Sidewalk Toronto is a massive, future-oriented urban development project spearheaded by Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs. Their ambition is to reinvent Toronto’s Quayside, a 5-acre brownfield site along the city’s eastern waterfront, overlooking Lake Ontario. More than a simple residential development, Sidewalk Toronto aims to be an inclusive, sustainable community. It will be home to stores, offices, social housing and a wide range of recreational facilities. Innovative technology will be integrated throughout the project to create a truly intelligent infrastructure that improves residents’ quality of life.
The project was presented to the public through an exhibition-like public consultation in an effort to solicit comments and recommendations from Torontonians.
The space featured a dozen thematic stations that were specially developed to encourage visitors to interact with the content and share their vision of the community of the future. The presentation area was made as appealing and user-friendly as possible to ensure maximum response. An initial draft of the project, featuring interactive renderings and the more practical aspects of the future neighbourhood, was subsequently unveiled. Daily tous les jours art and design studio brought in XYZ Technologies to oversee the audiovisual integration in the two exhibition spaces.
The biggest challenge lay in incorporating the equipment as efficiently and accessibly as possible while maximizing the informative and entertainment dimensions of the project. The two phases and various features needed to be showcased in a clear way that reflected the project’s values in terms of aesthetics, sustainability and functionality. A sophisticated, refined audiovisual setup was the key to the success of this undertaking. The interactive screens, strategically positioned lighting devices, headsets, and concealed and ceiling-mounted speakers were all designed to blend into the surroundings as seamlessly as possible. Dynamic light features reproducing user movements were also integrated into the layout, with smaller screens mounted on the buildings to provide useful information about the various structures and their use.
Both projects were delivered within very short timeframes, once again showing how responsive, inventive and resourceful the XYZ team can be.
Daily tous les jours
Technical direction Equipment Installation Audiovisual programming