Trevor Boddy has weighed in today, and his prognosis is not good.
I always enjoy reading Boddy's work, but I have to disagree with him, at least in some places, on this story. For example, I don't believe Robson Square is the overwhelming success that he makes it out to be.
With that being said, his article is worth reading.. and he raises some interesting points about design and functionality...
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URBAN PLANNING
Overarching aspirations
TREVOR BODDY
From Friday's Globe and Mail
January 25, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST
We dwell collectively in cities, so it's only natural that we would come to think of a place like downtown Vancouver as one big home. Conceived this way, our downtown peninsula makes for a very strange dwelling indeed — one having a huge backyard (Stanley Park and Burrard Inlet), lots of tiny bedrooms (all those condos), but precious little living room (urban public open space.)
By a long shot, downtown Vancouver's largest and best-loved "living room" is Robson Square. It is a welcome oasis of light and greenery for the residents of our ever-denser core, a healthy outlet for our city's political life as favoured locale for protests, and home to the Arthur Erickson buildings that put Vancouver on the world's architectural map.
Coming on the heels of the destruction of the Erickson-designed Graham House last month, a howl of protest has erupted recently over provincial government plans that would radically alter the multi-levelled public square and lush gardens. Robson Square "revitalization" plans estimated to cost $87-million are advanced enough to fill three binders full of technical and design particulars — now awaiting approval in the office of the scheme's principal sponsor, Premier Gordon Campbell.
These and other details were confirmed in a Jan. 18 press briefing by British Columbia's Asia-Pacific and Olympics minister Colin Hansen. Mr. Hansen and project architect Clive Grout stressed that plans have not been finalized, and that a huge clamshell new roof over the sunken skating rink, plus a new Asia-Pacific Centre pavilion to be inserted at the raised walkway and landscaped mound level along Hornby Street would be subject to public review.
Later in the same briefing, however, Mr. Hansen stated that if portions can be put in place before the 2010 Olympics, so much the better. The scale and complexity of the Robson Square proposals means that construction plans must be finalized in a matter of weeks, if the proposed roof or pavilion is to be in place by that deadline.
The most controversial element of the plan is a huge wooden arch springing from near the entrance of the Vancouver Art Gallery, up over Robson Street high enough to permit the passage of city buses underneath, then down to terra firma again near Mr. Erickson's famous "stramps" — a combined staircase and ramp — at the Law Courts and (now-dormant) fountain side. The rationale Mr. Hansen has offered for this enormous arch is to keep the rain off the skating rink below, where General Electric (corporate parent of 2010 broadcaster NBC) is providing $1.7-million for an enlarged ice surface and new refrigeration plant.
In addition to the enormous visual impact the new arch would have on the Francis Rattenbury-designed Edwardian courthouse, Arthur Erickson's provincial buildings at Robson Square, and landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander's plantings in-between the two iconic buildings, the current proposal may have a fatal urban design flaw. In order to accommodate vehicular and pedestrian traffic along Robson Street, this is an arch without walls — just a glazed roof, open on the sides.
The worry is that the arch's inescapable need for openings may mean more rain on the rink below, not less. As experienced by anyone who has encountered a mild wind accelerated to gale force at the base of office towers, the shape of buildings can amplify winds. Engineers call this the "Venturi Effect," and an open-sided arch may well push rain even further into the skating zone than under the current ranks of brown plastic skylights. At the Jan. 18 briefing, project architect Clive Grout stated that wind studies for his design have not yet been done.
In an open letter released several days earlier, Arthur Erickson describes his involvement in the radical Robson Square redesign proposals as being "minimal." But Mr. Erickson also points to a possible alternative, one that would accommodate our provincial government's understandable desire for a rain-proof public gathering place during the 2010 Winter Games.
Inspired by Mr. Erickson's original plans of 30 years ago, why not leave the area between VAG and Law Courts as they are (the sunken plaza is widely recognized as his original design's weakest component and surely needs a re-do, but nothing as clumsy as this clamshell roof), then shift new interventions to the other side, along Georgia Street? Since this Georgia-flanking zone — a true urban square in the European sense, not the multi-levelled hybrid along Robson — is scheduled for re-construction anyway, construction could be sped up for completion for the 2010 Winter Games.
If shelter from the rain is thought worth the investment, an elegant temporary or permanent high roof could be erected along the street (but please, not up against VAG's neo-classical walls.) After all, the Vancouver Organizing Committee likes this high profile central space enough to locate their Olympic countdown clock there, and a renewed square would be a wonderful complement to the 2010 live sites for entertainment and events proposed for David Lam Park and the former bus station location a few blocks down Georgia.
The area between VAG and Georgia is the only portion of Mr. Erickson's three-block-long scheme that was never completed. His concept here was for a largely hard-surfaced central plaza — adapting itself readily to multiple uses, ranging from concerts to demos to ethnic fairs — greened at the edges along Howe and Hornby Streets with double alleys of mature trees and brimming planters. One of the scheme's more ingenious ideas was an in-ground fountain at centre, permitting the waterworks to be turned off and on depending on each day's planned activities. What's best, completing Arthur Erickson's conception would cost substantially less than the $87-million for radical surgery and extraneous re-padding currently awaiting cabinet approval.
As has happened many times before, our most famous architect may have had it right the first time. Bringing new urban life to Georgia — not destroying what has long succeeded along Robson — may be the best living memorial we can give Arthur Erickson.