Comments on: A sense of scale, a sense of space, a sense of place? http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/ urbanism - landscape - ideas - theory - whimsy Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:15:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: rc http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/comment-page-1/#comment-9712 rc Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:14:22 +0000 http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/ideas/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/#comment-9712 <p>Someone mentioned Roy’s Square in the <a href="http://spacing.ca/wire/?p=2039#comments" rel="nofollow">discussion on this post</a> over at the <a href="http://spacing.ca/wire/" rel="nofollow">Spacing Wire</a> and I thought I’d post a photo of it for people who don’t know it - it’s right at Yonge and Bloor, but is surprisingly easy to miss. Quite sad that it will disappear - an 80 storey building is a quite different scale altogether!</p> <p><em><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1325/644562042_68530079a8.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1325/644562042_68530079a8.jpg" alt="Roy's Square" /></p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bricoleurbanism/644562042/" rel="nofollow">Photo:</a> Roy’s Square, Toronto</em></p> <p>Re: Singapore, it’s true most streets in old shophouse districts are wider than the photo I showed - maybe closer to width of Baldwin in Kensington, sometimes larger - almost all of these districts are kind of these islands in the city now as big avenues have been cut through and they’re surrounded by much larger development - I believe most of them are actually a kind of conservation district where the form/scale of them is semi-protected in various ways.</p> <p>There’s similar (and very pressing) issues at play in Beijing with the rapid demolition and clearances of Hutong areas - the Hutong has a remarkably similar scale to some of the things we were talking about here and there have been some mixed successes at preservation from what I understand - the key problem being that the form of the Hutong makes redevelopment very difficult without total demolition but the current density is very low for central areas of a major Chinese city, so the pressure on them is intense.</p> <p>A search on Flickr will be quite inspirational - one example:</p> <p><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1093/628819221_df13fc4376.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1093/628819221_df13fc4376.jpg" alt="Hutong" /></p> <p><em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/44871759@N00/628819221/" rel="nofollow">Photo:</a> by Jon Christall</em></p> Someone mentioned Roy’s Square in the discussion on this post over at the Spacing Wire and I thought I’d post a photo of it for people who don’t know it – it’s right at Yonge and Bloor, but is surprisingly easy to miss. Quite sad that it will disappear – an 80 storey building is a quite different scale altogether!

Roy's Square

Photo: Roy’s Square, Toronto

Re: Singapore, it’s true most streets in old shophouse districts are wider than the photo I showed – maybe closer to width of Baldwin in Kensington, sometimes larger – almost all of these districts are kind of these islands in the city now as big avenues have been cut through and they’re surrounded by much larger development – I believe most of them are actually a kind of conservation district where the form/scale of them is semi-protected in various ways.

There’s similar (and very pressing) issues at play in Beijing with the rapid demolition and clearances of Hutong areas – the Hutong has a remarkably similar scale to some of the things we were talking about here and there have been some mixed successes at preservation from what I understand – the key problem being that the form of the Hutong makes redevelopment very difficult without total demolition but the current density is very low for central areas of a major Chinese city, so the pressure on them is intense.

A search on Flickr will be quite inspirational – one example:

Hutong

Photo: by Jon Christall

]]> By: Shawn Day http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/comment-page-1/#comment-9711 Shawn Day Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:44:28 +0000 http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/ideas/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/#comment-9711 Great post! Pinpointing the inadvertent 'success' of the hoarding is a wonderfully astute observation. The rather ironic transition from the lamented mall to the even less human-scaled 'power-centre' is a rather sad truth and certainly marks the continuing march of space designed for machines rather than humanity. The transition from planned rather than made space is all too evident in Toronto, and your call reminding us of this is one that we must daily take to heart. Great post! Pinpointing the inadvertent ‘success’ of the hoarding is a wonderfully astute observation. The rather ironic transition from the lamented mall to the even less human-scaled ‘power-centre’ is a rather sad truth and certainly marks the continuing march of space designed for machines rather than humanity. The transition from planned rather than made space is all too evident in Toronto, and your call reminding us of this is one that we must daily take to heart.

]]> By: randomosity » Blog Archive » Space and Scale http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/comment-page-1/#comment-9710 randomosity » Blog Archive » Space and Scale Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:32:51 +0000 http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/ideas/a-sense-of-scale-a-sense-of-space-a-sense-of-place/#comment-9710 [...] is a great discussion at Bricoleurbanism on the absence of people-scaled spaces in Toronto’s urban streetscape. The discussion takes [...] [...] is a great discussion at Bricoleurbanism on the absence of people-scaled spaces in Toronto’s urban streetscape. The discussion takes [...]

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