Quality of Canadian urbanism - Page 7

ue · #**121** Posted **Sep 12, 2021, 11:05 PM**

^

Some more examples of Edmonton's absurd and clashing vernacular (some of these are more subtle and may need more context)

They built the infill on the right and updated the strip mall on the right and, aside from a couple other businesses across the street, that's it, but it's a trendy area in the city now:

Popular 109th St in Garneau, with the nice old Garneau Theatre surrounded by strip malls

Busy and trendy coffeeshop inside a converted brick home surrounded by ugly 2000s condos

Hali87 · #**122** Posted **Sep 12, 2021, 11:13 PM**

On the other end of the mall spectrum, something I've been reflecting on lately is the way that malls developed in Halifax and the effect on the Fairview neighbourhood.

The oldest indoor mall in the region is Bayer's Road Shopping Centre, which as a kid in the 90s felt... stale and sub-par, but had likely siphoned a lot of retail away from Dutch Village Rd (a local neighbourhood main street that had always felt oddly underdeveloped).

Bayer's Road was overtaken by other nearby malls that grew up around department stores, namely Halifax Shopping Centre and West End Mall (which itself was eventually absorbed into HSC). It's not really a viable neighbourhood mall at this point, and streetfront retail is returning to the surrounding area as it densifies. What I find interesting is that the malls in the Halifax area tended to develop in tight geographic clusters, rather than spreading more uniformly across the urban area as in Edmonton or Calgary. There's the West End cluster (HSC + West End, and Bayer's Road), a downtown cluster (Park Lane + Scotia Square + Maritime Ctr + several smaller ones), a "Central Dartmouth" cluster (Mic Mac + the defunct Penhorn, which fall within a narrow geographic area), a Bedford cluster (Sunnyside + Bedford Place, which are across the street from each other). The only areas with standalone malls were Spryfield (South Centre) and Sackville (Downsview) - neither of these really worked out. Areas like Clayton Park or Cole Harbour where malls might be expected tended to go with "plaza"/power centre type development. Of all the malls I've mentioned, only Halifax Shopping Centre and Mic Mac Mall really still feel relevant today (and still exist) - the Bedford cluster probably works ok at the neighbourhood level but there's really nothing special there. It feels like for a long time the region had too many smallish malls competing with each other within small geographic clusters, and as a result most of them were pretty "meh" even for malls, many areas were not really well-served, and "mall culture" as a whole just never really took off here as a result. The ones that prevailed, HSC and MMM, are really just stores, each with a handful of offices, a food court and a transit terminal. No cinemas, no fancy fountains, literally just shopping.

The flip side is that since none of the malls here were ever really great, neighbourhood retail didn't suffer as much as it might have. Dutch Village Road in Fairview always felt oddly underdeveloped but streetfront retail is returning/improving as the area densifies. If Bayer's Road had ever actually been a worthwhile mall, Dutch Village probably would not be salvageable at this point. Scotia Square and Park Lane weren't really "successful" enough to drain the rest of downtown to the degree seen in a lot of the mid-sized Ontario cities, but neither has "totally failed" the way some other downtown malls have. The fact that Eaton's never anchored either of them may have helped. They're unremarkable but functional, although Scotia Square feels underused (there aren't a ton of spaces downtown that would be practical for something like a grocery or "big box"-scale store, other than within Scotia Square - but most of this is just being used as office space now)

Hali87 · #**123** Posted **Sep 12, 2021, 11:50 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ue

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-public-library-reopening-1.5724880

The interior aesthetic is way more similar to Halifax's than I would have guessed. The exteriors of both kind of remind me of abstracted tanks, maybe for opposing armies

Source

Quote:

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-n...-edmonton-library-has-some-folks-fuming/

AuxTown · #**124** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 12:01 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hali87

The interior aesthetic is way more similar to Halifax's than I would have guessed. The exteriors of both kind of remind me of abstracted tanks, maybe for opposing armies

Love that cities in Canada have been upping their library game lately. Ottawa is late, as usual, to the game but we are coming in hot!

Hali87 · #**125** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 12:35 AM**

It's a cool design and although I have mixed feelings about Ottawa's "major civic buildings in parklike settings" style of urbanism, it really seems to have embraced that approach and does a good job of it for what it is, and it also aligns pretty well with national self-image - "culture" surrounded by "nature". And many of these buildings themselves evoke nature in a fairly cohesive way, adding up to an overall unique urban character.

Edit: in many ways Ottawa's modern civic brand or theme is the natural environment, in the same way that Halifax's is history and Edmonton's is engineering. In each case these themes tend to spill over into aesthetics and the way that things in the public (and even private) realm are designed.

MolsonExport · #**126** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 12:55 AM**

Quote:

I don't know what is worse. The faux Amsterdam facades or the wretched parking lot in the foreground. Maybe it is the combination of the two that generates that soul-sucking feeling.

AuxTown · #**127** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 1:01 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hali87

It's a cool design and although I have mixed feelings about Ottawa's "major civic buildings in parklike settings" style of urbanism, it really seems to have embraced that approach and does a good job of it for what it is, and it also aligns pretty well with national self-image - "culture" surrounded by "nature". And many of these buildings themselves evoke nature in a fairly cohesive way, adding up to an overall unique urban character.

Edit: in many ways Ottawa's modern civic brand or theme is the natural environment, in the same way that Halifax's is history and Edmonton's is engineering. In each case these themes tend to spill over into aesthetics and the way that things in the public (and even private) realm are designed.

I definitely know what you mean. But this one won't be in "the park" for long like the renderings might suggest.

casper · #**128** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 1:04 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I don't know what is worse. The faux Amsterdam facades or the wretched parking lot in the foreground. Maybe it is the combination of the two that generates that soul-sucking feeling.

It is the parking lot.

Vancouver has a mcArthurGlen - designer outlet in Richmond just under the airport flight path. This is owned by the airport, but operated by a British Outlet mall developer to European standards for sububan faux malls. It is as authentic as a Faux mall can be. The ones they build in Europe are equal faux looking.

Located at: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Designe...e26297f5!8m2!3d49.1974259!4d-123.1412157

Hali87 · #**129** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 1:09 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by AuxTown

I definitely know what you mean. But this one won't be in "the park" for long like the renderings might suggest.

Even then, the buffer of trees and the canal (?) maintain the park-like atmosphere (in a good way) - most major civic buildings in the Halifax area are built in very not-park-like settings (Province House being a prime example and a major precedent, public schools being an exception), or in areas that incidentally have trees that later get cut down.

kwoldtimer · #**130** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 1:28 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hali87

It's a cool design and although I have mixed feelings about Ottawa's "major civic buildings in parklike settings" style of urbanism, it really seems to have embraced that approach and does a good job of it for what it is, and it also aligns pretty well with national self-image - "culture" surrounded by "nature". And many of these buildings themselves evoke nature in a fairly cohesive way, adding up to an overall unique urban character.

Edit: in many ways Ottawa's modern civic brand or theme is the natural environment, in the same way that Halifax's is history and Edmonton's is engineering. In each case these themes tend to spill over into aesthetics and the way that things in the public (and even private) realm are designed.

In Ottawa’s case, it’s both modern and historic.

SignalHillHiker · #**131** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 11:40 AM**

Infuriating on so many levels. The Old West End downtown was brutalized by the construction of a highway to the suburbs that effectively cut the size of our commercial core in half (destroyed quite a large chunk of it, and caused the portion separated from the rest of downtown to die). It’s one of the worst things we’ve ever done - I’d rank it up there with not preserving at least the knotted old street grid and public “squares” of the Central Slum even if the buildings had to be razed. Fortunately we stopped this from replacing all of the old commercial core, but we still lost half of all we’ve ever had. Downtown St. John’s today would definitely feel much smaller to someone from the 1930s.

And we still have provincial people with a suburban worldview for whom that’s one of the few signs of urbanity in the city. This is why we can’t have nice things.

shappy · #**132** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 4:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ue

Hey, I really like this!

ue · #**133** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 9:01 PM**

^ Finally, someone with taste!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hali87

On the other end of the mall spectrum, something I've been reflecting on lately is the way that malls developed in Halifax and the effect on the Fairview neighbourhood.

The oldest indoor mall in the region is Bayer's Road Shopping Centre, which as a kid in the 90s felt... stale and sub-par, but had likely siphoned a lot of retail away from Dutch Village Rd (a local neighbourhood main street that had always felt oddly underdeveloped).

Bayer's Road was overtaken by other nearby malls that grew up around department stores, namely Halifax Shopping Centre and West End Mall (which itself was eventually absorbed into HSC). It's not really a viable neighbourhood mall at this point, and streetfront retail is returning to the surrounding area as it densifies. What I find interesting is that the malls in the Halifax area tended to develop in tight geographic clusters, rather than spreading more uniformly across the urban area as in Edmonton or Calgary. There's the West End cluster (HSC + West End, and Bayer's Road), a downtown cluster (Park Lane + Scotia Square + Maritime Ctr + several smaller ones), a "Central Dartmouth" cluster (Mic Mac + the defunct Penhorn, which fall within a narrow geographic area), a Bedford cluster (Sunnyside + Bedford Place, which are across the street from each other). The only areas with standalone malls were Spryfield (South Centre) and Sackville (Downsview) - neither of these really worked out. Areas like Clayton Park or Cole Harbour where malls might be expected tended to go with "plaza"/power centre type development. Of all the malls I've mentioned, only Halifax Shopping Centre and Mic Mac Mall really still feel relevant today (and still exist) - the Bedford cluster probably works ok at the neighbourhood level but there's really nothing special there. It feels like for a long time the region had too many smallish malls competing with each other within small geographic clusters, and as a result most of them were pretty "meh" even for malls, many areas were not really well-served, and "mall culture" as a whole just never really took off here as a result. The ones that prevailed, HSC and MMM, are really just stores, each with a handful of offices, a food court and a transit terminal. No cinemas, no fancy fountains, literally just shopping.

The flip side is that since none of the malls here were ever really great, neighbourhood retail didn't suffer as much as it might have. Dutch Village Road in Fairview always felt oddly underdeveloped but streetfront retail is returning/improving as the area densifies. If Bayer's Road had ever actually been a worthwhile mall, Dutch Village probably would not be salvageable at this point. Scotia Square and Park Lane weren't really "successful" enough to drain the rest of downtown to the degree seen in a lot of the mid-sized Ontario cities, but neither has "totally failed" the way some other downtown malls have. The fact that Eaton's never anchored either of them may have helped. They're unremarkable but functional, although Scotia Square feels underused (there aren't a ton of spaces downtown that would be practical for something like a grocery or "big box"-scale store, other than within Scotia Square - but most of this is just being used as office space now)

That's really interesting, I didn't know that about Halifax. My time there's mostly been spent on the Halifax peninsula and older parts of Dartmouth. But yeah, even in the central areas, Halifax doesn't have these massive urban renewal malls from the '70s/'80s like many cities in Canada do, including, as you say, many Ontarian cities that were smaller. There's nothing like the Core, Pacific Mall, Rideau Centre, or Eaton Centre, let alone Jackson Square, City Centre, or Portage Place. It's probably in part why Halifax has been able to retain such a high quality urban fabric that has been able to become quite vibrant with relative ease.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I don't know what is worse. The faux Amsterdam facades or the wretched parking lot in the foreground. Maybe it is the combination of the two that generates that soul-sucking feeling.

I do think applied more modestly, as say a small scale infill, with high quality materials, with little setbacks and no parking, it would be ok. This is just a monstrosity.

Hali87 · #**134** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 10:37 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ue

There's nothing like the Core, Pacific Mall, Rideau Centre, or Eaton Centre, let alone Jackson Square, City Centre, or Portage Place. It's probably in part why Halifax has been able to retain such a high quality urban fabric that has been able to become quite vibrant with relative ease.

Sort of. Scotia Square actually was envisioned as exactly that kind of thing; it was built over several demolished city blocks as part of the "Central Redevelopment Zone" - basically all of downtown north of City Hall. Scotia Square itself didn't just replace old buildings, it was also built on top of the pre-existing street network. Along with the Cogswell Interchange, it also cut Gottingen Street and the North End off from the rest of downtown.

Conceptually, it's similar to many of the places you mentioned - a combination mall + office complex + hotels + transit hub. It did originally have things like cinemas and a Woolco but over the years the mall portion was increasingly an afterthought, and at this point it's mostly an office complex that happens to have a modest retail concourse, as opposed to a bustling mall that happens to have office towers. It could have ended up much like the Rideau Centre except that it never managed to retain those types of retailers. Add to this the fact that the mall remains "open" to pedestrians after hours as part of the downtown pedway system, and it really feels like a place that people pass through rather than a destination in and of itself - almost like a huge downtown subway station with no actual subway. Barrington Place (across the street) and Historic Properties (a couple blocks away) tend to function like this as well. It's never felt like a true ghost mall though (Bayers Rd and South Centre absolutely do). It just never really became the "anchor" that most of those other malls you mentioned did.

ue · #**135** Posted **Sep 13, 2021, 11:01 PM**

^ I was actually going to say, I think I passed through Scotia Square getting from Purdy's Wharf over to the other side of the Cogswell Interchange. It was very dead and seemed like a place to pass through, as you mention. Regardless, Downtown Halifax is pretty vibrant, with Argyle and Barrington in particular. And Spring Garden Road is very close, too.