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Autonomy (Part 2 of 2) Apr 09, 2020

The Plangineers engage experts Sven Beiker and Gary Hsueh to explore the world of autonomous vehicles.

Dr. Sven Beiker is Managing Director of Silicon Valley Mobility

Gary Hsueh is Director of Mobility Programs at Prospect Silicon Valley

In part 2 of this 2-part interview, Michelle and Rob continue their conversation with Sven and Gary to discuss some implications and possibilities of autonomous vehicle uptake.

Sven and Gary were kind enough to call in from across the country so we thank our listeners for understanding some of the sound challenges we faced, but know the conversation is well worth listening to.

Autonomy (Part 1 of 2) Apr 09, 2020

The Plangineers engage experts Sven Beiker and Gary Hsueh to explore the world of autonomous vehicles.

Dr. Sven Beiker is Managing Director of Silicon Valley Mobility

Gary Hsueh is Director of Mobility Programs at Prospect Silicon Valley

In part 1 of this 2-part interview, Michelle and Rob engage with Sven and Gary who break down the basics of "Automated Connected Electric & Shared" vehicles, or ACES as referred to in the industry.

Sven and Gary were kind enough to call in from across the country so we thank our listeners for understanding some of the sound challenges we faced, but know the conversation is well worth listening to.

Indy Johar talks Future Cities Canada Aug 31, 2019

Indy Johar, Visionary, is co-founder of Project 00, Dark Matter Labs, as well as multiple social ventures in England. While doing all of this, he also works with large global multinationals and institutions to support their transition to a positive Systems Economy.

In this discussion, Indy explains the necessity of the "boring" revolution to equip our cities with the tools for the future.

Olivia Labonte talks Future Cities Canada May 06, 2019

Olivia Labonte, Executive Director of Young Diplomats of Canada, talks about grassroots youth engagement.

Olivia, an economist with a passion for global youth advocacy and sustainable cities, distills ideas from the Canada at 100,000,000 panel. She shares insights from her work as Executive Director of Young Diplomats of Canada, a national non-profit organization focused on creating spaces for young people to engage at the highest levels of decision-making.

Derek Ballantyne talks Future Cities Canada Apr 05, 2019

Derek brings his extensive experience in the development and management of housing to answer our questions on the topic. We talk about the merits of piloting policy in real-life versus the pitfalls of policy from the boardroom, and discuss takeaways from the Future Cities Canada Summit 'Housing for All' panel.

Fang-Jui Chang talks Future Cities Canada Mar 22, 2019

Fang shares insights from her experiences leading workshops and meetings that aim to tackle diverse social issues. The aim of her work is to deal with cross-government issues and enhance a better organisational culture from inside to outside of the government.

Claire Hicks talks Future Cities Canada Feb 26, 2019

Claire Hicks, Program Manager for Future Ready at WSP Canada, shares successes in sustainability.

Future Ready is WSPs global innovation program, encouraging staff and clients to see the future more clearly and design for it today. Claire strives to support teams to deliver resilient, sustainable and people-centred project solutions that are prepared for tomorrow's world.

After listening to her discussion, read more about her work here.

Leah Lawrence talks Future Cities Canada Feb 10, 2019

Leah Lawrence is a lifelong advocate for engineering, entrepreneurship and the environment. The President and CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) shares behind-the-scenes insights on technology and how 'change management' can be about 'change expectation.'

Check her out in 'The Future of Business' panel discussion at the Future Cities Summit.

Geoff Cape talks Future Cities Canada Jan 15, 2019

Geoff Cape, is the founder and CEO of Evergreen. Since being founded in 1991, Evergreen has evolved into a national organization focused on integrating people, natural and built worlds, turning spaces into great places.

On-site at the inaugural Future Cities Canada Summit, Geoff talks about how lessons learned at the Evergreen Brick Works site can inform city-building.

Desmond Cole talks Future Cities Canada Dec 18, 2018

Desmond Cole, award-winning journalist, activist and author, speaks to the Plangineers on the heels of his opening keynote at the Future Cities Canada Summit, held November 7-9, 2018 at Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto. Click here to see his intriguing presentation.

He points to segregation within the City of Toronto and encourages city builders to similarly call out and use the right language to address what he's seeing.

His first book, entitled "The Skin We're In" will be published in 2019.

Future Cities Canada Summit Oct 31, 2018

Jo Flatt, Senior Lead of Policy & Partnerships at Evergreen speaks to us about the Future Cities Canada Summit.

Future Cities Canada is a new national collaborative that aims to accelerate urban innovation to transform cities for the benefit of us all.

The Summit takes place from November 7-9, 2018 at Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto.

Bloom Where You're Planted Sep 26, 2018

Alex Lenarduzzi, Water Resources Engineer at Conservation Halton shares her thoughts on the role of the natural environment and how it co-exists with the urban environment.

We talk about:

Differences and similarities between practice in the public and private sector

The lingering impacts of extreme weather and the human stories around such events

Alex's perception of the word "environment" as the "natural environment," rather than "urban environment"

Urbanites exploring the natural world

Seeing the City from the escarpment, or from the water

Working in a career doing something you love

Alex's guide to being outside and how it promotes being in the moment

Growing up in the "Waterfall Capital of the World"

How seeing the world, on the ground, or from space, can affect our perspective

From the Archives: Good or Good Enough? Aug 28, 2018

In our second episode ever, “Good, or good enough?” Michelle and Rob discuss how paradigms were broken for the revolutionary Deep Lake Water Cooling system.

Our ancestors first form of “district energy,” sharing fire in a cave

Vancouver’s Olympic village district energy system

Sustainable development at the Regent Park Revitalization

Discussing Enwave Toronto’s Deep Lake Water Cooling (DLWC)

Baffin Island Mining project

Creativity is just ingenuity, applied. The DLWC was a showcase project for Toronto, and Enwave.

Bringing along others so when we have the answers, others can see the questions.

The enemy of doing something great is doing something good. Even moreso, even better than good...is good enough.

Mentioned: Good to Great by Jim Collins

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca or @ODCPodcast on Twitter if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

The Onion of Discontent Jul 24, 2018

The Plangineers talk about the illusions and realities of public consultation.

Rob explains the methods by which we gather and consider various points of consideration when undertaking city-building initiatives.

Dialogue revolves around engaging early and often.

Michelle shares the pizza analogy of consultation.

We talk about change management and the ADKAR model of: - Awareness - Desire - Knowledge - Ability - Reinforcement

We're All Settlers Jun 26, 2018

Sheila Boudreau, Senior Landscape Architect at Toronto & Region Conservation Authority, shares stories of teaching, engaging and opening up opportunities for indigenous youth.

Sheila speaks to us about:

How her experiences have been interwoven to shape what and how she teaches

Taking care of the forest in a free-range upbringing

Why she has embarked upon opening doors for indigenous youth

The importance of the Kairos blanket exercise

The natural connection of earth and land to indigenous stewardship

Making connections with programs that support young women, like Girls Can Too

The success of art interventions for infrastructure such as those in Calgary’s Watershed Plus program

In the latter part of our dialogue, Rob and Sheila offer up different perspectives on low impact development (LID). Rob posed that wide scale adoption of LID would present financial challenges.

Sheila offered up that opportunities exist when you’re “Creating Great Choices” (citing Jennifer Riel & Roger Martin's Guide to Integrative Thinking.) Though not in the final version of the posted interview, Sheila reflected to us in our conversation about the importance of considering the triple bottom line when thinking about LID.

Listeners can find a triple-bottom line analysis of Toronto's Street Tree Standards here and also refer to a report by TD Bank on the economic value of trees.

Inspired May 01, 2018

The Plangineers, Michelle & Rob, share how their professional fuel often comes from outside their professional lives. We talked about:

Voracious reading

Understanding people

How Ray Dalio's "Idea meritocracy" resonated with Rob

Thinking Fast & Slow, in Rob’s case about Floods and Flow

Finding the strength to put down a book

Michelle’s reflection about how world changing design comes from play, as brought forward in Steven Johnson’s Wonderland

How humans are inspired by the things we do in our leisure time

Handling social media

Going against the flow and being right

The single trait that Rob and Michelle identify as being crucial to success

Rules of Engagement Mar 27, 2018

Helen Noehammer, Director of Transportation & Infrastructure Planning at the City of Mississauga shares her take on pink-handled tools and how soft skills help alongside the hard skills in the engineer’s toolbox.

Helen talks to us about...

How "a little bit of everything" adds up to a lot

What happens when "life happens"

Changes in the representation of men and women in the engineering industry

Using "The Velvet Hammer"

Lessons from customer service at Canadian Tire

Dealing with angry mobs using humour

The biggest challenges facing Mississauga

"Asking the right questions"

What happened at her first interview (hint: someone cried)

The relevance of legacy

The People's (Food) Court Feb 06, 2018

Lesley Pavan, Director of Design and Development at the City of Mississauga shares her insights into the lifestyle choices on offer in the rapidly urbanizing city where she both works and lives.

Lesley speaks to us about...

Her path from humble roots on the farm, to geographer and through a municipal journey to her role as Director.

Mississauga's evolution from post-war migration right to being nearly built-out with dialogue on some crucial elements along the way

Brownfield redevelopment lands such as St.Lawrence Starch, Inspiration Lakeview and the Imperial Oils Lands (West Village development) along Lake Ontario

Farm to table practices and urban agriculture

The coolness indicator of restaurant culture as well as the contrast to the dining in and the use of Mississauga's green space

The loaded question of density and the evolution of cities

The function of Square One as an element of the evolving downtown

The New Urban Crisis, by Richard Florida

Democracy in the food court

Power to the Sheeple Jan 02, 2018

The Plangineers talk about ingrained falsehoods and the challenge of living up to our professional duty

Factual review of engineering data is found here relating to the fact that storm intensities have not increased

Rob shared data and engaged specific outlets to expose falsehoods. In this article from Canadian Underwriter, editors consulted Environment and Climate Change Canada to correct the insurance industry Weather Story statement.

Here is an example of CBC reporting with an insurance industry statement on storm frequency that was corrected after consulting Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Rob clarified that his comments on storm intensities don't dispute the narrative on potential future climate change trends. However, observations on storm intensities changing now are inaccurate.

Here's a link to Rob's paper, "Evidence Based Policy Gaps in Water Resources: Thinking Fast and Slow on Floods and Flow."

Although Rob stated increasing temperatures are undeniable in the podcast, research by the University of Guelph shows that temperatures shifts are related to cold temperatures and not the high temperatures that have been linked to more extreme weather due to higher water vapour holding capacity.

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca or if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

Like Millenials Nov 14, 2017

A “Millenial” is defined as someone born between 1981 - 1997. Our Millenial Planner, Michelle, and Gen X-er Engineer Rob, share their perspectives on the topic of the “Millenial experience,” and challenge the current narrative.

Age-ism is a recurring and troubling theme as is the reality of how it may be ever-present, but simply being dealt with differently in an era of tech-savviness.

Michelle quotes transportation planner Sam Schwartz and asks, “It’s not about asking ‘How do we plan for Millenials, but how do we plan like Millenials?”

Rob points out the two different types of people who won’t amount to much: People who won’t listen to what they’re told, and; People who don’t do anything but what they’re told

The Plangineers discuss an industry article called “Good Planning Knows No Age” by Liz Howson (Mar/Apr 2017 Ontario Planning Journal)

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca or if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

The Day After Tomorrow? Jul 16, 2017

The Plangineers talk about how the input of technical experts can help round out storytelling to add the "why" to the "who cares?"

(Sorry for the confusion in the intro...this is actually episode #5, you're right.)

Reporting on the GO Train flooding of 2013 may have exaggerated the frequency of this occurrence

Check out Rob's CityFloodMap blog post on the matter

Discussing the context of numbers and the value of infographics

How technical input to the media can add the "why" to the spice of storytelling as well as the mechanisms of mini-advocacy

The lesson of communicating like an activist while telling a good story

The need for our professions to push past humility and tell good stories that will resonate and inform people in positive ways

Listeners might be interested to know that during our cut, to keep the show within our regular ~20-25min length, we sacrificed a dialogue on "open data", it's emergence, relevance and potential value as a tool for healthy skepticism. Though it was a relevant part of the overall dialogue that dialogue almost stood on its own so we cropped it from the final edit that you hear.

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca or if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

ArtWorkX re-cap Jun 04, 2017

Check out what went down at ArtWorkX by clicking here

ArtWorkX Jun 04, 2017

ArtWorkX fused art & infrastructure at Celebration Square in Mississauga on May 27, 2017.

Artists Gaya Kairos, Claudio Ghirardo, Dominic Simone & Nisreen Askar turned otherwise remnant pieces of infrastructure into a creative cityscape mash-up.

Kids took turns in a wide variety of interactive crafts. Here you can see the result of their efforts making pipe look good.

Credit Valley Conservation was representing and supporting the event. Melanie was ready to answer questions from participants on a range of planting techniques. Whether it was what to plant in a pollinator garden, what might attract birds or what to use in a raingarden, she had the answers.

Just around the corner from CVC's booth was a functional raingarden. This standalone feature helped answer a lot of questions since you could see and feel what the end product could look like. And thanks again to Sean for explaining how the water recirculated.

The incredible Joanne Jackson, Producer of the Messenger, during an interview just before the screening of the acclaimed documentary about the plight of songbirds.

Corrugated plastic pipe becomes the Marilyn Towers.

It was an incredible event that helped change the way people look at infrastructure and imagine creative possibilities.

Cheers to the event organizers!

Dancing About Infrastructure May 08, 2017

Episode #4: Dancing About Infrastructure

Michelle and Rob reflect on the artistry that reveals our invisible services and why these reminders are an important part of our urban existence

Talking about music, is like dancing about architecture. But we’ll try dancing about infrastructure anyway

Older underground sewers are brick works of art like the photo shown by clicking here of the Garrison Creek storm sewer

Aesthetic inspirations for the Herb Gray Parkway pedestrian bridges

Is the River Longing?

The beauty of water treatment, as seen through the RC Harris filtration plant

How a tight butt can be a tribute to aging infrastructure

Wishing for the "Big Bridge Theory"

A timely tribute to Hamilton’s first water pumping station

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

Is the River Longing? May 08, 2017

In episode #4, Michelle recounts her experience viewing this sign in Calgary for the first time. It was a simple yet powerful reminder of what is around us that can be seemingly invisible.

A Woman's Place is in the... Apr 08, 2017

At the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in Ontario, we ask is there a "woman's place" in the Plangineering space?

Ontario became the fifth province in Canada to grant women the right to vote on April 12, 1917. This came following more than half a century of activism.

Discussing how the controversial dialogue between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses was storied.

Recognizing areas of internal strength and vulnerability.

Statistics on women’s representation in engineering from the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering

Where the engineering information gap may be? -overall lack of awareness of what engineers do -misconceptions about engineering (not being related to people) in contrast to the high prestige, say, for the medical profession which is seen as important work

Judgement blocks internal action, but may also be a barrier to acceptance of others. A cure for this is found through the rules of Improv as told by Tina Fey. Rule no.1: Agree.

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

Good or Good Enough Mar 13, 2017

Episode #2: Good, or good enough?

Michelle and Rob, our Plangineers, discuss how paradigms were broken for the revolutionary Deep Lake Water Cooling system.

Our ancestors first form of “district energy,” sharing fire in a cave

Vancouver’s Olympic village district energy system

Sustainable development at the Regent Park Revitalization

Discussing Enwave Toronto’s Deep Lake Water Cooling (DLWC)

Baffin Island Mining project

Creativity is just ingenuity, applied. The DLWC was a showcase project for Toronto, and Enwave.

Bringing along others so when we have the answers, others can see the questions.

The enemy of doing something great is doing something good. Even moreso, even better than good...is good enough.

Mentioned: Good to Great by Jim Collins

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.

Plangineers Feb 07, 2017

In the debut podcast, Michelle and Rob talk about what inspired them to urban planning and engineering and why the bridge between their practices is shorter than we think.

This month, we talked about:

Urban dictionary reference to Plangineer

The three pillars of planning: Public Health, Legislation & Architecture

Rob's toothpick bridge

Discussing how, "Form follows function"

The curious case of building the Sydney Opera House

Zooming-in versus zooming-out

Engineering the Windsor-Essex Parkway

Muneef’s take-away: Thinking inward versus outward

Rob's take-away: Appreciate the complexities of planning, design and constructing big City-building projects

Michelle's take-away: Respect and curiousity

Send us your feedback at chat@openduringconstruction.ca if you have any suggestions for projects or topics you'd like us to explore.