Organized Walks
Personal Exploration
Toronto + Waterloo Region
Canadian-based Jane’s Walk is a movement of free, citizen-led walking tours inspired by Jane Jacobs. Jacob’s work privileged the pedestrian through the investigation of design features that fostered a lively street life, compelled by her belief that foot traffic is what makes an interesting place (Mary Soderstrom).
Over the years I’ve participated in many Jane’s Walks along with other organized walks including Doors Open walking tours, Shawn Micallef’s prescribed Strolls, Discovery Walks, Murmur Walks, and Stroll Walking Tours. These walks disregard the fastest route and participants are actively dedicated to the journey rather than the destination. The most stimulating walks prove to be those which do not have a prescribed route for participants to follow. From here, I started to understand how various methods of moving through the city can stimulate active observation and awareness of place.
“Our gait is as personal as a fingerprint, and so are our multiple itineraries. Knowledge is grown along the myriad of paths we take”
— Tim Ingold
“Architecture is thus read as having the capacity to induce slow speeds, to inhabit silences, to trace new cultural vacancies and derelict spaces.”
— Felicity D. Scott
“Understanding cities and architecture – and communicating that understanding – involves telling real stories about real places…”
— Borden, Kerr, Pivaro, & Rendell
“Only an awareness of the influences of the existing environment can encourage the critique of the present conditions of daily life…”
— Sadie Plant
“It’s from the fragments,
the forgotten bits, that you actually read the world”
— Borden, Kerr, Pivaro, & Rendell