Tiny toronto

2022

In the summer of 2022, I was part of the TINY TO initiative. Our goal was to update the Toronto City Model at City Hall. This documentation will provide insight into the process for future teams to follow, understand, and IMPROVE the scaled city of Toronto.

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CONTRIBUTIONS

Communicated with clients to better understand their end product
Overcome obstacles and problems that the clients had with the design.
Worked in a design team and helped with production
Created mockups and models to convey to clients current materials
and trends during product development

TIME FRAME

4 MONTHS

May 2022 - August 2022

SKILLS

TOOLS

Market Research

Ideation Sketching

Laser Cutting

Wood Working

Model Making

GradCAD

SolidWorks

Rhino

PrusaSlicer

Photoshop

Illustrator

COLLABORATORS

KYLA ROSS

Project Manager

ANDREW HARRIS

Project Facilitator

MAI NGUYEN

Industrial Designer

KENDRA SAVARD

Industrial Designer

HANNHA DUMANCAS

Industrial Designer Student

DANIEL ROWLAND

Industrial Designer Student

ARIEL SALGADO

Game Programming Student

JASON NGUYEN

Game Programmer

What's the project about?

For the past 40 years, the scaled City of Toronto that resides in City Hall has been untouched and unkempt. This is due to the outdated material, making it harder to maintain and clean. The model is on display on the first floor of City Hall and functions as both a major tourist destination and a guide for anyone visiting the downtown area. The city of Toronto has decided to employ Industrial Design, and Game Programmer students and graduates to update the model and upgrade for modern times. With the team's skills and expertise, they have the potential of creating something spectacular for City hall members and worldwide tourists to gander.

How might we create an updatable model that is easy to clean?

Project Parameters

The physical model will be used to aid in explaining the evolution of the downtown as well as potential city-initiated built options for assessment to place specific future property development plans in context. With this rebuild, we have the chance to improve the model's interaction and update the physical buildings accordingly as the city changes by sourcing the information from current 3D massing on open data and other datasets. With the help of the Toronto Urban Design team, we were able to set up parameters for the project to better understand the needs of the project.

TOP PRIORITY

MID PRIORITY

LOW PRIORITY

Model scale will be 1:1500 (existing model is 1:1250)
Details of buildings should be shown
Each tile should be no larger than 1.3 meters x 1.3 meters
Base has to be light and durable
Focus on tiles A1 to A3
Professional standard of materials shall be used

Modular and Removable for cleanup
Profiling the story of the partnership on social media platforms
Document the process and build a timeline

Augmented reality
App for phones and tablets
Presentation for the City Hall staff members and urban design team to inform them what has been accomplished

These guidelines with varying priority levels were made to match up with Industrial Team. To ensure that the team was able to complete the project, we had to scale back the project. City Hall wanted to complete 4 out of the 12 tiles for the summer, but after careful evaluation of the time and budget of the project, we knew we were not going to be able to finish all 4 tiles. Originally the scale of the model was 1:1500 but we wanted to make the building bigger to show off the immaculate detail the team has worked. Those were the biggest changes, of course, the project changed over time with production but these were the main concern we had before tackling the project.

Current Market Trends

From the research that the team has collectively conducted, we found 3 different city models with varying degrees of modern technology and material usage. After evaluating city models of different cities, we identified liked and disliked features. Below is a description of the strengths and weaknesses of each model.

CURRENT CITY OF TORONTO

City of Toronto has many iterations over the past 40 years. Though many have tried to reproduce the model to keep up with modern times. The attempts did not have a lasting effect, and ended up a an amalgamation of different ideas with no direction.

SAN FRANCISCO CITY MODEL

The City of Toronto has buildings that were constructed in the name of the First Nations that roam the land. As a commemoration, the buildings on First Nation lands are colored Maroon. The San Franciso City model has a design that highlights certain buildings for tourist to explore and the design wanted to discuss a different way to pay respects without interfering with the current scheme

KAMPONG BHARU CITY MODEL

The Kampong Bharu City model uses light projections to Showcase different kinds of terrains and landmarks. It's a very high-tech method to show users landmarks without having the effort to colour in individual buildings. This kind of model requires a dark room for the image to project and catch the user's attention. It is a unique and very possible solution, but I don't think it was in the city of Toronto’s budget.

BERLIN CITY MODEL

This model that Berlin has made helps us tackle how we should design or modify our buildings. Just like how Toronto has the CN Tower, Berlin has Berliner Fernsehturm. We have to observe if they had any design changes to the building or just kept it the same but scaled down. The colour schemes seem more desaturated, but with the vast buildings, it's not too overbearing. One of the key principles we talk about in design is the hierarchy. Since there are numerous buildings, there doesn't need to be a sharp colour to catch the attention of the user because the model itself is stunningly large but not in your face. Out of all the buildings, we took heavy inspiration from this model.

Surveys and Interviews

73%

To better understand what demographic we were designing for, interviews and observational studies were performed to provide details for a better understanding of user behavior. Surveys were spread to gather a consensus but to truly receive vital information and truly transform the model interviews were conducted to add to the datasheet from the survey. Interviewees were people who have interacted with the model, whether through touch or visuals, and how often they interact with the model.

92%

Use their phones as a GPS to navigate through Toronto

Would like to pick up and feel the model

77%

Tourist and locals plan out their day trip

We also categorized who the main users would be. This provides a good frame of reference when understanding what type of people will be interacting with the product.

PRIMARY

Many tourists come to city hall to take photos of the model for vacation. Something to consider for marketing

SECONDARY

Maintenance workers need to be able to access the model to rid of trash that was thrown and dust bunnies

TERTIARY

Architects need data visualization such as air rights, map view, transit info, before creating concepts

From the information the information the team extracted. A fictitious travel tourist persona was developed to fit the demographic based on the background data. Having the persona aims to condense the data for design constraints of the user.

Remy is a tourist from the United States.He's on vacation with his wife and they decide to explore the City of Toronto. They've never been to the City, but their brother-in-law suggested they go to City Hall first and see what they can do.

FRUSTRATIONS

Lack of engaging activities for Ontario minors (a.k.a. his kids)
First time in the city; does not know where he may most enjoy himself beside google suggestions.

WANT & NEEDS

Planning a day trip that's suitable for his kids
An area that has a lot of fun things to do clumped up together so the kids won't get bored
Fun and informative so the kids can learn something during the trip
A place that's doesn't require too much energy

REMI LAURENCE

Gender:

Age:

Job:

Male

Chemist

Workflow Mapping

FRUSTRATIONS

A nice place to talk and reference buildings
A nice path to make the walks for lively

WANT & NEEDS

Data visualization: Air Rights, map view, transit info, building data
Have a fun and memorable day trip with her grand kids
Have a low impact day and avoid walking long distances.
Is limited by mobility; would rather not be walking around for extended periods, has friends who are in wheelchairs

JESSICA BOISE

Gender:

Age:

Job:

Female

Architect

Jessica has lived in the city of Toronto her entire life and has recently retired from her architecture firm, but she still comes on to the projects as a consultant. She likes to take walks with her grandkids around the city to see what is new and developing. This helps with design ideas for different architectural projects

Understanding and Analyzing

Concepts

SKETCHES

PHYSICAL MODEL

In total there were two prototype models, the reason why it is alarmingly low was because the majority of the time was spent troubleshooting and understanding the corrupted and old files. The urban planning team already knows what they want and has provided clear guidelines. The reason why the project was difficult in the first place for the urban planning team was because the files themselves were unusable… at first. but after multiple software and programs were used and inputting the files of the models into each of those programs, we were able to extract not only the model but the details within the models.

The Process

3D Massing to 3D Printing

Preparing for Laser Cutting

Vinyl Print Underlay

Building the Base

Additional Photos

Final Design

Video Presentation

Design Language

Social Media Post

User Interface for The Augmented Reality App

Looking Back

Detailed Buildings

The city of Toronto has provided some files on all of the buildings. It had a mixture of simplified buildings and detailed buildings. we had no problems with the simplified buildings, we prefer them, but the detailed buildings gave us more problems to deal with. Balconies on the buildings can be seen in the file which creates a problem for us because extra support has to be made to ensure the building doesn't collapse during 3D printing. When putting into the slicer program for 3D printing more problems arise.

Almost Impossible Files

With the new details on buildings, there is a greater chance of holes being formed into 3D models. Every building file that was given was primarily made of mesh instead of solid. We used RHINO and CADGRAB to fill the meshes but there were a few blocks that refused to cooperate. This is important when it comes to cleaning the 3D parts. To remove the supports of the parts, the model Is submerged in a cleaning solution and uses ultrasonic vibrations to dispose of the supports. If there are holes in the building left by the supports, the cleaning solution will be left in the buildings and at any point can leak onto the model and damage it. We troubleshoot multiple rounds and came up with a solution, but it put a dent in our time frame for the project.

Rough Finish

We had an FDM printer at our disposal at the same time and money we used that machine. Even with the nozzle at 0.4 mm, you can see and feel the individual layers. In return, a lot of sanding had to be done to have a smooth finish. If we were to replicate this project in the future, we suggest that an SLS 3D printer or a resin printer would work better to reduce time and improve quality so the printer can print at microns on each layer. That being said, the FDM printer prints at an industrial level due to the large size of the print bed, for mass production it works well at the cost of quality

Laser Cut Base

This acrylic came from the first batch to test out the laser cutting part, we wanted to make sure everything was clean but we ran into a problem when it came to the finish. At this point, we want to make sure we have the right settings, but the easiest solution to fix the burn marks was to leave the clear film on so the burn marks can adhere to the film instead of the actual acrylic sheet. In turn, the only thing you have to do to remove the burn marks is to peel the plastic film before placing it onto the vinyl.