Doors Open Waterloo Region Recap

Doors Open Waterloo Region 2017 has come and gone. I don’t know about total numbers and attendance and all that, but every site I went to had more than a handful of attendees. We were pretty lucky with the weather this year as Saturday felt like summer and not mid-September (side note: I’m waiting for hoodie and pants and thick socks wearing weather) and more importantly it didn’t rain like the last two years (high five, mother nature!).

Originally I had planned on hitting a few more spots than I ended up getting to—I made it to 10 sites total—but in reality it’s tough to get to a lot, especially when they’re spread over such a large area. My eyes were bigger than my stomach in a sense, but I’m happy with my haul of visits.

I started with a number of sites in downtown Kitchener, which conveniently started only a few blocks from my house. First stop was the Holy Transfiguration Ukranian Greco-Catholic Church followed by the Communitech Hub (they have a slide!) and then the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy. From here I moved onto the renovated office of MartinSimmons Architects, the Waterloo County Gaol and Governor’s House (yes, the staircase freaked me out a bit), and finished at Polocorp on Queen Street (they had cookies!). After a break for lunch I had to make some executive decisions and cut out a chunk of what I still wanted to see. Time wasn’t on my side since I still wanted to hit a few places in Waterloo then drive all the way to Galt to see a bunch more. I made my way to the University of Waterloo to see the new Science Teaching Complex and once I finished I realized Galt was either now or never (sorry, CIGI!). 

The 401 was the 401 but I did arrive in Galt eventually. Along with Doors Open, Galt was also featuring a few other events, one of which was some sort of air show that, I won’t lie, startled me. Anyway, I found some decent parking and made my way to both Knox’s Presbyterian Church and the Galt Carnegie Library.

I finished off my day at Pioneer Tower. I had 20 minutes to spare so I was lucky to be able to actually walk up (read: nervously climb a wooden ladder with a death grip on my camera) to the top of the tower which I had never done before.

As mentioned previously, I was posting to the Doors Open Waterloo Region Instagram feed along with Brian Douglas and Nick Stanley throughout the day. We’ll be posting more photos in the coming days and weeks.

All in all, a pretty great day.