Kevin made reference to Map Your PropertyĀ as an App thatĀ demonstrates that understanding. Ā Minister Sandals is also a fan (go to the 5Ā minute mark on the video). I haven’t had a chance to try it out, but as a tool for real estate/land development professionals working in Toronto or York Region,Ā it looks very promising!
Communitech data hub
“newest addition to Waterloo’s Innovation Ecosystem”
Ā Open Data 150 Canada Project
Thanks to organizers of the GoOpenData conference for sending this update:
Ā “The real battle is for the data that delivers the most relevant and pertinent insights — the combination of data sets that enable effective and more rapid monetization of data.” This means combining data from customers, social media, machines and the Internet of things. It means finding new ways to transform the data into information and knowledge. In the end, Capgemini CEO John Brahim noted, organizations that do not actā¦and react appropriately, face a “serious threat to survival.” – See more at: http://www.cioinsight.com
music & musings 