The Combine: Toronto’s Ultimate Community-Driven Creative Space

In this line of business, it’s standard practice to visit different offices, artist spaces, creative studios and design labs – maybe not as many as pre-covid, but you still see your fair share. A rarer encounter, however, is coming across a combination of all the above. Oh, and throw in a basketball court, coffee shop, and auditorium, too… which is exactly what you get when you visit The Combine, where workspace meets wonder.

Escaping Cubicles and Conventions

Located on the main floor of the towering CBC building on Wellington Street West is ‘community-driven social club’, The Combine. Occupied by creative agencies Bensimon Byrne, Narrative XPR, OneMethod, Folk, Super Proper and HiFi, who describe the space as an ‘ongoing experiment’, The Combine has been designed to be a cultural centre for the community.

The Combine in its entirety is an incredible space, with visitors greeted by a rotating showcase of art installations and collections as soon as they cross the threshold. Taking the stairs up leads you to Bevy, a state-of-art café that is open to the public. Then, there’s the impossibly stylish, intentionally humble ‘dive’ bar known as ‘Luigi’s’, and ‘The Yard’, the open and modular space that mostly functions as the aforementioned basketball court, but occasionally becomes the home of larger presentations and events.

From interviewing famous DJs to hosting psychic readings, most major events take place in The Yard, in front of an incredible mural by OneMethod’s executive design director, Jeff Rae, reflecting the creative energy that defines the place. Of course, being a workspace, there are also plenty of quiet areas to sit and focus on the brief – proving that The Combine has been thoughtfully designed to connect with people and get them inspired.

Max Sawka, managing director and EVP of OneMethod, tells me it was love at first tour. “An agent showed us this as a potential new space, and walking through it was so interesting,” he recounts. “Part of the area was an archival storage for old, oversized CBC items, including the iconic ‘Mr. Dressup’ set. Upstairs, there were vast spaces that transitioned into tucked-away studios, including the old CBC orchestral studio and accompanying control room.”

Right from the initial tour, Max was struck by how distinctly different from a traditional office the space felt – something that would go on to inform the initial ideas for The Combine. Then, once the pandemic hit, the team revised the design, pushing even further from cubicles and convention.

Making, Shopping, Learning, Living

These days, it seems as though many in this industry – and others, in fact – are trying something new on for size, challenging the traditional office model to see if something more unconventional works for them. But The Combine feels like a refreshingly unique concept altogether.

“We set out to reshape the idea of an office – to change the relationship between workers and their shared workspaces,” says Max. “The more poetic way to put it is that after the pandemic allowed us all to work more where we live, we wondered if we could find a way to allow us to live more where we work.”

According to Max, The Combine has boosted (optional) attendance, strengthened culture, stretched creativity, and broadened company reach with existing and new clients.

Sarah Spence, chief executive officer at Tadiem, speaks to The Combine’s impact on those it has been specifically designed for, noting how the space has unified the creative agencies and brings different people together. “It enables new connections; you get to see a different side of your colleagues,” she tells me, excitedly. “For example, every year, we host a ‘Makers Market’, so we get to see who makes the hot sauce in their spare time, who paints, who knits scarves for pets, etc. It gives everyone a chance to reveal their wonderful and quirky sides, which we all have as humans, and we get to know each other in a deeper way as a result.”

Other pop up events that have been hosted by The Combine include a ‘community speaker series’ featuring OVO’s Roy Woods (which resulted in “a lineup down the street”), a wild fashion show held by RCHIVE, as well as more intimate experiences such as local comic book kings – Silver Snail – organising an anti-Fan Expo event which “brought together the comic book community in an incredible, grassroots way”.

In addition to external guests, staff from across the agencies’ workforces have also hosted various events such as knitting workshops, pottery classes, and even a ‘speed-date a therapist’ event which sold out in seconds.

The multifaceted nature of the space, in turn, offers team members endless opportunities to be inventive. And who better to benefit from this kind of incentive than Toronto’s most talented creatives? “If you work here, you have creativity in your DNA, and The Combine enables and encourages all of us to show our creative side,” Sarah points out.

“Our agencies proudly celebrate creativity and entrepreneurialism, and The Combine not only embraces that, but also takes it to new levels,” Max adds. “Every day, our people are given different opportunities to intersect with creatives from different communities and to flex their own creativity in ways that may or may not directly relate to their specific jobs. At the same time, our company culture helps shape The Combine, so the two things are complementary or symbiotic.”

Cultivating the Next Generation of Creative Culture

Understanding that the potential of The Combine knows no bounds, Max is eager to continue re-upping the business model, as he believes there is still lots left to do. As he puts it, “Up until now, our focus has largely been on connecting with the local creative community, but we are now aiming to extend beyond Toronto and Canada."

Reflecting on the benefits of the ‘experiment’ so far, Max concludes, “The number one way The Combine helps our work is by continually helping/forcing ourselves to break out of our agencies and industries by connecting with other creatives, communities, and mindsets. This one is hard to measure, for sure, but we all feel it. And it probably comes back to the idea that sameness breeds sameness, while The Combine has been an ongoing experiment in being anything but that.”

To read more news from Bensimon Byrne, click here.

To read more from April Summers, click here.

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