urbanism – landscape – ideas – theory – whimsy

Bricoleur’s Habitat

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A friend sent a link to this photo entitled “Redneck Mansion”. There’s a certain genius to the way this has been done (and the colours are fantastic) – it could almost be a Bricoleur’s version of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat in Montreal (and would cost a hell of a lot less). The staircases are even reminiscent of Montreal’s exterior walkup duplexes/triplexes/multiplexes.

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Edit:

Unfortunately (I might say), it turns out that the intriguing caravan-sculpture masterpiece is an Amsterdam theatre set from 2005 designed by Catherina Scholten for a production of Checkov’s Ivanov. What a great idea for a theatre set! I say unfortunately because part of me dearly wished that some inspired bricoleur out there had actually dreamed up and executed such a wonderful habitat – alas no!

Here you can see some of the audience:

Photo: HetGelaat

The original photo posted was by Elmer Kroese.

Thanks to Space & Culture for linking to adaptivereuse.net‘s discovery of the true origin of the photo and work.

Mapping Our Urbanism Part VI – Income

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This animated map showcases the datum bookends of the excellent publication The Three Cities within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto’s neighbourhoods, 1970–2000 by David Hulchanski from UofT‘s Centre for Urban and Community Studies (downloadable from their website). Income levels are shown as census tract averages as relative to the average for the Toronto CMA – the light pink is middle income (20% below to 20% above average), with the most interesting change occurring between that and the darker pink representing low income areas (20% to 40% below average).

The geographic explosion of lower incomes into the inner suburbs of north Etobicoke and Scarborough is almost stunning, but I think reflects a lot of our current received wisdom about the changes taking place in Toronto, in particular gentrification in old inner city neighbourhoods and the consolidation and bulwarking of high income areas. In short, it speaks volumes about housing affordability in the currently valued neighbourhoods of the city, and indicates that those who can afford to are abandoning many of the inner suburbs.

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The more famous map from “The Three Cities” report is this one (above), which highlights those areas with the biggest increases (blue hatch) and decreases (dark brown) in average income between 1970 and 2000 – in this case, white areas are considered relatively stable. As you can see, looking at it this way clearly shows both gentrification at work and that the census tracts with the largest decreases in average income are almost all in the inner suburbs.

Hulchanski calls this a dramatic polarization and segregation of the city based on income, and firmly makes the point that we are capable of addressing this trend through better policies on housing affordability and requiring more affordable units in new developments to ensure that mixed income neighbourhoods are the norm instead of the exception: in his words “The segregation of the city by socio-economic status need not continue. It can be slowed and reversed.”

Crossposted to spacing toronto as part VI of a series – to view the five earlier parts follow these links:

Mapping our urbanism Part V – watersheds

Mapping our urbanism part IV – language

Mapping our urbanism part III – water mains

Mapping our urbanism part II – extents

Mapping our urbanism part I – snow ploughing

Sugar Beach for Jarvis Slip – a Defense

The Star’s Christopher Hume today wrote a scathing attack on Waterfront Toronto’s jury of “insiders” for its choice of Sugar Beach as winner of the Jarvis Slip Public Space Innovative Design Competition (see images from the 3 designs in our previous post).

Hume suggests that we were in fact making a choice between a couple of giant movable arms and a giant screen wind scuplture, but has the gall to say that architect Siamak Hariri may create admirable buildings but “has never shown any special understanding of the landscape”. Sorry Mr. Hume, reducing a landscape architectural public space project in a waterfront location to a choice between two sculptures (however animate) doesn’t show much special understanding of the landscape on your part either. The two features of the design proposals that seemed to attract the most attention both existed essentially in a vacuum disconnected from the site or its context, having no sensible relationship to the surrounding landscape, nor any spatial qualities that would add to the spatial experience of Jarvis Slip.

Yes, the wind sculpture by Ned Kahn would be fantastic, but what is the compelling reason for it to be in this location, and how is it remotely site-specific if it’s essentially similar to all of Kahn’s other wind sculptures? In fact, the Weatherfront team went out of its way to fuss about how we get our weather from Pearson International instead of the waterfront, but since weather stations are traditionally located at airports, the best place for this Ned Kahn sculpture would in fact be directly across from the island airport, not at Jarvis Slip. Not to mention the perversity of placing a screen of this kind across the line-of-sight of the best view from Jarvis Slip (across to the islands), or the fact that the ripples, waves and motion of water in a bay as large as Toronto’s harbour is nearly as endlessly interesting, fluid and dynamic as Kahn’s sculpture would have been, so again, why here? In fact, such a sculpture would be awesome covering one of the buildings facing Dundas Square, not here where the natural glories of Toronto’s harbour are on full display for all to see.

Hume does have a point in his skewering of the machinations of the jury in choosing Sugar Beach while proposing 14 modifications to the design including creating the beach somewhere else instead.

If you set up an “Innovative Design Competition” and then choose what was perhaps the least innovative of the entries, there is something to answer for, but in this case, maybe we should question the use of a competition such as this for this site, and the criteria for innovation we were really after – that is, innovation in public space, not in public art. The innovations in the West8/DTAH and Weatherfront designs were both essentially sculptural, while the overall designs for both were uninspiring and even adversarial to their context.

I am reprinting below the defense of Sugar Beach I posted as a comment over at Spacing Toronto:

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I agree with the choice of Sugar Beach for several reasons (to the chagrin of friends at DTAH who think I have a conflict of interest, though I had nothing to do with the design). I think it’s true that it may take some selling for the idea of a beach in this location to be given credibility, but personally I think the juxtaposition of industrial and recreation uses could be exciting and interesting.

As to the year-round use, it hardly feels like the site would be a place for people to naturally convene in winter anyways – how much effort should be expended on attracting people in winter to exposed west-facing sites bound to be windswept and cold? The location of the site next to the potentially inanimate private use of the Corus building hardly bills it as the Dundas Square of the waterfront.

I think if you only ask 3 teams for submissions (all of whom have already done work along the waterfront) you’re really handicapping the possibilities of the location – in this case, as exciting and attention-grabbing as the West8/DTAH scheme was, it failed to really evoke or respond to the specific place of Jarvis Slip and, without the gimmick of the arms, didn’t have a leg to stand on…

I think there’s a little bit of genius simply to the name “Sugar Beach” – I can imagine years from now, with the Redpath plant long gone, the subtle evocation of the relationship carrying on in the identity of this place – “meet me at Sugar Beach” sounds so much better than “meet me at those big arms that stopped working years ago down by the waterfront”. While the name HtO was clever but gimmicky. I feel it will eventually fade as a name through lack of use, Sugar Beach as a name seems like it will have lasting power and be able to become part of the physical and psychological landscape of the city.

Beyond the name, the design for the Sugar Beach scheme itself was well-thought out – not too complicated or cluttered, and just seemed to be a natural extension of the city and waterfront. In particular, the use of the angled waterfront promenade continuing the line of sight from Jarvis from the original East Bayfront Precinct Plan seems highly appropriate in guiding most pedestrian/active through-traffic in a direct desire-line to continue along the east bayfront, while the more passive use of the beach wedges in on the water side of the promenade.

While some people seemed against the use of rock-mounds (maybe it depends on whether or not you like the Cumberland Park version…) I think the way that they’ve been used in the Sugar Beach scheme is appropriate and a more subtle evocation of the canadian landscape than the West8/DTAH version which seemed to be trying too hard to be canadian. The rocks coming out of the sand of the beach seems like a great idea too, while larger rocks in front of the face of the Corus building seems like a good response to the future private nature of that building.

I think Sugar Beach will be a great place, appropriate to where it is, and with the potential to be an interesting hiatus on a walk along the waterfront. I think it’s worth remembering that too much glam and style in landscape architecture rarely tends to be long-lasting, but is too easily convincing in renderings and models. Old parks maintain their charm because they’re timeless, not because they were gimmicky. While certain key, central locations can more than withstand a glam and style design, Jarvis Slip is not this location, because people have no reason to be here – given that reality, Sugar Beach wins out…

I think in the end, Sugar Beach can be said to be representing the establishment and extension of something of a “style” for Toronto’s waterfront, a style that seems built on something that has come out of this city (regardless of Cormier being from Montreal). Something in the essence of Toronto got expressed in the success of HtO – but some people seem hell-bent to turn Toronto into something “else” – no doubt they also think the ROM and AGO renovations actually have something to do with Toronto instead of just happen to be here. It seems like the ultimate test of whether you love Toronto, as it is, with its quirks, foibles, frustrations, and just want it to get better, or whether deep down, you just want Toronto to be somewhere else – Chicago perhaps, or New York, Vancouver, Montreal, London – it’s always somewhere else that’s stylish, that’s good, that has taste, that has innovation – the grass is always greener somewhere else.

But from my point of view, Sugar Beach will only add to the greenness of the grass in our garden down by the waterfront. We should stop pissing all over Waterfront Toronto – the establishment of the urban design review process implies that the members of the panel are knowingly guiding development and public space towards the greater goals in the public interest that have been established by Waterfront Toronto’s planning work – even when that means they have to override the whims of individual designers (and, god forbid, newspaper columnists). In this case, the only true test will be in what gets built, and how well it works. Until then, we need to have a little faith. All is not lost. Sugar Beach will be a great place.

Urban Fabric & Form Comparison

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The Star today published a cover story (Beyond Density) in their Condos section on the efforts in Mississauga to create a more vibrant and pedestrian-friendly downtown – key among the problems identified has been the large scale of the block patterns in Mississauga – to prove the point the article includes urban form/fabric drawings of 9 cities (one hopes at the same scales) in order to compare the scales of the fabric of the street network. I include the drawings below alphabetically (with Mississauga first).

(edit: a friend requested I lay out all the drawings in a grid for easier comparison – I hope you enjoy – click on the above image for a larger version)

More than anything, the comparisons expose the inherent problems of scale in trying to evolve any suburban, auto-oriented area into a more pedestrian-oriented centre. The traditional response in suburbia has been to internalize pedestrian areas (in the form of the mall), Square One (home to the largest Walmart in the world) being a particularly powerful example, though Scarborough Town Centre might be the more classic one. The size of Square One’s block makes a very interesting comparison with Copenhagen’s city centre (3rd below) in which a series of streets and spaces have been linked together and pedestrianized (view a map of the pedestrian areas of Copenhagen from Metropolis magazine). In size or length of pedestrian space, the two might even be close, but in overall character and degree of integration into the urban fabric (particularly important for pedestrians) they are from wholly different worlds and you can easily trace much of these differences to the scale of the street fabric.

The other striking lesson from such comparisons is that there really is no perfect form of street fabric – many different networks and patterns are capable of producing wonderful places and being friendly for pedestrians as long as their fabric allows frequent and comprehensive linkages – there simply seems to be an upper scale beyond which all hope of efficient (and therefore popular) pedestrian circulation is gone.


MISSISSAUGA: “Long blocks and virtually empty sidewalks”

Barcelona Urban Fabric
BARCELONA: “La Ramblas is the main north-south promenade”

Copenhagen Urban Form
COPENHAGEN: “City features a car-free zone called the Stroget”

London Urban Form
LONDON: “The Mayfair and Soho districts south of Oxford St”

New York Urban Form
NEW YORK: “Midtown Manhattan south of Central Park”

Paris Urban Form
PARIS: “Streets were designed by Georges-Eugne Haussmann”

Rome Urban Form
ROME: “East of the Tiber River bend that points to the Vatican”

San Francisco Urban Form
SAN FRANCISCO: “Market St splits the central city into two grids”

Toronto Urban Form
TORONTO: “Between Queen and College Sts east of Bathurst”

Jarvis Slip Design Submissions

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Waterfront Toronto has released the 3 competing designs for the public space at Jarvis Slip at the foot of Jarvis Street.

PDF files of the competitors’ panels and written report submissions have been made available at the Waterfront Toronto site. – but since at least one of the PDF’s is 90MB, and there’s nowhere else to just see some images from the designs, (edit: torontoist posted images on friday) I thought I’d make some available.

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Info on the public presentation and exhibition:

Public Presentation
January 21, 2008
7:00-9:00 p.m.
Metro Hall (Rotunda)
55 John Street

Exhibition
January 21-25, 2008
Metro Hall (Rotunda)
55 John Street, Toronto

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Weatherfront
JRALA with Charles Waldheim and Ned Kahn

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jrala view2

jrala plan

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Sugar Beach
Claude Cormier Architectes Paysagistes

Cormier view 1

cormier view 2

cormier view 3

cormier section

cormier plan

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Jarvis Square
West 8 + DTAH

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west8 - dtah section

Mapping Our Urbanism Part V – Watersheds

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Along with its article today about the TRCA‘s work preserving watersheds in the GTA (Clock is ticking for conservation dream), The Star included a beautiful map of the major watersheds flowing south from the Oak Ridges Moraine through Toronto (click on the image for a larger version). The article describes some of the difficulties the TRCA is having in expanding its protection in the upper reaches of many of the watersheds.

The Star poetically continues:

“Stripped of political boundaries and roads, the GTA map resembles a vast network of watery arteries originating in the Oak Ridges Moraine and emptying into Lake Ontario.”

The original PDF (watch out, 9MB) can be downloaded from their site.

Crossposted to spacing toronto as part V of a series – to view the four earlier parts follow these links:

Mapping our urbanism part IV – language

Mapping our urbanism part III – water mains

Mapping our urbanism part II – extents

Mapping our urbanism part I – snow ploughing

Mapping Our Urbanism Part IV – Language

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The Star included a map of “Greater Toronto’s language quilt” in their Ideas section today compiled based on recently released 2006 census data. The map is hidden away on their website in a massive (c. 20MB) pdf file (if you dare, here’s the link), so here are some more easily digestible images of the spread’s content (click to enlarge).

While we love to trumpet Toronto’s diversity, it’s nice to have some statistical proof to back up our claims. It’s pretty fascinating that the second largest language group in the GTA (by mother tongue) only represents 3.5% of the population, and yet with only 56% of the GTA reporting English as a mother tongue, the balance of 44% is made up of an incredibly diverse group of languages.

The Star describes their methodology for the creation of the main map (above):

BUILDING THE MAP OF SECOND LANGUAGES
Our challenge was to show the many language communities while retaining the areas where English overwhelmingly dominates:
– Only languages that ranked second in at least 5 census tracts are shown on the map.
– To replace English — the dominant language in 95% of census tracts — the second language must be above its GTA average.
– If languages were tied, the census tract was assigned to the language that was highest compared to its own GTA average, representing a more significant pocket.

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Crossposted to spacing toronto as part IV of a series – to view the three earlier parts follow these links:

Mapping our urbanism part III – water mains

Mapping our urbanism part II – extents

Mapping our urbanism part I – snow ploughing

Landscapes of Erasure: Nature vs Man

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Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia – before and after the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 (source: DigitalGlobe Inc. © all rights reserved)

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The Porta Farm settlement in Zimbabwe before and after Operation Murambatsvina (“Restore Order”) in which police evicted the entire population and bulldozed all structures (source: amnesty international – imagery: DigitalGlobe Inc. © all rights reserved)

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Greensburg, Kansas before and after the F5 tornado that swept through in May 2007 destroying 95% of the town (source: DigitalGlobe Inc. © all rights reserved)

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Before and after Israeli bombardment of a “hezbollah headquarters” aka a high density residential district in Beirut in July 2006 (source: amnesty international – imagery: DigitalGlobe Inc. © all rights reserved)

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Belgian village of Passchendaele before and after becoming part of a battlefield during the First World War (source: wikimedia.org – public domain)

Growth of Toronto’s Subway

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We prepared this map of the evolution of the TTC subway system in response to a challenge over at spacingtoronto – while this version didn’t get shortlisted as a finalist, check out the great maps that did.

One thing I prefer in our map is that the subway lines are shown true to scale, so you can compare the real lengths that have been added over time and gauge how much of the city was being covered by each phase.

Check out a larger version of our map, where you can make out station names.

Also see our reimagining of the TTC transit map from October 2006.

Black Rock City

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Black Rock City is the temporary city created each year to house the revelers at the 8 day Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

From Wikipedia’s article on the subject:

“Much of the layout and general city infrastructure is constructed by Department of Public Works (DPW) volunteers…

“The developed part of the city is currently arranged as series of concentric streets in an arc composing, since 1999, two-thirds of a 1.5 mile (2.4 km) diameter circle… with the Man Sculpture and his supporting complex at the very center (40°45’56.88″N, 119°13’39.59″W in 2007). Radial streets, sometimes called Avenues, extend from the Man to the outermost circle…

“The innermost street is named the Esplanade, and the remaining streets are given names to coincide with the overall theme of the burn, and ordered in ways such as alphabetical order or stem to stern, to make them easier to recall. The radial streets are usually given a clock designation (for example, “6:00, 6:15”), in which the Man is at the center of the clock face and 12:00 is in the middle of the third of the arc lacking streets….

“Center Camp is located along the midline of Black Rock City, facing the Man at the 6:00 position on the Esplanade, and serves as a central meeting place for the entire city.”

The City is located in a slightly different location each year, and the festival itself upholds a policy of “leave no trace”. The 2007 edition of Burning Man brought together 47,097 people in an otherwise empty and desolate landscape.

Oblique (not from straight above) photos below are by Brad Templeton – plan photos are from GoogleMaps/Earth.

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