The Wellington Destructor, big, strong, voluminous, built for hard work. Horse-drawn wagons crawled over its arched access ramp, laden with barrels of stinking fish, crates of rotten eggs, dead cats and dogs as well as the usual dreck, all of which were poured into the Destructor’s furnaces. The stench, combined with that of the Toronto Abattoir next door, was interesting. The Destructor’s life as an incinerator ended in the 1960s. Today it sleeps in mouldering retirement, half-hidden in scrub, stripped of its chimneys, with pigeons flying in and out of its broken windows.

NextGen design charette participants recognized, the Destructor’s size and resilience would allow it to be used for practically anything: from the usual daycare, ESL, art and exercise classes to rental of spaces for “post-industrial industry”, including the heavier work that traditional “makers” like to do that might include fiery activities. Pottery, glassblowing and – this really turned the judges on – blacksmithing, which are hard to pursue in Toronto. For more see in NOW magazine online: Wellington Destructor Rises Again