February 8th, 2010
As condo after condo is planned in the Wellington West neighbourhood, intensification is seen as an inevitable by many local citizens. City of Ottawa planners and councilors promote intensification all the while musing on the increased tax base a new seven storey condo will provide. Citizens begrudgingly accept that the new condo development, whether in their backyard, on their street, or in their neighbourhood will increase traffic but they also hope that the new developments may encourage new businesses and increase public transit and community services. But what really is driving this move to intensify our cities?
The promotion of urban intensification, or densification or infill as it is otherwise known, can be attributed in part to the popularization of the urban planning theory of Smart Growth. Smart Growth theory promotes the construction and reconstruction of compact communities in the center of the city, as a more sustainable approach than continuing urban sprawl. Smart growth communities are transit oriented, bicycle and pedestrian friendly and promote local jobs and services. Continue reading this post
February 4th, 2010
The Rideau river near the Herzberg Building, Carleton University
Every five years or so, Carleton University revisits its master plan. The most recent draft edition was released in September 2009. Though the campus has long failed to take advantage of its spectacular setting, its administrators have always understood the power of the site, as most brochure shots of the institution are traditionally taken from the air. From this perspective you get a sense of the way Carleton relates to both the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal. On the ground the visual effect is much different. The site is heavily insulated with ring roads and parkways which separate the campus from its natural setting. There have been sporadic attempts to connect portions of the campus to the surrounding waterways, but in the end, the powers-that-be have always judged that the ring road was of more importance than, for example, allowing the Loeb Building to reach out to the banks of the Rideau River. Continue reading this post
February 3rd, 2010
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• A big transit news week as the Obama administration announced the benefactors of the $8 billion investment in high-speed rail. Time Magazine ran an in-depth piece on what high-speed rail could mean for the future of America. The St. Louise Tribune however, questioned the merits of the investment; arguing that high-speed rail only serves a small (and relatively affluent) segment of the population and that investment in public transit is a far fairer and far wiser use of stimulus money. The Chicago Tribune, arguing that aesthetics matter as much as function, offers suggestions on how the future stations should be designed.
• Within the month the eyes of the world will be on Vancouver, and local activists are determined to make the city's homeless population visible. In preparation for the media blitz sure to accompany the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, local organization Pivot Legal Society is launching the "Red Tent Campaign".
• The campaign to empty out Moscow's Rechnik neighbourhood, deemed by the city's mayor to be illegally occupied, has the country in an uproar. Bulldozers teared through the neighborhood last week leveling homes and leaving families homeless in minus 20-degree temperatures. According to the New York Times, the neighbourhood's struggle has become a rallying cry for the country as ordinary citizens, "politicians, human rights activists, media organizations and even nationalist and anarchist groups have come to the defense of the neighborhood".
• And lastly, in a list that includes "both buildings and things built by architects" the Mammoth Blog compiles the best architecture of the decade.
photo by Joe Lewis
Editor's note: an earlier version of this post appeared in Spacing Ottawa contributor Dave McClelland's Ottawa Project blog
Ottawa’s Union Station: it’s a majestic building, a half-scale replica of New York City’s old Penn Station, and painfully underused. Since 1966, when the National Capital Commission removed rail from downtown, the building has served as a government conference centre, rather than a hub for rail travelers. However, if mayor Larry O'Brien isn't just floating the idea for the fun it, it seems that trains might just return to Union Station, in the form of a downtown stop on the new light rail system—taking the place of the Rideau/Sussex station in the LRT proposal.
As its stands right now, the interior of Union Station is unknown to most Ottawans. An occasional conference centre for First Minister's meetings and other high-level discussions, its grand hall and spacious passageways are usually roped off to the citizens who walk past it each day. But as the main hall of a transit station, commuters would have cause to use the public space on a daily basis. Continue reading this post
February 2nd, 2010
Birkett Castle, now the Hungarian Embassy --photo by E. Thornton
When it was recently announced that Jim Watson would be joining the mayoral race, I began to think about mayors and their stamps of the city’s built environment. In a capital city that duly celebrates ‘nation-builders’ where can we find the ‘city-builders’? When I started to dig a little it turns out that Ottawa’s mayors — particularly those from the first half of the 20th century — haunt the city everywhere, in street signs, bridges and hospitals they advocated for, decadent ‘castles’ they lived in, and swimming pools.
Lyon Street is named for the mayor who had the honour of celebrating Confederation — Robert Lyon was the mayor in 1867 and was a serious man, most notable for having a family full of famous characters, and the longest beard in Ottawa’s mayoral history. Continue reading this post
February 1st, 2010
Costly business: was it poured concrete that killed the condos?
This is the latest post in a multi-part series that follows environmentalists Chris Henschel and Allegra Newman as they share their first-hand experience dealing with an intensification project directly affecting their own residence near Island Park Drive.
Neighbourhood residents got surprise news today: the condo project is dead.
In anticipation of a meeting that was planned for tomorrow to discuss the project, local residents had launched a vigorous email campaign to affirm their opposition to surface parking and the use of Rockhurst Drive as a point of vehicular access to the site. We got responses today from City Councillor Christine Leadman, the architecture firm Barry J. Hobin & Associates, and planner Alain Miguelez at the City of Ottawa, all indicating that Springcress Properties had pulled out of the project and the purchase of the property. Site constraints and economic risk were cited as the reasons for pulling the plug. Continue reading this post
January 30th, 2010
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• A redevelopment plan for downtown St. John's calls for the destruction of three buildings to make way for a new 15-story office tower. According to Spacing's Andrew Harvey, the destruction of the low-rise buildings (currently occupied by small businesses) would transform both the character and aesthetic of St John's downtown.
•Last week Spacing Atlantic launched a fascinating new series which looks to historical maps and diagrams to deepen our understanding of Halifax and the surrounding region. The series begins with a look at Halifax's beginnings as colonial port town through an examination of 1878 city plan.
• A new series on Spacing Toronto portrays the landscape's historical progression by combining historic and present-day photographs. Entitled "Before and After", the stunning images are the work of "local artist and Toronto history enthusiast" Alden Cudanin.
• The rash of pedestrian deaths in Toronto has been a catalyst for some much needed discussion on pedestrian safety. However, as Spacing Editor and co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee, Dylan Reid discovered, the tragedies have also led to false assumptions and lazy journalism. Dylan Reid sets the record straight on what the law says pedestrians can and cannot do. And what really makes walking safer.
• A Montreal project, dubbed Quartier 21, hopes to showcase what sustainable urbanism can look like by transforming one city block into a green utopia. As it hits the two-year mark, Devin Alfaro looks at the project's progress so far.
• Alanah Heffez laments the "block [that] is about to become unrecognizable". As part of he city's $167 million "revitalization" effort, small businesses are being expropriated in Montreal's Lower-Main neighbourhood; changing the city's landscape irreversibly.
• As Ottawa gets closer to breaking ground on a subway system, Spacing's Alain Miguelez discovers that plans for underground transit have been on the table, in some form or other, since 1915. Miguelez takes us through over 100 years of Ottawa's subway planning.
• An ongoing series entitled "Where in Ottawa?" asks residents to guess an Ottawa street, building, or landmark based on provided clues. While tricky for those of us who aren't from Ottawa (and, it seems, for Ottawans too), it's an interesting series to follow if only to discover some of the city's hidden gems.
photo of St. John's buildings by Jessica Butler
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