If you’ve ever taken a trip to Toronto City Hall to register for a wedding licence or pick up a new parking permit, chances are you’ve seen the massive model of the city in the lobby. But after decades of development, the landscape has changed and for a second year, students from Humber College are meticulously making updates.
Originally built in 1989 to help city planners visualize redevelopment concepts to inform Toronto’s 1991 master plan, the model was later moved to the lobby, where visitors can take a bird’s eye view of most of the old city. It doesn’t include post-amalgamation additions and doesn’t extend east beyond the Don River.
In the decades since the model was built, the city has dramatically changed. An expanse of parking lots and now-demolished buildings have given way to a much different cityscape. Those new buildings are represented on the scale model with red thumbtacks.
In 2019, the green light was given to update “Tiny T.O.” but the pandemic delayed the project until last year.
Now, for a second year, students from Humber College have been referring to city plans, inputting designs into 3D printers and bringing the model up to date. Where the first year focused on the waterfront, students have just completed initial design work on the area around Trinity Bellwoods Park. They’ll be continuing to the east to update areas around city hall, University Avenue and Moss Park.
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As much as they’re focusing on physical updates, the students are also working on making improvements using augmented reality (AR).
Brian Pham, an intern last year, returned this year to be project co-ordinator and said people will be able to have a more interactive experience using their phones. A person will be able to point their phone at the vinyl sheets on the model and see buildings rise up, he said.
“There’s animations as well, so if the Raptors won that year, you’d see parades and fireworks as well,” Pham said.
Harrison Thomas from the city’s planning department said the AR element will add another interactive element to the model that wasn’t present before.
“It’s nice to have people come and look at the model, but we also want them to get a little more information,” he said.
“About different planning initiatives, architectural features, and other different city initiatives.”
The technology will be much more useful in areas where developments are proceeding faster than models could be updated, he said, pointing to the city’s Port Lands.
Because it took so long to update the model to begin with, Thomas said the physical changes are being made on tiles that are much easier to remove so they can be changed at the same rate the city is evolving. But the entire update will take several more years, and a lot of hard work from Humber students.
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