Quote:
Originally Posted by planarchy
Not likely. You are comparing a plan designed by Halifax-based Ekistics who is probably better at designing golf courses than urban waterfronts with an awarding winning design by Rotterdam-based West 8 - easily one of the top landscape architecture and urbanism design and research firms in the world. The two plans are worlds apart. The Bedford waterfront design is overly artificial and seems to be completely disconnected with both the physical territory as well as with any sort of notion of housing demand and economic factors.
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My difficulty with this plan is the articifialness of it too - there doesn't seem to be a lot of major parks (although I may be misinterpreting the scale from the drawings). It seems to me that this plan brings the waterfront to the condo/land owners and not to the people so much. When I think about the waterfront downtown, the one spot that I think about the most is the one lone green spot on the Halifax side at the waterfront - by the ferry terminal. While I enjoy the boardwalk, there aren't enough parks.
Now, while this plan has an ambious park around the Cove (which I like) the actual portion that is at waters edge doesn't have enough green at all. It seems very artificial for the portion ('the island') against the basin. While there is a nice park near one of the Marinas and the plaza off the middle point of the island is okay - there should be more of a park there. While I'm willing to be flexible with my views; I would still like to see more park space along the waterfront - so you don't just sit on the boardwalk, but you can sit in a nice grassy area and reflect or kids can play or your could picnic and watch the water.