What makes a home a home? The Interior Design Show, which ran the past weekend in downtown Toronto, has a few answers.

This is the second year I've attended the show, and I felt the exhibition was a lot stronger than last. The first exhibit that really caught my eye was created by Powell Bonnell Interiors. They'd bolted together a series of dumpsters with enormous facsimiles of garbage poking out of the top. To enter their exhibit, you literally walked into the garbage. Quite an interesting motif in this age of "acquire as much as you can before you die" and just toss your old crap in a landfill. (Even though we pretend we're earth friendly new age gods and goddesses and not the consumers we were in the 1980s. Yeah right -- But that's another argument.)

Then I wandered through Space Concepts/2001. This is a special series of four exhibits, where designers and architects are invited to create special living concepts with a limited amount of space. The exhibit which really caught my eye was Figure 3. Rather than work within a fixed architecture.. ie: a building, the Figure 3 folks built a portable shelter which collapses in on itself to be carried from place to place on a flatbed truck.

While to my mind it made absolutely no practical present sense, this type of transportable "home" could well be the way we ship our physical environments in the future. Imagine the transporter in Star Trek. Now look around you. Maybe you're in your livingroom. Wouldn't it be cool if rather than pay for a hotel room in New York, you could send your body and your space with you on a trip? They've still got to work out the details, but the concept was thought-provoking.

Next stop: Cecconi Simone's 1,000 square foot open concept loft, complete with multi-functional furniture. Murphy beds were cleverly concealed by arty looking wall panels. Double sided TVs could be watched from the bedroom or the living room. The eye traveled effortlessly from area to area, unimpeded by the function of each area; and calmed by ivory and taupe tones, as well as the inclusion of water elements.

Talking about water. The oasis of the Interior Design Show 2001 was definitely Third Uncle's interior thunderstorm. This was an amazing installation that had nothing to do with the selling of design. Instead architect John Tong and the gang at Third Uncle created a free form, interior thunderstorm. Water poured from the top of scaffolding, pick-pocking into a large rectangular stainless steel pond. From there the water was recycled through the pipes of the scaffolding, pumped back up to the top, where the storm began again. The effect was augmented by some tricky lights and sound effects, which literally made you feel like you were sitting in the Amazon, witnessing a spontaneous summer shower. This was an incredibly calming experience amidst all the razzle and dazzle of the show. And ironically enough, it was where everyone chose to hang out.

Pssst ... Egyptian born, Canadian educated, Karim Rashid was chosen as Designer of the Year. He runs what's called a "mid-Atlantic" Industrial Design studio out of New York, designing high-tech products, lighting, table-top, and furniture for companies such as Nambe, CSL, IDEE, AREA, Umbra, Swid Powell, and many more. Lots of Canadian clients on his list, including -- get this -- Canada Post. According to his cool company website: "I am the 'artist of real issues' of everyday life who mediates between industry and the user; between self-expression and desire, between production technologies and human social behaviour, between commerce and everyday life." Check him out...