In 2010, the Toronto Complaints Choir, produced as part of the 2010-2011 World Stage season at Harbourfront Centre, collected over 1000 grievances, gripes, and annoyances from people across the city. The choir transformed these troubles into a siren song for the disenchanted.

BMD was drawn to this concept. For us, as designers—makers, problem-solvers, optimists, a complaint is a wish that things could be better. When the Propeller Centre for the Arts invited BMD to put on an exhibition in their street-level gallery in July of 2011, we wanted to do something living and interactive that engaged the city of Toronto. We would use the space to take on the complaints that we hoped we could help solve. It would be an experiment. It would be a risk.

Over the course of 12 days, BMD invited the public in to visit our pop-up studio, inquire, collaborate, ponder, and generally meddle in whatever way they liked: we realized that we were, more than anything, designing a message of empowerment. Demonstrating that anyone can question the way things are, that anyone can work to make things better, that anyone can be a designer, and making public the process by which we looked for solutions became one of the best things we did about it. Democratizing the power of design is perhaps our most meaningful solution.

BMD’s Bureau of Doing Something About It is being led by studio designers Amanda Happé, Kar Yan Cheung, Chris Braden, Michal Dudek, and Paul Kawai.

For media Inquiries please contact Alexis Green at green@brucemaudesign.com