Post-It Note City

"In the shadow of an elevated freeway near Toronto’s Port Lands, a former fish processing plant has been painted cerulean blue and converted into a test lab for a networked urban development project where physical and digital infrastructures will be optimized to support a “people-centered” neighborhood. What that means, exactly, is still being worked out.

For some critics the Quayside project conjures up a surveillant dystopia straight out of Black Mirror, but you wouldn’t know it from a visit to the building at 307 Lake Shore Boulevard East. ¹ On Sunday afternoons, the public is invited inside this “experimental work space” to co-create and learn. The vibe is resolutely low tech, sort of underground-arts-venue-meets-elementary-school. Analog media like post-it notes, index cards, and rough architectural models decorate the scaffoldings of plywood, chipboard, and cork. Everything in this 8,000-square-foot, high-ceilinged, primer-white space has been designed to suggest transparency."