A Unique Model for Education. A Powerful Method for Design.

The World House Interdesign 2007 is an international conference being hosted by George Brown College’s Institute without Boundaries in partnership with Icsid, the Harbinger Foundation and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It marks the 36th annual Icsid Interdesign and is part of the Icsid 50th anniversary celebrations.

The theme of Interdesign 2007 is “Sustainable Housing and Water: Local and Global Challenges” and will run from June 24 to 30, 2007 in Toronto, Canada. This week-long event will bring together students, professionals, and faculty in the field of design from around the world to tackle four local design challenges from the Greater Toronto Region: revitalization in Toronto’s waterfront, sustainability in Downsview Park, capacity in the Weston-Mt. Dennis region of Toronto and resource conservation in the Town of Port Perry.

Goals

The goals of the World House Interdesign are:

• To bring together interdisciplinary designers and design educators and students from around the world to share ideas and develop concepts for a sustainable future, using the “World House Project” research and principles, which have been developed at the Institute without Boundaries;
• To refine the “World House Project” design tools, processes and systems by engaging with an international team;
• To gather the ideas from the design charrettes and share them both locally and globally.
  

Call for Participation

To date, a call for participation has been sent out to over 400 hundred design schools from around the world. Each country is encouraged to bring a delegation that includes a representative from a design promotion organization, a local designer, a design educator from a recognized design school and two to three students from each school. So far, schools from Canada, Russia, the Untied States, Turkey, Italy, Israel, France, Belgium and Switzerland have shown interest.

Public Display

Results of the charrettes will be captured in a workbook, a case study book and public exhibitions at the Toronto Centre for the Arts on Saturday, June 30 and at CONNECTING'07 Icsid World Design Congress in San Francisco, USA.

Charette Teams

The four charrettes selected by the organizing committee represent both local and global issues facing many communities:
I. Conservation
Using the Town of Port Perry as a model, investigate planning conservation strategies for growing communities
II. Revitalization
Revitalize Toronto’s waterfront with a public water sculpture
III. Sustainability
Develop plans for a seasonal summer camp for young people at Downsview Park, a former brownfield.
IV. Capacity
Empower at-risk youth with portable Live/Learn hubs in the Weston-Mt. Dennis region of Toronto.

For more information download the Interdesign Info Package (PDF 282KB) or visit www.worldhouse.ca