706B: Beyond the Winter Festival: Toward Everyday Winter Cities

October 06, 2016

2:20pm - 2:35pm

From warming huts to winter festivals to microclimatic design, there is renewed interest across Canadian cities in designing the public realm for cold weather comfort, safety and enjoyment.

This session, based on research conducted at the University of Toronto, will explore how urban approaches to winter have evolved. Participants will learn about the complexity of planning for the public realm of a large, diverse winter city. They will be asked to consider how public life can be winterized across various neighbourhoods and how relatively unglamorous interventions—such as universal municipal sidewalk clearance—can work alongside special events and eye-catching designs to improve the safety, accessibility and quality of the public realm for all residents in wintry communities.

Speakers