A Glimpse into 1UP Leaders Lab 2023: Empowering Youth in Urban Planning
1UP Leaders Lab is a two-day leadership training program for high school students in Ontario that empowers them to change their communities and help the cause of achieving livable cities. The program equips these young leaders with the essential knowledge, resources, and mentorship to establish a thriving 1UP School Chapter. This year, the event was held from August 19 to 20.
The event's schedule was jam-packed with free workshops given by professionals in the field! These workshops covered various topics, such as project management, community-building experiences, and problem-solving strategies.
Participants were also taken on tours around downtown Toronto as part of the program. They were encouraged to reimagine existing spaces and apply design principles to their surroundings based on case studies of the areas they visited.
Leaders Lab aims to give students the necessary skills and experiences to become community youth leaders. It offers them a platform to introduce urban planning and city-building concepts to their peers in high school.
A Milestone in the Making!
This year’s event was a major milestone! being the second in-person Leaders Lab and the first to be held after the COVID pandemic. We had record-breaking chapter registrations and held the event at two stunning venues — the Collision Gallery and the Perkins & Will studio. We would like to sincerely thank our venue providers for their kind support!
Day One:
Day one kicked off with a Project Management Workshop. Last year's Leaders Lab attendees and chapter leaders shared their experiences, highlighting their challenges and offering their insights on effectively approaching projects for our new chapters.
Next, we toured the Collision Gallery with Phat Le. The gallery featured the "+(plus) 2.0" exhibit from the Infrastructure Institute at the School of Cities, University of Toronto. This exhibit expands our perspective on community-building possibilities by merging unlikely elements together and encouraging us to rethink our neighborhoods and the purpose of our cities. This perfectly aligns with our mission of advocating for youth involvement in creating better and more livable city designs.
The day continued with a City-Building Careers Panel Discussion. Experts from the city-building industry shared their work experiences and answered questions from our enthusiastic attendees.
We wrapped up the day with a tour of the St. Lawrence neighborhood led by Joël León Danis, the Programming Director of the Toronto Society of Architects. This tour revealed many hidden parts of Toronto and the importance of preserving old buildings. We explored the city's hidden greenery and understood the history of the city. The tour concluded at Market Lane Park, which set the stage for our scouting challenge.
Leaders Lab participants were tasked with activities like counting the trees in the park (the correct answer was 30) and identifying the number of accessibility ramps (sadly, there weren't many). The purpose of this exercise was twofold: to encourage participants to make observations of a much-neglected park and to prepare them for the future design jam.
Day Two:
Day two was hosted at the Perkins & Will studio. The day began with a Public Speaking Workshop led by Anjum Sultana, the Director of Youth Leadership and Policy Advocacy at Plan International Canada and one of Canada's Top 30 Under 30 in Sustainability by Corporate Knights. She enlightened students on the essentials of public speaking, emphasizing the importance of clarity, confidence, and connection.
The rest of the day was devoted to the Design Jam. The challenge was to design an innovative, human-centred approach to problem-solving and innovation, focusing on Market Lane Park. Participants were split into teams to tackle this project collaboratively. The Design Jam consisted of several stages:
- Empathize: Read the case and identify the persona's needs and wants.
- Define: Identifying the problem and why the park is not helping the community.
- Ideate: Come up with ideas to solve the problems!
- Prototype and Test: The prototype is where you bring your ideas to life, showcasing them to the judges and all the participants.
- Show & Tell: Here is where you present your ideas in the given time frame, pushing your public speaking skills.
A set of personas guided teams as they created shared spaces, events, and resources. The common goal was to transform Market Lane Park into an inclusive space that welcomed community members with diverse backgrounds and interests.
After a day of prototyping and ideation, we concluded with an award ceremony, marking the end of this year's Leaders Lab.
We would also like to thank our sponsors who made this event possible:
- Diamond Sponsor: Arcadis IBI Group
- Platinum Sponsors: GEC Architecture, gh3*, Grand Valley Society of Architects, Perkins&Will, and Toronto Metropolitan University School of Urban & Planning
- Gold Sponsors: Beate Bowron Etcetera, CORE Architects, DesignTO, Fotenn Planning+Design, Janet Rosenberg & Studio, LURA Consulting, Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, and Ratio.City
- Venue Sponsors: Collision Gallery, Infrastructure Institute, and Perkins&Will
- Food/Drink Sponsor: Poke Guys
This program wouldn’t have been possible and wouldn’t have been free for you all to come if it wasn’t for the great people at these great organizations!
A heartfelt thank you to all who attended this year's Leaders Lab, and we look forward to seeing your projects at the conference in March! For those who couldn't make it this time, follow us on social media to stay updated about upcoming events!
By Devesh Vaswani, Content Strategist for 1UP Youth City Builders
