AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Series from the Globe and Mail, Toronto Section:
FIXING TORONTO: URBAN DESIGN IDEAS
Street smarts
Toronto is getting used to splashy buildings, but our streetscape could use a little imagination too. In this six-part series, we ask some of the city's most creative designers to improve our burg - on the cheap
PATRICIA CHISHOLM
Special to The Globe and Mail
It's often essential to leave your home in order to see it clearly.
After an extended sojourn in another, much-better-dressed city, I began to bemoan the visual wretchedness of the place where I was born and raised. Yes, the angles about to sprout from the Royal Ontario Museum and Will Alsop's provocative box on stilts for the Ontario College of Art & Design were all very well, but what of the rest of the city? Why not just flatten all that concrete-challenged public space in between and start over?
But after conversations with designers and other disenchanted residents, it became clear that there are plenty of ways we can improve Toronto's urban fabric quickly and cheaply. The purpose of the six-part series that begins today is to show, through the eyes of some of Toronto's most committed and imaginative designers and architects, what could be - that is, if we had the will and courage to reimagine Toronto as a place where visual harmony and a sense of surprise are commonplace; a place where the shabby and the unimaginative are not allowed to spread unchecked.
The beauty of this approach, which strikes me as quintessentially Canadian, is that it's based on using what we have.
Is there a rump end of a street adjacent to the entertainment district, used for turning streetcars and impossible to plant trees on because of all the services running under its pavement? Landscape architects Janet Rosenberg +
Associates would turn it into a pedestrian playground (see above), where tree-like umbrellas allow dappled light to filter over sidewalks adorned with bands of green.
Is University Avenue, our only grand thoroughfare, a disappointing canyon of grey boxes in the core of the city, bisected by six lanes of traffic?
Reduce the lanes, turn the centre island into a pedestrian park and let shops and cafés root along the building façades as they do on any self-respecting grand boulevard. That's the suggestion of Denegri Bessai Studio, which comprises two Canadian architects who started their careers in Barcelona during that city's famous 15-year architectural makeover.
Architect Tom Bessai, 39, whose ideas helped to inspire this series, explains that many of the techniques used so successfully there - such as contemporary lighting, elegant green spaces and inventive paving - can have a remarkable "makeover" effect.
As the submissions roll out over the next month, there will be rewarding viewing and discussion for anyone interested in the visually appealing city that Toronto could be, one where it's easy to direct out-of-towners to numerous public spaces full of delight, rather than the head-scratching chore it is now. The designers who graciously donated their time to this project range from the world-famous, to Canadian icons, to emerging architects not yet 40.
Some, such as Will Alsop of SMC Alsop, Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB, and Ms. Rosenberg, deserve special thanks for illuminating the potential in this city - and also, perhaps, for demanding the elegant, architecturally grown-up city its residents are entitled to.
Mr. Kuwabara sees vast changes in Toronto in only seven years at places such as the University of Toronto and OCAD, changes that are as remarkable for a long-time student of the city's planning and design as they are for those from away. "I see architectural projects that are at a level that I never imagined would be here," he says.
Today, Mr. Kuwabara is optimistic about the city, which he says "has the warts and pimples of a teenage city but ... a lot of potential."
Mr. Alsop, who is based in London but has opened a small office in Toronto since designing the Sharp Centre for Design at OCAD, sees the same kind of shift in the city. For Mr. Alsop, questions of design don't revolve around one building or space. "It's all one project," he says. "And that project - it sounds absurd - is to make life better."
An essential ingredient for that sort of betterment, Mr.
Alsop says, is a willingness to face up to the current state of affairs. "Once you've admitted it," he says, "then you can do something."
_______________________________________________
FIXING TORONTO: PLANT ARCHITECT: 'GREENER P'
Can we turn parking lots into paradise?
PATRICIA CHISHOLM
Special to The Globe and Mail
A parking lot is one of those necessities of life most of us would prefer to forget when we're not in need of one.
But when the partners at PLANT Architect Inc. noticed buildings coming down at a corner near their downtown Toronto office, only to be replaced by a square of pavement for cars, they had an idea: Why not make a parking lot something green?
They envisioned a mini-park with trees for shade, native plants to help absorb and conserve rainwater, permeable low-heat paving and subtle, solar-powered lights - plus lots of space for cars, especially small ones.
Chris Pommer, who is a partner in the award-winning firm, along with his wife, Lisa Rapoport, and Mary Tremain, says PLANT's idea could potentially transform scores of featureless rectangles of street-level parking that are part of the City of Toronto's "Green P" system.
If even 5 per cent of annual parking revenues were diverted for such a project, $1-million to $2-million would be available for the overhaul, Mr. Pommer estimates.
In addition to shade trees, the proposal includes some novel items, such as "green walls."
These structures, rather like trellises, would support a variety of plants chosen for light and soil conditions.
Besides making the lot more attractive, they would provide privacy for neighbours while allowing sufficient transparency for security.
Two other features would allow the lots to be removed from the city's power and storm-water grids. Water tanks would capture rainwater and send it to water planters, while lampposts with down-facing heads (reducing light emitted upward) would be solar-powered.
New styles of porous asphalt paving, mixed with tougher materials, such as recycled glass, would reduce the waves of heat that typically bounce off these lots.
Mr. Pommer also suggests that some lots - those that parallel the subway line north of Bloor, for instance - could be closed on Sundays and made available for other uses, such as skateboarding, or turned into markets.
"Can you imagine," he asks, "150 parking lots around the city that get changed into things that don't look like parking lots? What an impact that would have."
_______________________________________________
LITTLE FIXES: JANET ROSENBERG + ASSOCIATES: 'URBAN TROPHISM'
Bringing green to the concrete under our feet
PATRICIA CHISHOLM
Special to The Globe and Mail
Good design is often driven by limits, and this idea from Janet Rosenberg + Associates is driven by a harsh reality: In much of downtown Toronto, a newly planted tree is unlikely to live five years. (See image, page M1.) Usually, there's not enough room underground for their root systems, says Ms. Rosenberg, an award-winning landscape architect. And the situation on Charlotte Street near King and Spadina is particularly tough, since a mass of unmovable pipes and cables lies just under its surface.
The solution? An artificial "forest" of green, undulating umbrellas, dotted with chloroplast-like "cells" that collect solar energy to be used at night, as well as rainwater to be retained and slowly released. The fluttering shapes act like the leaves and branches of a tree, casting dappled light on the pedestrians below. The delicate supporting rods vibrate slightly, while the overhead canopies withstand snow and heavy rain. Holes in the umbrellas let shafts of sunlight through, while lights embedded in the sidewalk add to the effect at night.
The natural theme continues underfoot, with weaving bands of green carried across the sidewalk and the road; the bands themselves (of a high-tech material containing solar cells) might also be used to collect energy.
The idea, Ms. Rosenberg explains, is to create a sense of intimacy in an intensely urban setting. "The principles are simple," she says. "It's about having your sidewalks and streets being expressive. ... It's all about pedestrian scale."
A passionate advocate both for visual transformations and more livable urban environments, Ms. Rosenberg says she is seeing a welcome new attitude toward urban design. "We've become much more visual people," she says. "I would also say that the whole way of looking at our lifestyle, from the design point of view, is knit together with environmental concerns."
Landscape architects in particular are used to the idea that many small changes can improve things. And when it comes to landscape, Ms. Rosenberg says, Toronto has not kept up with other major urban centres. To her, the current rash of cultural megaprojects is not nearly enough to transform the place. "None of those are about public spaces. But it's the public spaces that are really critical when it comes to how people feel about a city."
AoD
FIXING TORONTO: URBAN DESIGN IDEAS
Street smarts
Toronto is getting used to splashy buildings, but our streetscape could use a little imagination too. In this six-part series, we ask some of the city's most creative designers to improve our burg - on the cheap
PATRICIA CHISHOLM
Special to The Globe and Mail
It's often essential to leave your home in order to see it clearly.
After an extended sojourn in another, much-better-dressed city, I began to bemoan the visual wretchedness of the place where I was born and raised. Yes, the angles about to sprout from the Royal Ontario Museum and Will Alsop's provocative box on stilts for the Ontario College of Art & Design were all very well, but what of the rest of the city? Why not just flatten all that concrete-challenged public space in between and start over?
But after conversations with designers and other disenchanted residents, it became clear that there are plenty of ways we can improve Toronto's urban fabric quickly and cheaply. The purpose of the six-part series that begins today is to show, through the eyes of some of Toronto's most committed and imaginative designers and architects, what could be - that is, if we had the will and courage to reimagine Toronto as a place where visual harmony and a sense of surprise are commonplace; a place where the shabby and the unimaginative are not allowed to spread unchecked.
The beauty of this approach, which strikes me as quintessentially Canadian, is that it's based on using what we have.
Is there a rump end of a street adjacent to the entertainment district, used for turning streetcars and impossible to plant trees on because of all the services running under its pavement? Landscape architects Janet Rosenberg +
Associates would turn it into a pedestrian playground (see above), where tree-like umbrellas allow dappled light to filter over sidewalks adorned with bands of green.
Is University Avenue, our only grand thoroughfare, a disappointing canyon of grey boxes in the core of the city, bisected by six lanes of traffic?
Reduce the lanes, turn the centre island into a pedestrian park and let shops and cafés root along the building façades as they do on any self-respecting grand boulevard. That's the suggestion of Denegri Bessai Studio, which comprises two Canadian architects who started their careers in Barcelona during that city's famous 15-year architectural makeover.
Architect Tom Bessai, 39, whose ideas helped to inspire this series, explains that many of the techniques used so successfully there - such as contemporary lighting, elegant green spaces and inventive paving - can have a remarkable "makeover" effect.
As the submissions roll out over the next month, there will be rewarding viewing and discussion for anyone interested in the visually appealing city that Toronto could be, one where it's easy to direct out-of-towners to numerous public spaces full of delight, rather than the head-scratching chore it is now. The designers who graciously donated their time to this project range from the world-famous, to Canadian icons, to emerging architects not yet 40.
Some, such as Will Alsop of SMC Alsop, Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB, and Ms. Rosenberg, deserve special thanks for illuminating the potential in this city - and also, perhaps, for demanding the elegant, architecturally grown-up city its residents are entitled to.
Mr. Kuwabara sees vast changes in Toronto in only seven years at places such as the University of Toronto and OCAD, changes that are as remarkable for a long-time student of the city's planning and design as they are for those from away. "I see architectural projects that are at a level that I never imagined would be here," he says.
Today, Mr. Kuwabara is optimistic about the city, which he says "has the warts and pimples of a teenage city but ... a lot of potential."
Mr. Alsop, who is based in London but has opened a small office in Toronto since designing the Sharp Centre for Design at OCAD, sees the same kind of shift in the city. For Mr. Alsop, questions of design don't revolve around one building or space. "It's all one project," he says. "And that project - it sounds absurd - is to make life better."
An essential ingredient for that sort of betterment, Mr.
Alsop says, is a willingness to face up to the current state of affairs. "Once you've admitted it," he says, "then you can do something."
_______________________________________________
FIXING TORONTO: PLANT ARCHITECT: 'GREENER P'
Can we turn parking lots into paradise?
PATRICIA CHISHOLM
Special to The Globe and Mail
A parking lot is one of those necessities of life most of us would prefer to forget when we're not in need of one.
But when the partners at PLANT Architect Inc. noticed buildings coming down at a corner near their downtown Toronto office, only to be replaced by a square of pavement for cars, they had an idea: Why not make a parking lot something green?
They envisioned a mini-park with trees for shade, native plants to help absorb and conserve rainwater, permeable low-heat paving and subtle, solar-powered lights - plus lots of space for cars, especially small ones.
Chris Pommer, who is a partner in the award-winning firm, along with his wife, Lisa Rapoport, and Mary Tremain, says PLANT's idea could potentially transform scores of featureless rectangles of street-level parking that are part of the City of Toronto's "Green P" system.
If even 5 per cent of annual parking revenues were diverted for such a project, $1-million to $2-million would be available for the overhaul, Mr. Pommer estimates.
In addition to shade trees, the proposal includes some novel items, such as "green walls."
These structures, rather like trellises, would support a variety of plants chosen for light and soil conditions.
Besides making the lot more attractive, they would provide privacy for neighbours while allowing sufficient transparency for security.
Two other features would allow the lots to be removed from the city's power and storm-water grids. Water tanks would capture rainwater and send it to water planters, while lampposts with down-facing heads (reducing light emitted upward) would be solar-powered.
New styles of porous asphalt paving, mixed with tougher materials, such as recycled glass, would reduce the waves of heat that typically bounce off these lots.
Mr. Pommer also suggests that some lots - those that parallel the subway line north of Bloor, for instance - could be closed on Sundays and made available for other uses, such as skateboarding, or turned into markets.
"Can you imagine," he asks, "150 parking lots around the city that get changed into things that don't look like parking lots? What an impact that would have."
_______________________________________________
LITTLE FIXES: JANET ROSENBERG + ASSOCIATES: 'URBAN TROPHISM'
Bringing green to the concrete under our feet
PATRICIA CHISHOLM
Special to The Globe and Mail
Good design is often driven by limits, and this idea from Janet Rosenberg + Associates is driven by a harsh reality: In much of downtown Toronto, a newly planted tree is unlikely to live five years. (See image, page M1.) Usually, there's not enough room underground for their root systems, says Ms. Rosenberg, an award-winning landscape architect. And the situation on Charlotte Street near King and Spadina is particularly tough, since a mass of unmovable pipes and cables lies just under its surface.
The solution? An artificial "forest" of green, undulating umbrellas, dotted with chloroplast-like "cells" that collect solar energy to be used at night, as well as rainwater to be retained and slowly released. The fluttering shapes act like the leaves and branches of a tree, casting dappled light on the pedestrians below. The delicate supporting rods vibrate slightly, while the overhead canopies withstand snow and heavy rain. Holes in the umbrellas let shafts of sunlight through, while lights embedded in the sidewalk add to the effect at night.
The natural theme continues underfoot, with weaving bands of green carried across the sidewalk and the road; the bands themselves (of a high-tech material containing solar cells) might also be used to collect energy.
The idea, Ms. Rosenberg explains, is to create a sense of intimacy in an intensely urban setting. "The principles are simple," she says. "It's about having your sidewalks and streets being expressive. ... It's all about pedestrian scale."
A passionate advocate both for visual transformations and more livable urban environments, Ms. Rosenberg says she is seeing a welcome new attitude toward urban design. "We've become much more visual people," she says. "I would also say that the whole way of looking at our lifestyle, from the design point of view, is knit together with environmental concerns."
Landscape architects in particular are used to the idea that many small changes can improve things. And when it comes to landscape, Ms. Rosenberg says, Toronto has not kept up with other major urban centres. To her, the current rash of cultural megaprojects is not nearly enough to transform the place. "None of those are about public spaces. But it's the public spaces that are really critical when it comes to how people feel about a city."
AoD
