START YOUR 2019 WITH A JOLT OF DESIGN INSPIRATION COURTESY OF THE INTERIOR DESIGN SHOW (IDS) TORONTO, A FOUR-DAY FEAST OF DESIGN JANUARY 17-20 THAT’S FULL OF INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS, NEW PRODUCTS AND EXPERT-LED TALKS CENTERING AROUND PROMOTING DESIGN IN CANADA AND AROUND THE WORLD. This year, IDS takes over the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and features a larger show floor with installations and features from more than 10 design and architecture firms and two full trade days.
Below, GRAY picks a few of the top features, presentations, and tours to add to your IDS must list.
Opening Night Party + Preview
Jan. 17, 7 to 11 p.m.
Clink a champagne flute or two with more than 5,900 of your fellow design lovers and be among the first to preview the show. This year’s theme, “Better Together,” emphasizes positivity and light, with a portion of ticket sales benefiting the greater Toronto area Habitat for Humanity.
Concept House: Great Lakes Cabin
Jan. 17-20, times vary
The Backcountry Hut Company provides Great Lakes Cabin, this year’s design concept house feature, with landscape design by Flattery Design. In line with IDS19’s “Power of Design” theme, this full-scale concept house enables visitors to enter and experience a new “kit-of-parts” approach to the creation of small-scale structures. The design concept presents a modernist interpretation of the notion of rustic wilderness living based on the spirit of Canadian outdoor culture. Read more about Backcountry Hut Company here!
Maker
Jan. 17-20, times vary
Curated by Design Milk and now in its fifth year at IDS Toronto, Maker will feature North American designers who produce their own work in small batches with limited distribution. Look for goods from COFO Design, Division 12, Kroft, Miles & May and Objects and Ideas.
Jan. 17-20, times and prices vary
Take an expertly guided peek at interiors by some of the city’s top architectural and interiors firms. Many of the exemplary homes, corporate headquarters, cultural and community buildings, hospitality spaces and other institutions on IDS’s Interior Tours schedule are inaccessible to the general public at any other time, making this series a golden opportunity to expand your knowledge of Toronto’s most intriguing spaces with insight delivered directly from the talented design firms that shaped them.
Millennials to Gen Z—Shifting the Hospitality Model from Accommodation to Experience
Jan. 17, 9 a.m.
Millennials have been a focus of conversation across industries for many years, but curiosity is increasingly being piqued by their successors, Gen Z. Their ascent into a powerful demographic will affect how technology integrates with hospitality in a major way. Quadrangle Architects’ George Foussias will explore this shift in expectations and how the hospitality experience is different for each generation. Just as the social media landscape is being shaped by Gen Z, hotel infrastructure will need to cater to these unique consumers. This seminar will ask the audience, “What do you think is going to happen?”
Breakfast Keynote: Taking Canadian Design to the World Stage
Jan. 18, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.
Canadian design excellence is getting its long-overdue recognition, with major talent breaking onto the global market. Why is Canada so hot right now? And how can designers build a vision for expanding their reach beyond their home turf? AZURE’s executive editor Elizabeth Pagliacolo hosts an engaging breakfast conversation with four vibrant Canadian firms to find out how they are erasing boundaries, working with global manufacturers and clients, and grabbing the international spotlight.
Keynote: Neri&Hu
Jan. 18, 1 p.m.
IDS Toronto international guests of honor, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, are the founding partners of the award-winning, Shanghai-based interdisciplinary firm Neri&Hu Design and Research Office. Using research as a design tool, Neri&Hu’s work draws from the dynamic interaction between experience, detail, material, form, and light. Their projects are often defined as spatial experiences that blend new and existing built conditions using materials that create a sense of layering and screening, while drawing inspiration from Asian design.