design collection @ stackt

With the keen expert eye of DesignTO, stackt presents the second year of design collection @ stackt. A series of designers, innovators + fabricators to bring spaces alive highlighting the newest designs, industry innovation + skilled passion of leading experts. Over 10 days, the site will offer unique window installations to inspire + engage. The design collection @ stackt celebrates Canadian designers with diverse global inspiration + offers new design inspiration to boost the winter blues for all demographics.

Loom - The North Hall

‘Loom’ responds to concepts of fragmentation, entanglement and impermanence as intrinsic conditions of urban experience. Compiled from a multitude of intersecting conditions, encounters and perspectives, the urban experience has become analogous with concepts of weaving and textile production, with the term ‘urban fabric’ becoming commonplace. Converting this visually rich urban vernacular into a spatial experience, ‘Loom’ plays with concepts of interweaving in both a metaphorical and material way.

Aesthetically echoing the configuration of a loom, sheer ribbon weaves around a scaffolding structure. Rich in both its structural affordances and connotations as a ubiquitous material marker of urban change and transformation, the scaffold acts as a self-contained skeletal frame, holding together an intricate pattern of interwoven ribbon on which a combination of continuously changing text and images are projected. Acting like a fragmented projection surface, the ribbon dissects and displays the projection across various depths of field. As points of intersection, the fractured images and text are momentarily assembled along a flat plane, rendering them temporarily legible. This act of fleeting consolidation plays into larger concepts of urban life as a continuous series of dispersion and convergence; a compilation of many different parts held together momentarily.

COFO Design - Unit 2-101

COFO is a multi-disciplinary design studio collaborating with local creatives. With a focus on furniture, home decor products and unique spaces, all of their products are proudly made in Toronto, Canada. At COFO, we believe in supporting all things local. Made in Canada is the future.

For the 2021 DesignTO Festival, COFO will be featuring new works in their exciting new concept space at stackt Market. Come say hi and see what Canadian-made is all about.

2.0 by STACKTLAB - Unit 4-101

The ‘2.0’ expands on STACKLAB’s original ‘Felt Collection’, a conceptual furniture system made using felted Merino wool that is sourced from regional manufacturers using a custom-developed algorithm.

STACKLAB’s installation for DesignTO will feature two second generation prototypes configured using a new proprietary digital application developed in collaboration with STACKLAB alum James Munroe, Toronto-based programmer William Harford and Devansh Shah, a mechanical engineering and computing technology student from the University of Ottawa. STACKLAB’s configurator enables users to create a wide range of furnishings from a database of felt remnants supplied by Toronto-based Interior Felt and New York-based Filzfelt. The felt is supported by an aluminum structural system developed in collaboration with Toronto-based COFO Design. Improving on the original ‘Felt Collection’s virgin steel structural system, the ‘2.0’ uses recycled aluminum that is powder-coated using repurposed powder.

The ‘Felt Collection’ explores and expands upon the studio’s mandate to leverage existing technologies, infrastructures, and the people behind them to innovate. The collection was driven by applying a critical lens to the industry and explores a reversal of the commonplace practice of putting form before material. STACKLAB identified surplus off-cut and end-of-bolt felted wool that, when stored, occupied significant factory space and led to severe wastage. They identified regional manufacturers who had this waste in their processes and collaborated to figure out how to aggregate their material. In turn, they designed a system to categorize the surplus and developed an algorithm that matches the categorized pieces to their specifications and uses.

STACKLAB is a multidisciplinary art-and-design studio founded by Jeff Forrest in 2013. The studio pursues conceptual projects spanning a range of scales and disciplines by working with regional experts in material, craft, science, and technology.

Dream State - Community Lane

‘Dream State’ by Alby Kenny investigates joy through the sensation of lucidity. While it’s an experience only some have had, the act of lucid dreaming can be described as a state of consciousness inside a dream. She reflects this through a large-scale representative installation to illustrate and share her memories within the ‘Dream State’.

This work presents the idea of a subconscious reality and aims to evoke the sensation of dreaming while awake. To further explore this ornate experience this artist ideated an immersive dream-like installation that not only challenges the thought of an undisclosed reality but hopes to facilitate a shared state of lucidity with it’s viewers.

The textile work goes back to the structural integrity of a dream and the fragile state of lucidity but as an abstraction this immersive environment encourages others to explore the narrative of the ‘Dream State’ and tap into the transparencies between our unconscious-conscious minds.

The Commons: Public Space, Public Art - The Solarium

DesignTO Youth is a community engagement program which offers youth access to creative disciplines and professionals, culminating in a public exhibition of their work. This year working in partnership with SKETCH Working Arts, DesignTO Youth focuses on public space and public art. Keen observations and critical conversations about public spaces nurtured the youths’ imagining of ideal futures, and re-imagining of cities, spaces and homes.

Delivered in the form of a six-week residency program plus DesignTO Festival exhibition, youth artists are given opportunities to engage with and discuss civic issues and public space through tours, talks and workshops. The program offered a guided tour of The Bentway with co-executive director Ilana Altman and Public Space fellow Gelila Mekonnen, an artist talk with Ekow Nimako, a guided tour of Stackt Market with founder Matt Rubinoff and architect Janna Levitt, and an empathy mapping workshop with Ryan Lo from Urban Minds

Established in 2019, DesignTO Youth is a program that provides youth with access to creative disciplines and professionals. The program works with local artists and designers and community collaborators like schools, non-profit organizations, and community groups that are already actively engaging with youth.

The 2020 DesignTO Youth program is supported by the City of Toronto, Economic Development, and Shopify. Venue provided by stackt.