Toronto teen turns cereal boxes into intricate model of downtown core
Published 19 minutes ago
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/art...l-boxes-into-intricate-model-of-downtown-core
Stephanie Law
Staff Reporter
All it took was some cereal boxes, some glue, and a razor blade for a 14-year-old to build the entire downtown Toronto from scratch.
When Stephen Velasco started building his six-feet-by-two-feet model of the city, he’d spend up to two hours at his desk, a few days a week, gluing together cardboard pieces in the shapes of hundreds of downtown buildings. It’s something he began spontaneously three years ago.
“One day, I had some cardboard lying around on the desk,” said Velasco, now 17. “I thought, maybe I can fold it and build something rather than just recycle it — and if I was going to build something, it might as well be a skyscraper, because I was into it at the time.”
After spending a year crafting all the buildings and houses in the area bounded by the Gardiner Expressway, John St., Yorkville Ave. and Yonge St., Velasco dropped his tools and took a one-year hiatus. But last year, the North York teenager who is now a recent high school graduate, picked up some new materials and started constructing again — this time, on a second, more accurate and more detail-oriented model.
“The first model is pretty much collecting dust right now,” he said. It sits on a desk in his room, next to the newer model that’s still under construction. He said his first model wasn’t good enough — it wasn’t to scale, and the buildings were inaccurately crammed together.
“With the older model, I started when I was a lot younger, and as you get older, your skills improve,” he said. “You have a bit more focus, and you’re a bit more serious when you’re building this sort of stuff.”
So, Velasco restarted and began with the city block with the tallest towers, where the Toronto-Dominion Centre’s buildings protrude into the skyline.
Velasco plans for the new model to cover at least the same area as the first. He wants to retire his old model and put it into storage. At the moment, it is four-feet-by-two-feet and encompasses the area bounded by Front, John, College, and Yonge streets.
It’s not easy work to build a model accurately to scale. Velasco has to spend hours figuring out the exact dimensions of the building, then do a rough sketch of it before he can start cutting into the cardboard, and finally assembling the pieces together.
For simpler houses and towers, Velasco said he could easily churn out a few in a span of half an hour — he calls it “mass-production.” But for the more complicated ones, it could take him hours. He has yet to tackle some of Toronto’s engineering feats, like the ROM Crystal, the AGO or the Ontario College of Art and Design. Nor some of the more detail-heavy neo-classical and neo-gothic architecture like Trinity College.
Velasco said it’s the feeling of the model that motivates him to keep expanding, even if it’s a block every few months.
“When you take a photo, you’re bounded by what a photo can capture with a lens — you can’t pan around in it, you can’t see it from higher up — what you see is what you get,” he said. “With the model, you can move around, stoop down lower, or stand up higher just to get a different perspective.”
This is a feeling also shared by the city’s Director of Urban Design, Robert Freedman, who argues that tangible, physical models play a fundamental role that can’t be replaced by high-tech, three-dimensional computer models.
“Computer models are very sophisticated, you can do fly-throughs and it’s a fascinating thing to look at,” he said. “But it’s a very different experience to walk your way around and peer between the buildings — there’s something quite intriguing and fascinating about a physical model.”
Last summer, Freedman and his team started plans to refurbish the model of the city that sits in the City Hall lobby. So when he saw photos of Velasco’s model, which the teen had posted on several Toronto forums, he invited Velasco to his office to meet the staff, and get a tour of his department.
“Just because we were working on the model, it seemed intriguing that the student was spending that amount of time and that much energy in the model,” Freedman said. “We were curious to see how he was doing it, and to congratulate him.”
Freedman, 51, has been director of the department for 10 years, and he said he’s still inspired and excited about his job. He recalls his own awe for architecture and model building as a child.
“I think it grows out of a desire to create three-dimensional objects, the thought process that goes into designing a book shelf, a unit, a cabinet,” he said. “When I was in grade school, whenever I can do a project and build a model, I’d always choose to build a model.”
Freedman said that even if Velasco’s model isn’t accurate or detailed enough for the city’s need, it still deserves a place.
“Anytime someone takes the initiative to do such a careful job to create something that intricate, it should absolutely be displayed publicly,” he said. “It would be inspiring for other kids who love to build models.”
Despite Velasco’s own fascination with urban designing and architecture, he said he hasn’t decided on his future yet. And as to whether or not Velasco will give away or sell his pet project?
“You know what, I probably wouldn’t mind giving it up if it’s to have a lot of people see it for free,” he said. “And they experience the same thing that I did, getting to see the city from a different perspective.”
