{"id":17037,"date":"2011-01-05T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=17037"},"modified":"2013-01-21T15:14:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T20:14:11","slug":"no-mean-city-designs-on-a-downtown-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/01\/05\/no-mean-city-designs-on-a-downtown-park\/","title":{"rendered":"NO MEAN CITY: Designs on a downtown park"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cross-posted from <\/em>No Mean City,<\/em><\/a> Alex’s personal blog on architecture<\/em><\/p>\n

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This year, the redesign of downtown Toronto’s John Street<\/a> into a ‘cultural corridor’ should be interesting to watch. The street – which links the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Toronto International Film Festival Group’s Bell Lightbox<\/a>, CBC Headquarters and the CN Tower – is bland and suburban at the moment.<\/p>\n

To help things along, Entertainment District BIA is running a design ideas competition<\/a> to help remake the park at King and John Streets. The competition closes this week – and they’re looking for your vote about which of the five finalists works best.<\/p>\n

This is a great move by the group, which represents local businesses and organizations, to encourage some creative thinking, and they have a serious jury <\/a>to help pick a winner. They’ve drawn some interesting ideas from anonymous architects and designers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here are the finalists (with links to videos at the BIA site):<\/p>\n

King Street Terrace<\/strong><\/a>
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King Street Staircase<\/strong><\/a>
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Urban Ballroom<\/strong><\/a>
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“Entertain Me”<\/a><\/strong>
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Oracle Square<\/strong><\/a>
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Each of these has something interesting to say, though some (King Street Staircase in particular) are clearly meant as conversation-starters rather than final designs.<\/p>\n

My favourite is “Entertain Me.” This one establishes an unusual rhythm of triangular pavers that would extend from the street into the square – where they explode into three-dimensional forms topped with wood slats, containing LED lights and topped with shade trees. There’s a strong connection between the details and the urban space around them, including the street.<\/p>\n

This one plays with the language of film, nodding to the Lightbox across the street. Filmic metaphors are rich material for architects these days, as the technology of filmmaking and design come together – and both forms work with narrative, procession and space. In this case the designers put it this way: “The paving is reminiscent of a film strip, a digitized streaming sequence, or folded theatre curtains. The pattern becomes the signal for the entire” area.<\/p>\n

This isn’t just talk. The idea is legible, it’s buildable, and it should generate a public space that easily serves different purposes year-round. And I think it’s beautiful. I hope it gets built.<\/p>\n

But that’s just my vote. You can visit the BIA’s website to see video presentations about the proposals. And the competition closes Jan 7, so weigh in.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted from No Mean City, Alex’s personal blog on architecture This year, the redesign of downtown Toronto’s John Street into a ‘cultural corridor’ should be interesting to watch. The street – which links the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Toronto International Film Festival Group’s Bell Lightbox, CBC Headquarters and the CN Tower – is blandContinue reading “NO MEAN CITY: Designs on a downtown park”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4088,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,13,14,20],"tags":[6296,95,78],"class_list":["post-17037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-green-space","category-spacing","category-urban-design","tag-alex","tag-recreation","tag-squares"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNO MEAN CITY: Designs on a downtown park - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/01\/05\/no-mean-city-designs-on-a-downtown-park\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NO MEAN CITY: Designs on a downtown park - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cross-posted from No Mean City, Alex’s personal blog on architecture This year, the redesign of downtown Toronto’s John Street into a ‘cultural corridor’ should be interesting to watch. 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