“The city to come…
Cities have changed. Their appearance has changed as has the way they are inhabited by people. Above all, cities have become privileged places where the universe of the global encounters the reality of places. After 30 years talking about urban globalization and planetary flows, technological utopias and the homogenization of the world, it turns out that what the city actually shows us is the combination of these qualities, with the ubiquitous and continued presence of the residue of the particular place.
The city to come isn’t global, as we have thought; the city to come is local. Maybe more local than ever…”
– the mission statement of ‘Local Local’ – Barcelona, 2010
Text by Sean Ruthen
While visiting Spain in the Spring of 2010, I had the good fortune to see an exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona (CCCB). As both an urgent plea and much needed critique of the rapid changes affecting both the urban and suburban ways of life in and around Barcelona, my seeing this exhibition would turn out to be a serendipitous event, being held precisely at the midpoint of the TownShift enterprise, between the pomp and circumstance of announcing the winners, and the onset of creating its publication. For here, yet again, was another affirmation that cities around the world were reeling from the transformative effects of the internet, mobile phones, ATMs, and social networks, all contributing to the displacement of populations from their urban centres and making the architecture and infrastructure that cities have used for the movement of people and capital for decades ultimately redundant.
TownShift attempted to challenge and shift those old notions bound to the dominance of the automobile – and its integral relationship with the suburb – and to present alternate futures to those habits and traditions that we now recognize as being no longer sustainable. Put another way, we asserted that as the world had changed, our urban centres have to follow suit. Surrey, like Vancouver, has been a Petri dish of both urban transformation and experimentation, changing both its ethnic demographic along with its physical built form in a dramatically short time. With more children now attending schools in Surrey than Vancouver, the city – concentrated around its six town centres of Whalley, Cloverdale, Fleetwood, Guildford, Semiahmoo, and Newton – is poised to become the largest city in the province. If the future does live here, it must then be asked – is Surrey ready?
The answer is: not quite yet…though it is well on its way. With currently more urban sprawl than Vancouver (if only because there is no place left to sprawl to in the latter), Surrey is also vexed by more freeways, cell phone towers, and high voltage power lines per capita than any other municipality in the province. It also has an unfortunate track record of too-little-too-late counter measures to try and offset the consequences of its urban blight, with the frequent side-effect of the crime and poverty that is so often the headline of our evening news.
The ambition of the current Mayor and City Council of Surrey to attend to these issues as both a social and urban problem is highly commendable, and is perhaps indicative that we are perhaps heading into a paradigm of new municipal awareness that recognizes that the cause of our urban atrophy is the result of not getting things right in our own backyards. This change may turn out to be a watershed moment for future of the suburbs, as one major suburban municipality appears on the horizon as a leader for how to at once address a multitude of urban problems. By allowing all to have a voice in Surrey’s future is to admit, at long last, that the top-down paternalist approach of past decades is in no-one’s interest anymore.
And so it was then a happy turn of events that TownShift was able to convince Mayor Dianne Watts and Council to embark on this journey, of which the recently published six TownShift volumes represent the crown jewel of the experience – one meant to inspire not just the present incarnation of Surrey but all those yet to come. By recognizing that the city has problems similar to those vexing other cities around the globe, this international ideas competition was an ideal means to engage with that larger audience and foster a greater discussion.
So, it is the TownShift team’s hope that the competition publication – embodying some of the best ideas of the 137 entries – will help inspire and guide future Mayors and Councils of Surrey as well as the leaders of other similar cities the world over. At the local level, however, it is our ambition that the voices of all those who contributed will be considered in the development of the City’s future Official Community Plan and, at last, shift our present paradigm towards a more livable and sustainable one.
The five challenges set forth by the competition were at their most basic a public art installation, two urban plans, and two architectural objects. The first of these – Fleetwood – was intended for a larger draw of entrants as it did not require the rigour of technical plans, elevations, and 3D images requested by the others. Cloverdale and Newton were the urban planning exercises, looking at the removal and addition of new buildings, roads, parks, etc. Finally, the resulting ideas of Guildford and Semiahmoo were almost exclusively architectural objects, representing both public space (the mall and assembly spaces) and private space (the residential high-rise). The backgrounds of the entrants themselves were as varied in the ideas put forth. Concepts were proposed by concerned residents to salaried professionals alike and ranged from entirely plausible to complete flights of fancy.
It was also quite an amazing experience to launch an ideas competition entirely online – from launching and disseminating its content, to receiving the entries entirely in a digital format. One can literally map the activities online by observing the multiple entries by entrants and how they inter-weaved with each other. I have been involved in three competitions similar to TownShift in as many years, and I continue to be amazed at the different countries in the world that respond to these ideas competitions. To add to the diversity of the entrants discussed above, proposals for TownShift came from locations as varied as Russia, Australia, China and South America.
With 137 entries, the jury had their work cut out for them. The three architects, landscape architect, and developer did well to grasp the complex issues that each town centre sought to address, in a short time: the space next to a freeway, the generic nature of an arterial, alienation of the pedestrian on the street, creating safer urban rooms, and creating density without sacrificing the public realm. Some have said that the five winners and finalists chosen were a safe selection, even politically correct. But after some scrutiny, the TownShift team thought some of them did not bear up to the real issues – and ultimately omitting them from the publication – while including others that did not make it past the jury. It should be said that those that appear in the final publication are not necessarily the definitive ones, as some had to be edited for space, but all therein are those that we believe truly address the issues affecting Surrey.
The ideas within the publication can be split into two camps – good ideas and ideas ahead of their time. Returning to Barcelona, a good idea would be something like La Rambla, i.e. a street almost entirely given over to pedestrians, with an expansive cross-section compared to its surrounding buildings, large street trees, and generous paving (even a mural by Miro). An example of an idea ahead of its time with reference to Barcelona is most certainly the work of the local architect Antoni Gaudi, whose Guell Park is but one instance where a concept that was misunderstood at its time (it was actually a failed real estate venture) is now, close to a century later, one of the city’s most beloved civic spaces.
The comments from the five town centre discussions put on by TownShift also seemed to fall into these two camps, where the good ideas were seized upon and unanimously embraced as a workable solution to their respective town centres, while the more ‘out there’ ideas were greeted with more skepticism and trepidation. Towers in Semiahmoo, not building retail in Cloverdale, and ‘dissolving’ the mall at Guildford were certainly instances of this trepidation. As such, the ideas can be said to be ahead of their time. A few ideas were even strong enough to be simultaneously visionary and realizable, including the one which the jury chose to award the competition’s grand prize to. While we present the ideas in the publication as they were juried in the competition, we cannot say that they are necessarily the “best” ideas. We must leave that decision for the constituents of the city’s six town centres.
Having said that, here are some highlights, town centre by town centre, of the feedback we received at the five evenings’ discussions of ‘TownShift Connected’ that were held in each of the five town centres over two-and-a-half weeks in late 2010:
– At the Cloverdale session, which took place at the Kwantlen Polytechnique campus, several people spoke in favour of the ‘5 Minute City’ scheme, while many others said that whatever happened there needed to be retail included on the site. Some liked the ‘Agri-wall’ scheme – the juror’s first place selection for the area. Several more felt there needed to be a good mix of housing and retail, while a few added that the area could promote itself more as a tourist destination.
– At the Fleetwood session, several people spoke in favour of the giant tree as a marker for the town centre, while others liked the idea of replacing the cell phone tower with it. More spoke in favour of the wind turbine/solar collectors as a marker and symbol of the area’s leadership in green energy. Using the mile high column of balloons as a marker was also a popular choice. Perhaps most importantly, several people felt that the marker needed to be in the centre of Fleetwood, and not at its peripheries, as the winning entry was perhaps too ‘fleeting’.
– In Guildford, some spoke of the need for the mall’s continued presence on the site. Others spoke in favour of transit oriented development (TOD) if light rail was extended to the mall. The grand prize winner suggested development be independent of the mall, looking for more community enhancing activities associated with the recreation centre to the north. Finally, one of the jurors who was present spoke in favour of the winning scheme, adding that she didn’t believe elevating the street plane, as quite a few of the schemes had proposed, would help the situation.
– For Semiahmoo, a few people spoke out against the idea outright of density in Semiahmoo, though others countered the latter by saying that the tower could be a valid solution for creating density in the area. Several also expressed their concern that there were not enough jobs in the area, vocalizing that people were having to leave the town centre to find work. Additionally, others proclaimed that a clear civic and ceremonial ‘square’ was missing and sorely needed.
– And finally in Newton, several people liked the idea of restoring the natural stream to the site, which is currently running through culverts underground. Many also liked the idea of fostering safer urban environment through densification and promoting ‘eyes on the street’. Furthermore, others felt the old town centre needed to be included in the plan for a new one.
The value of the five ‘evenings’ cannot be stressed enough, as they were attempts to actually put the horse in front of the cart, as it pertains to urban development. Too often constituents find themselves having to be reactive to developments since ideas are often presented fully formed, having had little to no community input. This results in public hearing processes that seems more an obligatory afterthought than forum for thoughtful dialogue. The attendance of the five sessions by community leaders, concerned citizens, competition entrants, local merchants, and even councilors and the Mayor herself, were evidence that these five town centres are not sleeping at the wheel, but very much aware of what is happening in their very own backyards.
Those gathered saw that there was potential to actualize positive growth in their communities by speaking out for what they would most like to see. With a new neighbourhood plan for Cloverdale in the works, a new transportation hub coming to Newton, and more square footage slated for Guildford Mall, change is immanent. TownShift provided one of many opportunities for all who participated to be heard.
It is our hope that the contents of the publication will do justice to the many voices that ventured out to our open houses. In doing so, we are optimistic that it will provide the Mayor and Council with some reflections on the results of this competition, grounding the ideas in the realm of possibility, and letting the Surrey planning department know which direction they would like to see their town centres move towards.
I would like to acknowledge the great work of our jury, graphic artists, web and publication designers….and of course the City of Surrey for their vital input and enthusiasm to stage not one, but five competitions, at once. I would also like to thank the TownShift team for their hard work and commitment to this project over the last two years, and extend the same to the entrants for taking the time to offer their insights into this enterprise. Without their vision, none of this could have been possible.
As a final comment, I would like to reiterate the sentiments brought forth by a former Surrey planner who attended four of the five community sessions (missing the one only due to a snowstorm), stating that that those who came out to see the competition entries now have a brand new set of eyes with which to ‘see’ the developments that will shortly be brought forth by the City and development community. The bar has now been raised for good design in the city.
Viva TownShift!
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For more information on TownShift, visit www.townshift.ca.
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Sean Ruthen is a Vancouver based architect and writer.