John/Rebecca urban park

[Jon Dalton]

Wow this looks truly awful. I was never a fan of the idea but thought it could be okay if it was done well. It would have been much better to build housing there, perhaps with a park incorporated into the development. Now we just have another park to police the homeless out of sleeping in, and no more hope for them to find homes.

[catcher_of_cats]

I feel like this park design will be considered a complete failure in the not so distant future and will have to be rebuilt, wasting money that this city does not have. I do hope those trees will survive but thriving in that sea of black asphalt will not be particularly easy. If I could immediately terminate all those responsible for this park design I would.

[bvbborussia]

Originally Posted by catcher_of_cats

I feel like this park design will be considered a complete failure in the not so distant future and will have to be rebuilt, wasting money that this city does not have. I do hope those trees will survive but thriving in that sea of black asphalt will not be particularly easy. If I could immediately terminate all those responsible for this park design I would.

I think you're right. I can see them ripping this up and starting over in 10 years.

[interr0bangr]

The park is open now. There's a ton of seating, just not a ton of shade other than a pergola type of area with tables. Those rubber sphere type things are just a terrible waste of space; they're mostly on the edge of the park close to cars so I don't know how many parents want their kids playing on them and they're just a one-trick pony in general. Really wish the green spaces were bigger and the asphalt was smaller.

[LikeHamilton]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

https://twitter.com/JasonThorne_RPP

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Jason Farr
https://twitter.com/JasonFarrHamOnt

My 2 cents

I don’t know. It looks like what was last presented after the public meetings. Reading back everyone seemed to be caught up on Club 77 still being there and somewhat Lulu’s that they ignored the park.

Does anyone have a more up to date picture with all of the grass, benches etc in place?

Give it a few years for the trees to mature. I don’t know why the city insists on planting saplings? They can move almost mature trees and place saplings between them (see below).

I am happy there is a park there and not a parking lot before the area gets built up. Will it get a renovation in 10 years? Most likely. The city is always looking at improving parks. Sometime for the good and sometimes not so good. Gage Park has had dozens of renovations over the years.

But one thing I pretty sure of is they don’t convert a park back to a parking lot.

How to move a tree. We just cut them down!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IV10M1RbEA

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^The dealbreaker for me is the asphalt. I can live with the rest, peculiar though it may be...

[Crapht]

I went through today. I'm less bothered now than I was a week ago. The asphalt is still lame but I ride a bicycle everywhere and now I'll just cut through the park. The design is fine. It's nothing exceptional but whatever, its fine. The shade structure has a usb charging station which is kind of funny but handy from time to time. Now I really hope the Ripple project happens just to animate this place.
I'm more excited about the Sam Lawrence Park renovations now. I love that park and it has some good proposals.

[johnnyhamont]

The big difference for me is that the proposal shows street trees around the entire perimeter of the project and it looks like they eliminated that. A big shame.

[realcity]

horrible waste of space

[matt602]

I can't get over how terrible this design is. Do they actually think anyone is gonna wanna sit on those mounds of "grass" once the trees mature enough to actually provide shade? The only useful bit is the large grassy area near the middle. The tree roots will probably just destroy the small mounds in a few decades anyway, though by then they'll probably just rip the whole thing up and try again anyway.

[Innsertnamehere]

Honestly if they used pavers Instead of asphalt it would work a lot better for an urban high traffic park. Asphalt is incredibly cheap.

[Elysium303]

What a disappointment.

Not very park-like if you ask me.

In that area, we need TREES and GRASS.

Yet another flub by the City of Hamilton.

[SteelTown]

The park is now open


Jason Thorne
https://twitter.com/JasonThorne_RPP/...760448/photo/2

[SpringLight88]

Originally Posted by bvbborussia

I'm with you. The asphalt doesn't look the nicest and will radiate heat in the summer without tree shade. It's better than a parking lot of course but I feels like a missed opportunity to add some real greenspace.

I'm going to assume accessibility? It was easier for someone who's using a walker or a wheelchair to travel across asphalt then gravel. I agree it's a bit of an off aesthetic but it's nice that nobody will have an issue using it.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by SpringLight88

I'm going to assume accessibility? It was easier for someone who's using a walker or a wheelchair to travel across asphalt then gravel. I agree it's a bit of an off aesthetic but it's nice that nobody will have an issue using it.

I hope that's not the reason.

If it's financial, I can respect that because you're spending other people's money.

But there's no reason why someone with mobility issues couldn't use a park paved in pea gravel or crushed stone. And there are several environmental reasons why that would have been preferable as well: permeability; heat/light reflection; a natural product as opposed to petroleum-based, etc.

[lachlanholmes]

Awful. Passed by this Wednesday, couldn't take an in-depth look but got a few ground-level photos from John:

[matt602]

those mounds are even steeper at ground level than they look from above. ridiculous.

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

The park is now open


Jason Thorne
https://twitter.com/JasonThorne_RPP/...760448/photo/2

It would be nice to paint the asphalt, perhaps have an art contest to pick the design. It wouldn't cost much and yeah over time it'll fade away but new paint can be added on top.

Some ideas:





https://designtaxi.com/news/358329/C...Asphalt-Roads/





http://outdoorplaybook.ca/learn/insp...uebec-schools/

[Hawrylyshyn]

I really like that idea^ could even turn it into a yearly thing. Money raised could go towards other park improvements