TORONTO, Jan 14 — The Toronto Design Offsite Festival (TO DO), the city’s design week, begins on Monday with more than a hundred exhibitions and events intended to take design “out of the studio and into the city.”
The week will include events both large and small, with one of the biggest being the 19th annual Interior Design Show Toronto, welcoming more than 300 exhibitors to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre January 19-22 and featuring architect David Adjaye as guest of honour.
Among the week’s many highlights, the Gladstone Hotel Art Hut will present the traveling exhibition “Outside the Box,” which has invited more than 70 designers in 11 US and Canadian cities to build a collection of objects reflecting their region that fits into a Bankers Box.
Among them, Toronto’s box features tabletop objects using simple materials in new and contemplative ways; Los Angeles presents glass, wood and ceramic pieces that represent nature; Vancouver focuses on its culture of outdoor living and its location between rugged coast and mountains; and Detroit showcases its deep history of design and fabrication.
A number of locations throughout the city will feature design-inspired window installations, including Anti Vice Juicery, WC The Store, the Spacing Store and Lebel & Crowe. At Town, a window installation titled “Elephants on the Avenue” will take inspiration from a circa-1920 photo of a parade of circus elephants being led down Brock Avenue. At Opticianado, “Look Again” will invite visitors to try on one-off eyewear prototypes by designer Odin Cappello.
“Living Well,” a third-annual show that is a signature TO DO exhibition, will take place at Craft Ontario, featuring the work of 12 artists and designers in exploring how design improves our daily lives.
Another signature exhibition, “Compact Living” at the Umbra concept store, will showcase 11 Canadian artists and designers in a look at modern urban housing and the trend toward designing for small spaces.
At the Assembly Hall on January 22, Karol Kosnik — the self-proclaimed “world’s first professional IKEA hacker—will present “IKEA Hacking: The Cure for the Common Designer,” an exposé of IKEA hacking that is 10 years in the making.
A festival hub has been set up at Bosley Real Estate (1108 Queens Street West), where design-lovers can obtain a festival guide, meet designers and view Canadian-made furniture in the Keilhauer Lounge.
TO DO runs January 16-22. These events and many more can be found at todesignoffsite.com. — AFP-Relaxnews
