Space as Platform

I studied architecture - I never practiced but I was deeply shaped by the experience. Typically architecture students divide into two camps - the 'I want to save the world' and 'Architects are Gods/I aspire to be a starchitect' camps. Grossly generalized yes, but with some truth to it. I fell into the 'I want to save the world' segment, believing that good design could cure all the world ills - housing for the poor or homeless, places where we could make meaningful connections with other people, environmental crises of various kinds.

Last week I attended a conference Our Space, Our Places that brought together folks from non profits groups across the lower mainland to talk about real estate. One of the speakers, Margie Zeidler, also a former architecture student, recounted her renovation of an old manufacturing building in downtown Toronto into a thriving centre for the arts and creative industries. During a downturn in the 90s she took a risk, along with some friends and family supporters, and bought a large vacant building and set about to rent offices to artists and other organizations that are community focused. The building (401 Richmond) became a mecca for creative types and has become a landmark in the city's cultural scene. It is now overflowing with tenants so much so she went onto secure another building because the demand was so great.

In the new building Margie's company Urbanspace gave a generous grant to a group of entrepreneurs who wanted to create a shared space for organizations committed to social change. The Centre for Social Innovation, as it became known, provides deskspace and offices as a way to connect innovators and spark new ideas and ultimately social change. The predictable upside for many is that they typically have small staffs and so can rent a few desks and have access to board rooms, a kitchen and other office amenities. On the less predictable side, studies conducted on the 200+ organizations that base themselves at CSI show that the organizations are more productive, get business through their space neighbours and their employees are happier!

CSI's Eli Malinsky, Director, Programs and Partnerships shared their philosophy of 'space as platform'. Unlike my dreamy-eyed architecture student thinking, they believe that designing great spaces doesn't necessarily save the world. Sigh. But space creates opportunity - to bring people together, for ideas for ferment, for community bonds to be formed, for people to work towards common goals. CSI has become so successful they have recently purchased their own buildings, as a way, of creating their own sustainability.

And so for Vancouver non-profits, our friends from the east brought us some valuable lessons about the power of space to create something bigger than any group could do in isolation. About the power of space to allow for collaboration and the creation of community. Okay so maybe its not 'changing the world' but it is changing Toronto...and hopefully through their examples we could change Vancouver.

(Images are from Urbanspace website)