Christie Lam
©2024 Mag-Ex
Creative Placemaking
I help develop placemaking plans through creative frameworks that sprout new ideas, as well as researching and reflecting best practice. I have found that the most creative outcomes have come from the meeting grounds of your wildest imagination, and strong firm analytical ground to find root in.I am particularly experienced in concept development for cultural programs, cultural infrastructure, and public spaces.
Quayside, Toronto & Waterfront Toronto
As part of a consortium of agencies, my team supported Dream and Great Gulf in their successful bid for Quayside, Toronto, a mixed-use community, slated for completion in 2031. We helped them develop a concept and business plan for a Indigenous-led cultural amenity through a series of creative workshops and a business planning process that mapped out the potential revenue and expense drivers for this site.
We were subject matter experts on how a cultural amenity could be operated and developed, bringing a range of examples that allowed us to develop a concept that brought together examples from Toronto and other community-led organisations. The amenity will be important part of how the site will be activated through culture and collaborative planning. Our process also helped bridge architects, designers, community engagement professionals and developers to align the consortium on a single concept.
This project set itself apart for its stated intention to be a collaborative project with the Mississaugus of the Credit First Nation. The land sits on their unceded territory and while not quite land back, it places Indigenous communities at the centre of planning for land that is rightfully and lawfully theirs. I am committed to continue to develop concepts that use bottom-up and equity advancing governance structures, that not only redress historical harm, but forge new models of cultural and community organisations.
Major real estate developer
I assisted a major real state developer in Hong Kong with their winning bid of a parcel of land that required the development of a Public Open Space Strategy. My team acted as experts on programming public spaces through culture. We developed a series of programming principles and an operating plan and concept for how all public spaces in the site could be activated, as well as a community engagement model and feedback loop to ensure that it would be created in close consultation with the full range of the city’s residents.
Our work had a direct impact on the success of their bid, by filling in some of the “software” gaps in their “hardware” by referencing key examples of successful public spaces across the world, from NYC’s High Line, to London’s Southbank. We helped them bring together a plethora of ideas and information into a coherent structure and framework that was easily implemented in their plans. The project broke ground in late 2022.
Working on such a major project in my home city feels extra meaningful; knowing my work will influence planning for a city I love and know dearly. It therefore became extra important that I brought my unique perspective on building a new public space in a city so lacking in them. The result was a plan for a truly accessible space for all – including the domestic migrant workers that are the lifeblood of the city but left out of many plans, but also nearby office workers, students, retirees, etc.