Recently ranked as one of the top 10 most innovative cities in the world, Toronto is becoming an international leader in the innovation market. Recognizing its potential, the highly-successful global innovation event ARCHITECT@WORK, has selected Toronto for its North American debut.
Over one thousand architecture and interior design professionals will flock to Canada’s biggest city to discover the industry’s most exciting new products from exhibitors across North America and Europe. The Toronto edition will be the first ARCHITECT@WORK hub overseas bringing the concept to 14 countries creating a grand total of 22 editions.
Ranked eighth out of 500 cities worldwide in the comprehensive "Innovation Cities Index" released annually by Australian-based firm 2thinknow, the city was a clear choice for their debut exhibition.
"Toronto is the ideal location to open up a totally new market," said Anne-Laure Van de Ginste, spokesperson for ARCHITECT@WORK Toronto. "It has the largest design workforce in Canada and the third largest in North America, after New York and Boston."
Spotlighting the most anticipated trends for the architecture and design industry, from breakthroughs in technologies to new material applications, ARCHITECT@WORK strips down the exhibition model, featuring only the most cutting edge innovations.
The event will take place on May 17 & 18, 2017 at the Enercare Centre Toronto from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. where exhibitors will showcase their most impressive and innovative products and materials that will help shape the Canadian design industry for the year ahead.
"We identified that a continuing trend in 2017 is sustainability and nature. Many of this year’s Toronto exhibitors will share their innovations in eco-friendly materials and products," added Van de Ginste. A few examples include:
- CP Furniture Systems will exhibit the "Office 4.0 Water Wall and Green Wall." The Water Wall increases humidity in interiors and produces a healthy indoor climate and a pleasant cooling effect is created by natural air purification. The Green Wall helps improve indoor climate and room acoustics in interiors. The wall is vertically equipped with many small plants, which increase humidity in interiors and filter harmful germs or vapors out of the air at the same time.
- Zinco Canada's "SolarVert" photo-voltaic (PV) panels convert sunlight into electrical current. Their efficiency drops by 0.5% for every degree above 25ᵒ C. The cooling effect of a Green Roof can significantly improve the efficiency of the solar panel.
Exclusively about innovative products, materials, applications and services, ARCHITECT@WORK consists of a national judging panel of architects and interiors designers who must first approve each showcased product therefore, guaranteeing an interesting visit. The event is structured with short seminars giving fellow architects the chance to share their experience with visitors or the opportunity to present hot topics.
Organized and marketed by Xpo Canada Ltd., the unique and innovative ARCHITECT@WORK concept is already highly successful and established in Europe. A differentiation to the traditional trade show model, the event’s layout is made up of 80 uniform turnkey booths featuring 300 innovations, where visitors are automatically led along a route that allows them to make the best possible visit in the most efficient time.