The Exhibition Design

November 16th, 2012, 3:34 pm

Rough Draft of Exhibition Design 

What seems to be a endless week. Things have finally come together for the exhibition. Still progressing on the draw up. We are experiencing a minor hold back. Our Urban Designer Erin Brockenshire is currently working on visuals of our alleyway. Our rough draft design (picture above) will be incorporating our group elements along with  Erin Brockenshire to make the final master piece. Also, a new addition was brought into this team. Maan Allawi who is a carpenter will be volunteering his time to help us construct our design. The reason why we have him is due to the fact that our design will be largely made out of bricks. As a group, we are responsible for others, as well as, our own safety that these bricks would be assembled correctly so that no one gets harm. With this, time would be an issue to our deadline. Hopefully we can speed up the process once we have our design completed.

 

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Outsourcing for Improvement

October 17th, 2012, 3:15 am

This week started our with a lot of brand new ideas being thrown to the table. Now that our final vision is in mind, the requirement for tools and resources to reach this goal became our top priority. In order to achieve our goal  is to reach beyond our limitations by involve the community and the experts on the project we have set forth. From architects to engineers, to creative art specialists and urban designers, we look to integrate a combination of selected skill sets and ideas to create  improvements to  urbanize alleyways within this city.

During the first half of this week, Sandy came across valuable information about a high school  that also unearthed the issue of alley abandonment. A class at Vincent Massey High School decided that it was necessary to end neglecting alleyways in their city and it was time to speak up. This was a perfect opportunity for our team to collaborate with these eager students who are also looking for a change in their community. We decided it was necessary to contact the civics teacher and pool our ideas!

With our eyes set on a ideal location, and a nifty design in mind, the team kept its foot on the gas and is concurrently preparing for the visual construction of the final product. The team is using a computer program to render a 3D visual of how the final design would look like. We are hoping this will be finalized by the end of this week due to time-constraints.

The images above were taken of sites our project will be focused on. The first two images depict the location within the alley that we would like to transform. The third image provides an insight to what we are currently working on and in the hopes of getting it done before project presentations.

Don’t forget to check back next week for new updates as well as feedback from our class presentation! Thank you!

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The Alley Prison Wall

October 12th, 2012, 4:44 pm

(Above) This is one image of the selected alleyway for our project in process.

With project presentations approaching quickly, the team had set out in searching of an alleyway that needed dire transformation. We have searched and found an ally on 39 Park Street, Windsor Ontario. This particular alleyway was one of the worst alleys in the downtown area. The pavements are cracked and uneven, as was well as, other issues such as: dangling cable wires, filthy garbage, rusted medal, and molds going on the sides of stores. This poses health issues and potential rodent infestations.

However, there is potential in transforming this alley into a beautiful walk and drive way for pedestrians and store owners. In addition, the accommodation of better ways to keep trash secured, clean and off the street ground. The lighting in that particular alley is decent for safety wise. Only issue is that it is unappealing. The lighting used in this alleyway look the same as the ones found in prison movies. The comparison is quite frighting and not the kind of idea we want people to perceive as they walk into this alley. But we don’t blame them. The pale gray walls, bared windows and urine stained walls cry’s for an urban transformation. Our hopes at the end of this project is to transform this particular alley into a flourishing walkway that would attract the attention of pedestrians and offer a positive perspective that these neglected streets can be saved.

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A Neglected Corridor

October 3rd, 2012, 1:38 pm

Welcome back to our weekly blogs, we have new updates we would like to share with you and we hope you enjoy it!

(Above) This picture taken by Sandy Chehade, provides insight on some of the alleyways located in Downtown Windsor.

While still keeping our original plan to light up the night with new designs of street lights, we made a slight change as to where our focus should be directed towards for this project. In the early stages we introduced the idea of recreating and improving Windsor’s downtown lighting with the intention of increasing the safety of the pedestrians particularly in areas where lighting is not available. After further analyzing and exploring this idea in depth, it was obvious that the streetlights in alley ways and abandoned parking lots were only a small portion of the bigger issue Windsor faces in its solution for safety.

When you take a look at Windsor’s downtown, many of us notice all the effort made to enhance the city’s appearance and bringing it to life, but the full credits should never go to the actors on a theatrical stage, it is the behind the scenes team that is often forgotten about.  In this case, it is the alleyways of our city that is often overlooked and discarded. Whenever the image of an “alley” is brought up, almost immediately a”negative” reflection follows, hence why our team is diligently working hard to transform that image into a pleasant one.

(Above) This photo, also taken by Sandy Chehade, of a randomly selected location in Downtown Windsor provides us with a night-shot look of several neglected alleys.

As scheduled in our timeline, the team visited several locations this week to gather photos (above) along with information regarding the city’s policy and regulations for alleyways. We have realized that this project will not only depend communicating with the city councils but also with the community and business owners whose shops often lead to the alleys. We are anxious to start transforming and implementing our idea to the world, and we can`t succeed without your help! So stay tuned for more updates from our team through our rapid progress. Thank you.

 

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Darkness Falls in Downtown Area

September 28th, 2012, 10:19 pm

Statics shows that Canada was ranked second last for energy efficiency. The examination was done by a non-profit organization called the American Council Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).  In recent months, Windsor has suffered an increase in criminal harassment and assaults in the Downtown area. This is largely due to poorly lit areas where suspects tend to lurk. This discovery motivated our group to produce solar technology of traffic and street lights which can improve the safety and security of the public.

 In addition, this inventive tool will help Windsor conserve and reduce energy consumption, as well as, costs. However, there is still a lot of research that must be done. Including, using a computer software that will produce 3D graphics of how this technology may look like and how it would work. This idea is currently being processed and evaluated for additional modifications to better the performance and outlook of this solar technology. If everything goes as planned, we will see a new ‘hip’ design of traffic and street lights that downtown Windsor has ever seen!

“Stay tuned to this page for more information and updates on our designs.”

 – Wassim & Sandy

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And The Next Step Is….

September 28th, 2012, 6:59 pm

 

Khaldoun: “Look at this! All the way that way…”
Simon: “AND all the way this way…”
Both: “there is nothing! it’s empty!”
*shaking their heads*
（Picture taken: Pelissier Ave, Windsor, Ontario.)

 

Hey there!

   Thanks for coming back to check our progress! Windsor Revivers here with some very exciting news to share!!! As you may know from our last post we had some narrowing down to do, and we have been working quite tirelessly to present to you, in this week’s blog, what we have decided so far. Our group has met several times this week in order to come up with a more precise picture of  what we wish to achieve. We have scratched out some ideas to make room for new ones as well as “almost” decided which particular street we want to place focus on. But this of course, depends mainly on you. That’s right you… your opinion anyways.

   What we mean by that is our group has decided to take a more proactive approach to find out what appeals to this great city. We decided that this group’s project is going to be all about the public opinion. We removed the idea of bike safety from our agenda because if Windsor wants bike safety they will tell us they do. We want you to know that we plan on making a big deal about this in order to gain as much public input as possible. So keep an eye out for the following ways to contact us with your opinion:

1. Take a look at our Facebook page that will be up and running in its early stage by Sunday September 30^th, 2012.
2. We will be finished a rough draft of our survey by next week
3. Look for us the next time you are downtown… we might just be those people who stop you for a chat!

Ok, well that’s it for now here is our link for the Facebook page, check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/WhatDoesWIndsorWant?fref=ts

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Developing a Plan for a Recycling Initiative

September 28th, 2012, 5:28 pm

In the past week, our team created an initial plan.

As a group, we are working towards developing a recycling initiative that will encourage
people within the downtown area of Windsor to recycle. We have chosen this as our
project plan because it is evident that the area is lacking in a functioning recycling
system.

This is the only paper and cardboard recycling bin we have seen so far. It is overflowing because the
cities system of garbage disposal does not focus on recyclable items as much as it should.

Over the past week, we spent a lot of time making the project proposal, project schedule,
and group member responsibility documents. We narrowed in on the specific area we
would like to focus on, which is along Riverside drive where it meets Ouellette Ave,
and continuing down Ouellette Ave. Depending on our research findings in the next few
weeks, we may expand or change our target location. By communicating with businesses
in the area, we will learn more about how they recycle material currently and we hope to
get donations of recycled material from them. With the recycled material we gather, we
plan to develop some type of street art that encourages recycling in the downtown core.
In order to advertise our activity, we plan to use recycled bottles and create stickers that
will point people in the right direction to a location where recycling is available.

We plan to capitalize of each group member’s strengths in this project. Raman is
focusing on the placement of new and existing recycling bins in the target area, as well
as the recycling process of cardboard specifically. Shannon will focus on developing
motivational pieces that will involve the community, hopefully encouraging others to
recycle. Cong and Ying will work with business owners in the area to develop a better
business plan for recycling, possibly implementing some sort of incentive program which
would make recycling more appealing to the business owners. Stef would focus on the
perspective of community members in the area.

We are excited to see where this project will take us, and we hope you are too!

 

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Meeting, Exploring and Brainstorming

September 25th, 2012, 1:26 pm

Two weeks down, ten to go. And in that time we have A LOT to accomplish.

Coming into this course, none of us really knew what to expect. We didn’t know what we would be doing, where we would be meeting, or who we would be working with. These first two weeks have been spent getting to know each other, understanding the concepts of the course, and exploring the target area of our projects.

A view of Chatham Street emphasizing Caesars Casino, restaurants, Cheetah’s, and the decorative street lights that the city has implemented to make the streets more inviting.

Our group consists of Steph Borrink, a Psychology and Visual Arts student, Raman Singh, a Civil Engineering student, Shannon Hawke, a Visual Arts and the Built Environment student, and Ying Sun and Cong Han, both Business students. We have spent the past few weeks brainstorming ideas as to how we can make a positive contribution to the downtown core of Windsor. Many issues have come up through class discussions, group discussions, videos, and a talk by Kevin Alexander, the Senior Planner of Special Projects for the City of Windsor.

Our group has decided to tackle the issue of RECYCLING. Although we are still is the early stages of brainstorming, we are confident we can find an interactive, fun and innovative way to encourage recycling among business owners, residents, and visitors of Windsor’s downtown core.

This is an example of the garbage that is tossed into the street because there is not sufficient places to dispose of recyclable items.

Check back next week to learn more about how we bring effective recycling into the city centre!

 

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A New Perspective!

September 24th, 2012, 11:48 pm

From a late start to begin a fresh new term, to meeting new class members from diverse programs, we slowly but surely merged into different groups mixed with new creative ideas, as well as, varying perspectives to fulfill one common goal: the development of a new proposals for the Downtown City of Windsor!

Downtown Windsor (Above picture)

Given a list of projects to develop and the option to create and propose new ideas, our team quickly realized it was time to step foot outside the box and add a new proposal for this city. Consisting of two team members thus far, Wassim Ayache, a 3rd year student with an Electrical Engineering background combines forces with Sandy Chehade, a 4th year Sociology and Social Justice student, familiar with the law principals and procedures, to bring forth the propositional idea of solar-powered street and traffic lights.

This innovative concept is specifically and carefully designed to conserve energy, reduce cost, as well as enforce security and safety of pedestrians in areas where street lights are not available. Before any details are pushed into light, much research must be done to generate and design this device before it is fabricated, hence why this team is ready to get down and dirty this semester to fabricate and show off its new idea!

Green Corridor 2012 BEGINS!

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