IBI Group
Contributed by openfile_adminReimagining the G20 fence: What if?
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Click image to enlarge.Image by IBI Group
Contributed by openfile_admin
Reimagining the G20 fence: What if?
Reported on Friday, July 16, 2010
Updated on Monday, September 6, 2010
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This pitch was submitted via email by Chuck Beamish of IBI Group:
I was speaking w/ David Hastings a director at our Toronto office w/ regards to the fence and other interventions being installed for the G-20. He had an idea for conducting a observational review and photo essay of the urban impact of the fence etc.: how it changes traffic patterns; how people and business adjacent to the fence behave, negative and positive. One example of unique behaviours happened in Paris in the 60's during the student riots when the protestors lifted cobble stone to throw at police barricades and discovered that the sand under the stones formed a beach, and the temper of the crowd changed.
We, (IBI) would propose to send students and staff to photograph and review the impact at all hours of the day, over the next couple of weeks. We are planning to do this but I thought there maybe an opportunity to have the story based on Open File. We feel that the fence can operate philosophically and socially much like a Cristo intervention and may even provide happy surprises. We would propose that our urban designers and social scientists on staff contribute to the observational text of this event.
This file was produced in partnership with IBI Group.
Along with demonstrators, riot police, fake lakes and world leaders, one of the iconic images of the G20 was the fence.
Depending on whom you asked, it stretched 3.5 kilometres or 6 kilometres. It was supposed to cost $5.5 million, but the final tally was over $9 million. Then there were the reports that police had been given special powers that worked only within a five-metre radius of the fence. That turned out to be less than completely true.
The fence was a lot of things, but could it have been more? The urban designers and social scientists at IBI Group’s Toronto office design and build everything from subways and buildings to arenas, transportation systems and communications infrastructure. When they saw the fence going up near their downtown offices, they came together to ponder a simple question: what if?
What if instead of a divisive, ugly fence, millions of dollars went into creating something that acted as a security perimeter and something more? A green wall. A place for people to express themselves. A structure that was more in tune with the environment. They came up with a collection of alternatives, and we assembled a selection of IBI’s work into an audio slideshow that you can watch and listen to below.
The G20 is gone and so is the fence. But the next time an event of this nature comes to a city, perhaps these ideas will be put to use to deliver something truly of value to citizens.
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