Dongsei Kim with Tommy Yang (New School) participated in the Sudbury 2050: Urban Design Ideas Competition with the project titled "Pollinating Sudbury: Curating Scenarios." The project is shortlisted as one of the eight finalists in the Sudbury 2050: Urban Design Ideas Competition Open Category.

Abstract

We begin our study by acknowledging the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850. We also recognize that the locations of the study include the traditional lands of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation and the traditional lands of the Wahnapitae First Nation. We extend our deepest respect to all Indigenous peoples.

Architects and designers often put forward master plans with concrete solutions for troubled cities. However, we argue that the critical reading of a place must precede any proposal. In addition to its current normative understanding, we believe a critical and novel way of reading Sudbury’s current condition is necessary to project its better future.

In this sense, we see critically mapping Sudbury and its people, of their past, present, and future is at the core of this project. Our series of mappings that span across a range of physical scales (personal experience to regional scale) and time scales (24-hour cycle, to geological, longue durée) starts to reveal important ingredients of Sudbury. Rather than aiming to render a seamless space of consensus, our project aims to first reveal controversies, frictions, and antagonisms of the place.

With these ingredients at hand, the project provokes and asks difficult questions rather than providing precipitous answers. The project aims to help Sudbury’s stakeholders to better frame and formulate what alternative future scenarios might lie ahead.

We examine current Sudbury’s condition against C. S. Holling’s Modified figure eight that explicates his Ecosystem Dynamics and adaptive design approaches that reframe the future of Sudbury region.

Miigwech.