IWB

The Institute without Boundaries at George Brown College is an interdisciplinary graduate program emphasizing collaborative design practice in a studio environment. Its program delves into the methods and practices of design research, strategy and social innovation and has outstanding expertise in analyzing and digesting world issues. The Institute’s first project was Massive Change: The Future of Global Design, undertaken in collaboration with the internationally renowned designer Bruce Mau. The participants created an ambitious public installation that included a book with Phaidon Press, a speakers' series, a radio program, an evolving website, a line of products with Umbra, and an international exhibition. The Massive Change project’s 20,000 square foot exhibition premiered at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2004, moved to Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario in 2005, and has just concluded at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Currently underway is the second project, called the World House Project. A multi-disciplinary team is researching, designing and building a sustainable housing system. The overall ambition of the project is to generate a housing system that achieves a balance between the extremes of developing and developed nations and enables people to build sustaining, universal, and healthy human dwellings and communities. Students in 2007-2008 are working closely with the Costa Rican government to solve housing and water issues faced by the country’s Guanacaste region.