Fringe Benefits: Cosmopolitan Dynamics of a Multicultural City

Curated by architect, editor and urban designer Ian Chodikoff, the exhibition runs from July 9 to September 23, 2008 at Toronto's Design Exchange, and is intent on presenting ideas and questions that will influence the future identity of our suburbs – a geography constantly evolving into something much more dynamic than big-box retail outlets and housing subdivisions. Fringe Benefits will discuss the relationships between social networks, social capital, social exclusion, economic disparity and entrepreneurial activities found amongst the various built environments across the GTA. Recent projects by the leading architects across the GTA will demonstrate how our cosmopolitan communities are already influencing contemporary architecture in a formal and ambitious way. Businesses, community and religions groups, and individual have already begun to influence the ways in which our various communities shop, eat and play together. Examples of residential buildings of various heights and densities, commercial buildings, parks, cultural landscapes and temporary urbanism will be presented to initiate debate about the new realities of our constantly mutating suburban context.