Public Realm in Canadian Cities - Developments

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by softee

^ Those streets are what make the city interesting and worth walking around in.

Agreed. I find glistening tower podiums to be uninteresting... because they are. Chinatown, the Annex, Yonge Street, St. Lawrence Market... that's the shit that makes me love Toronto. If all I wanted was shitty modern tower podiums... well I would never travel to Dubai, but Dubai would be the place to be

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by softee

^ Those streets are what make the city interesting and worth walking around in.

Absolutely.

[isaidso]

^^ Downtown Toronto streets like that are vibrant but not because of how they look. They're great despite being an eye sores.

Originally Posted by softee

^ Those streets are what make the city interesting and worth walking around in.

I almost fell off my chair the first time I head a Torontonian say that. It seems a fair number of locals think a street needs to look ramshackle, unsophisticated, and a complete mess in order to be interesting. That mentality is utterly baffling. You must find Oxford Street in London a complete bore.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Agreed. I find glistening tower podiums to be uninteresting... because they are. Chinatown, the Annex, Yonge Street, St. Lawrence Market... that's the shit that makes me love Toronto. If all I wanted was shitty modern tower podiums... well I would never travel to Dubai, but Dubai would be the place to be

Big and expensive buildings don't have to be boring though. Grand Central or the Rockefeller Centre are great. A lot of condo towers being built in Canada right now have a generic boxy glass appearance, large but sometimes low-slung podiums with minimal visual interest, and long street frontages with little variety that fill up with chains like Shoppers Drug Mart or Best Buy. That is what makes them boring.

To me a lot of those Toronto streetscapes like Dundas or Queen West don't really look provincial even though they are not classically beautiful or consistent in appearance. They have a density of commercial development (multi-story in many cases) and infrastructure (streetcars, subways) that feel like something from a major urban area, even if the buildings themselves are modest.

Toronto has a certain style that's distinctive and different from either American or European cities. It's pretty interesting and underappreciated. But to me that is unrelated to the question of infrastructure development, public space, monumental architecture and public buildings, etc. There's room for all of those things.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Agreed. I find glistening tower podiums to be uninteresting...

Canadians always seem to think it's a choice of one or the other when that's clearly not the case. The other option isn't a glistening tower podium although that's the only alternative Canadians seem to experience. Streets are perfectly capable of being both beautiful and vibrant; they just rarely exist in tandem here.

[Nouvellecosse]

The thing that bothers me about those (and similar) streetscapes is that for me they're just too low-slung to be in or near the centre of a major city. I don't mind the jumble of signs and different building styles since it kind of gives a cool urban vibe. But the dominant building size simply needs to be taller than 2 stories - even in urban nabes 5-10 km outside of downtown in a large city let alone right downtown. Even 3 stories just feels too low when contrasted by nearby skyscrapers. I most enjoy skyscrapers when it seems as if the human scale streetscape has basically reached it maximum density and needs to push higher to accommodate everything. As if the sky is taking the overflow from the street. But seeing storefront that look as if they belong on Eglinton beside 50 story skyscapers just doesn't work for me.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The thing that bothers me about those (and similar) streetscapes is that for me they're just too low-slung to be in or near the centre of a major city. I don't mind the jumble of signs and different building styles since it kind of gives a cool urban vibe. But the dominant building size simply needs to be taller than 2 stories - even in urban nabes 5-10 km outside of downtown in a large city let alone right downtown. Even 3 stories just feels too low when contrasted by nearby skyscrapers.

I agree with this. But it's possible to renovate these 2-3 storey buildings to make them 4-6 storey buildings. Even just turning 1-2 storeys into 3 storeys makes a big difference. I bet if you went back in time 50 years along many of those Toronto streets, you would find that a lot of buildings have had small additions over time.

I am not sure how much this is happening in Toronto these days. It's not happening much in Vancouver. It's much more common in Halifax, probably because of the lower property values (though that doesn't fully explain it because if developers are left to build whatever they want they go for 10-40 floors there with a large footprint). Cities should try to make this type of development possible and resist lot consolidation. It creates much better streetscapes and neighbourhoods.

Sometimes you see simulations of this type of development where one building is built and the facade is broken up, or just the lower floors of a podium are made to look like small facades. This doesn't seem to work well. I think part of that is because the difference is functional, not just aesthetic. For a finely-scaled streetscape you need lots of small street level spaces, entrances, and uses on upper levels just above where people walk, not just small facades that hide giant spaces inside.

[Truenorth00]

Canadian cities can look third world. And there’s a few specific reasons for me why:

1) Overhead wires. In a lot of cities, wires aren’t buried. This creates the mess of overhead wiring and street side power poles. And this is often prevalent even the nicer parts of many Canadian cities. Next time you’re out take a look at your own street and imagine what it would look like without the rat’s nest overhead. It’s actually a North American thing. In developed countries elsewhere, wires are often buried in most urban areas.

2) Street amenities. Most Canadian cities pay almost no attention to street amenities. The streetlamp and lighting posts are ugly and possibly different styles. Public benches, if they are there, are unattractive, and sometimes combined with a garbage compartment, with advertising on the side. Trash receptacles are all industrial looking disasters which double as billboards. We don’t colour bike lanes or pedestrian crossings, which would both make them more productive and safer.

3) We cheap out on all manner of pavement. Cheap concrete sidewalks dominate. We don’t spend on pavers. We don’t use curbstones. So we end up with crumbling curbs. And when we do build sidewalks in high traffic areas we don’t build them wide enough to accommodate a lot of traffic or alternate uses like restaurant patios.

4) Heritage protection. Borders on non-existent in this country. Or effectively so. See the Chateau Laurier situation. When developers can do whatever they want meters from our national legislature, that says a lot about who really has power in this country, when it comes to the public realm.

And this all aside from basically shit urban planning that is the developer driven default in most of the country. I don’t expect it to change. Canadians, by and large, just don’t care much about the public realm. When most of your population lives in the suburbs with their own tenth of an acre, they tend not to be concerned about the public realm. Their priority is lower taxes, not nicer cities.

The real unfortunate bit is when we don’t even bother protecting our downtown cores. I can get the reluctance to invest in the burbs. But even our downtowns are full of overhead wires, ugly concrete sidewalks, ugly street amenities, etc.

Look at those pictures of Toronto. Just imagine how much better it would look if the wires were buried, the lamp posts, bike rack and bus stops were more attractive. And the sidewalk had pavers on it, with curbstones at the end. You wouldn’t find the jumble of signs and building heights bothersome then. You’d call that same street “charming”.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

If all I wanted was shitty modern tower podiums... well I would never travel to Dubai, but Dubai would be the place to be

Or Mississauga.

[kwoldtimer]

Interesting piece in the G&M re the renovated plaza and new outdoor performance space at ROM. Hope somebody can post some pics soon.

[Chadillaccc]

Friggin finaaallllly! This was always my favourite park in the CBD, but it's been closed for years for revitalization. At least now we finally know why it's taken so long. Set to reopen next year, ready for 21st century Calgary


'Unforeseen challenges' resolved, Calgary's Century Gardens makeover back on track
'We believe that we have addressed the major issues'
CBC News · Aug 27, 2019

The city says redevelopment of Century Gardens in downtown Calgary is back on track after some unanticipated underground discoveries delayed work on the project earlier this year.

Originally set for reopening this year, the park's completion date was pushed back to the summer of 2020 because of "unforeseen challenges," the city said on its website in April.

During the demolition, crews found undocumented foundations, grade beams and other infrastructure that had to be removed from the park site at Eighth Avenue and Eighth Street S.W.

That led to unplanned utility work, including reconfiguration of the stormwater, sanitary and water lines, which needed to be co-ordinated with other city projects.

On Tuesday, a city spokesperson said all of the unplanned conflicts have now been resolved and the new utilities, electrical, water, sanitary and stormwater have been successfully installed and connected to municipal supply.

"We believe that we have addressed the major issues and are confident the park will reopen during the summer of 2020," said Kaila Lagran.

Century Gardens was created in 1975 to mark Calgary's centennial.

The city says the redesigned park will be more open and welcoming while still preserving some of its original fountain features and public art.

The park will have a new central splash pond with water jets, a grassy amphitheatre, year-round washrooms and two new park pavilions that could house a café.

Full story: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...261352?cmp=rss

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by someone123

I dunno.. I feel like a measure like rapid transit stations per capita is very important for a city the size of Toronto. There's more than just subways, sure, but the subways are important and the measure is a simple way to gauge progress. Commute times and housing affordability are even better, and I would guess that both of those look miserable for Toronto from 1999-2019.

It seems like as we've gotten worse and worse at building big infrastructure projects the focus has shifted to more subjective measures and more boutique or lifestyle projects. It would be like if public health officials stopped looking at life expectancy and started talking about the wonders of mindfulness meditation. This would make me skeptical.

This isn't just a Toronto thing, it's true around North America. Some cities have done better than others but the good North American cities still aren't keeping up. Toronto is one of the worst Canadian cities for amount of new infrastructure per unit of growth.

It is important but, this forum blows the number of kilometres of rapid transit out of proportion. It's logistics. It's a means to go from A to B across longer distances. It doesn't add to the vibe or community interactions other modes reserved for shorter commutes do.

Housing affordability is on another level from rapid transit. It affects a community's vibe through demographics and forces people to travel long distances from work to banal subdivisions that offer no more than a roof and climate control. We shouldn't be trying to improve speed between these distances. We should be working towards building mixed use communities so there isn't a need to travel 40 kilometres to work. The GO and TTC expansion plans are all about improving times to allow for even longer distance commutes

[Martin Mtl]

The Ville de Montréal Launches Playful Furniture Design Competition

The Ville de Montréal’s Bureau du design has allocated a $1.3 million budget for a multidisciplinary design competition to embellish the future Esplanade Clark with playful urban furniture.



“The design competition will allow us to select a playful movable furniture project that will supplement the conventional furniture on Esplanade Clark. In particular, we want to set up a carousel and fountains to delight people of all ages. Their installation will give this new public space a festive allure, inviting people to relax, cool off and have fun, in the shadow of the large urban towers,” says Magda Popeanu, Vice-president of the executive committee, responsible for culture and Montéal’s diversity.

The competition’s budget also considers the design and manufacture of the playful furniture collection, which will be delivered in fall 2020.

A jury made up of representatives of the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, the design world, and the Ville de Montréal will select the winning concept in fall 2019.

The future Esplanade Clark is the last phase of the Quartier des spectacles major project, the Place des Arts hub. Esplanade Clark is situated in the Quartier des spectacles, west of Clark, between Sainte-Catherine and de Montigny.

The new multifunctional pavilion will include an outdoor refrigerated skating rink during winter, which will be converted into a lively urban patio in summer to host activities and concerts.

This competition further requires the Coordinator to be present in Montréal during completion of the project.

It is also held in two major stages: the first based on anonymous proposals and a second in which a maximum of four finalists, selected by the jury during the first stage, will submit a service offering.

The playful furniture collection’s configuration will evolve through the seasons and provide opportunities for interaction, movement, strolling, and rest.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Canadian cities can look third world. And there’s a few specific reasons for me why:

1) Overhead wires. In a lot of cities, wires aren’t buried. This creates the mess of overhead wiring and street side power poles. And this is often prevalent even the nicer parts of many Canadian cities. Next time you’re out take a look at your own street and imagine what it would look like without the rat’s nest overhead. It’s actually a North American thing. In developed countries elsewhere, wires are often buried in most urban areas.

2) Street amenities. Most Canadian cities pay almost no attention to street amenities. The streetlamp and lighting posts are ugly and possibly different styles. Public benches, if they are there, are unattractive, and sometimes combined with a garbage compartment, with advertising on the side. Trash receptacles are all industrial looking disasters which double as billboards. We don’t colour bike lanes or pedestrian crossings, which would both make them more productive and safer.

3) We cheap out on all manner of pavement. Cheap concrete sidewalks dominate. We don’t spend on pavers. We don’t use curbstones. So we end up with crumbling curbs. And when we do build sidewalks in high traffic areas we don’t build them wide enough to accommodate a lot of traffic or alternate uses like restaurant patios.

4) Heritage protection. Borders on non-existent in this country. Or effectively so. See the Chateau Laurier situation. When developers can do whatever they want meters from our national legislature, that says a lot about who really has power in this country, when it comes to the public realm.

And this all aside from basically shit urban planning that is the developer driven default in most of the country. I don’t expect it to change. Canadians, by and large, just don’t care much about the public realm. When most of your population lives in the suburbs with their own tenth of an acre, they tend not to be concerned about the public realm. Their priority is lower taxes, not nicer cities.

The real unfortunate bit is when we don’t even bother protecting our downtown cores. I can get the reluctance to invest in the burbs. But even our downtowns are full of overhead wires, ugly concrete sidewalks, ugly street amenities, etc.

Look at those pictures of Toronto. Just imagine how much better it would look if the wires were buried, the lamp posts, bike rack and bus stops were more attractive. And the sidewalk had pavers on it, with curbstones at the end. You wouldn’t find the jumble of signs and building heights bothersome then. You’d call that same street “charming”.

Overhead wiring aren't exclusive to developed cities in North America. It reflects the age of cities. Few cities actually made the decision to bury wire from the onset. They shifted to burying wires later on. New communities in Toronto have had wires buried for decades. Europe was entirely rebuilt. Modern Asian cities started sprouting in the 1990s.

Most other North American have invested in burying wires in the visible area unlike Toronto over the past 2 decades but, that's Toronto at its core. We've always been last to react to new trends.

[kool maudit]

There is something a bit Tyler Brulé about this constant evocation of #majorglobalcity.

I enjoy metropolitan spectacle as much as any of us drawn here, but there is a risk of it becoming a template.

Stockholm allows me to revel in Toronto and vice versa. But both cities are at their best when they are most resolutely themselves.

Infrastructure is always desirable. More subways, more plazas and walkways, more human conduits. But I am less sure about the idea of certain aesthetics being termed inadmissable.

I love Toronto's wires. Love them. And are there not streets in Istanbul or Shanghai, both doubtless #majorglobalcities, that are easily as incongruent or jumbled as those bits of Yonge and Queen?

We should always remain urbanistically biased, but I think this self-consciously megalopolitan overlay can cause problems.

It was, after all, that same spirit who bid so many mayors half a century ago to knock down so many beloved quarters, even if we think we can do it better now.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

There is something a bit Tyler Brulé about this constant evocation of #majorglobalcity.

...

[Truenorth00]

I dislike Toronto (and all other Cities) having overhead wires. Not because I think it's some part of being "world class". But because I think they look like crap. I'm not saying our cities need to be like some other city elsewhere. Just that I hope they be the best version of themselves.

[kool maudit]

I guess insofar as wires go, I'll take "1940s noir wonderland" over "urban best practices" anytime.



That said, I'm coming from here, so I'm already pretty dosed up on manicured streetscapes.

[niwell]

There are some areas where I wouldn't mind seeing the wires buried, but in others I don't think it's necessary at all. Maybe even detrimental. A Kensington Market with no wires, fancy street lighting poles and interlock paving would simply cease to be the type of place it is now.

In any event the overhead wire issue seems to be a particular bug certain urbanists have that's been amplified online. Despite anecdotes of friends bursting into tears at the site of a hydro pole on urbanToronto (or whatever), I've never had a visiting friend or family member ever make a comment about wires. They make comments about stores, the number of pedestrians, car traffic, even homeless presence, etc. Never wires.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by niwell

They make comments about stores, the number of pedestrians, car traffic, even homeless presence, etc. Never wires..

It's one of those things you don't notice, until they are gone. Like I said earlier though, it's not just the wires, it's the package of the urban realm. Paving, curb stones, pedestrian amenities from benches to trash cans to street light posts.

Originally Posted by niwell

There are some areas where I wouldn't mind seeing the wires buried, but in others I don't think it's necessary at all. Maybe even detrimental. A Kensington Market with no wires, fancy street lighting poles and interlock paving would simply cease to be the type of place it is now.

I vehemently disagree. What makes Kensington, are the shops there. A Kensington market with no hydro poles, fully pedestrianized streets with nice pavers and proper street benches would be even busier than it is today.

A huge part of this is the utter normalization of anti-pedestrian design. From aesthetics to function, we don't design spaces for anybody to walk about. It's why you think Kensington would lose character if these changes were made. I imagine a Kensington which would be nicer to walk around at, and where I wouldn't have to dodge cars and could simply sit on bench with some good jerk chicken.