In 2020, the Design Industry Advisory Committee (DIAC) developed a Framework to explore critical impacts of design. These impacts apply to all types of projects across all of the design disciplines. DIAC decided to demonstrate these impacts by focusing on design interventions in Placemaking. Successful Placemaking involves a focus on economic prosperity, social wellbeing and environmental sustainability – the fundamental principles of all good design. DIAC wanted to understand how specific design interventions create positive impacts that can be assessed and measured and how these impacts can be applied to other Placemaking projects.

In Phase 1 of this research, DIAC’s cross-disciplinary design working group identified the positive design interventions in 3 Toronto Placemaking projects:

Artscape Wychwood Barns
Sugar Beach
The Bentway

With further analysis, these positive impacts of design can be applied not only to the built environment, but also to industrial design and communications projects. DIAC created a Design Metrics Table as a guide to identifying the indicators and metrics involved in valuing these impacts for the design sector, their clients and other stakeholders in the community.

Critical Impacts of Design