Activate the Park! Invitation - pass it on!

Activate the Park!














First Year OCAD Interaction Design students create 15 interactive public space projects to be displayed in Butterfield Park (under the OCAD "tabletop") on March 30, 3-6pm


Toronto ON: First year interaction design students at the Ontario College of Art and Design have been charged with the task of "Activating the Park." Nestled underneath architect Will Alsop's now-famous "tabletop" is Butterfield park, a new and beautiful urban park, but one people don't linger in -- it's a space to pass through, not stop and reflect on the space or interact with others.

Each class has created an environment that will change that that will be presented from 3pm - 6pm on Thursday March 30. Projects include:

• Interactive graffiti walls
• Communal music making
• Radio controlled cars
• Human Statues
• A food fight
• A peepshow in the park
• A piñata in the park
• Paint hockey
• Giant movable cubes
• A Toronto memory map
• A race with a "randomizer"
• Giant toys
• And more…

The entire park is the canvas, and passers-by the subject. With the recent interest Toronto's public spaces, these student projects represent what happens when people look at our city's communal spaces and ask; "how can we engage people there?"

Location: Butterfield Park, south end of OCAD building, 100 McCaul Street

What is interaction design?

Interaction design is a sub-discipline of design that examines the role of embedded behaviors and intelligence in physical and virtual spaces as well as the convergence of physical and digital products. Sometimes referred to by the acronyms "IxD" or "iD," interaction design has recently developed as a field of study in a growing number of universities throughout the world. Interactive Design is concerned with a user, customer, audience, or participant's experience with a designed object, system or environment.