Week 2 Landscape Urbanism

The SWOT analysis was set up in relation the environmental features analysed and highlighted in the principles set up addressed earlier in this

The Proposal: Integrating the broken natural features around the site was a along with connecting the site with the city’s wider natural context were key design strategies. A motorway (marked A) was buried and the ground space is made open that further connects and links the other green spaces around the site’s periphery.

SWOT aanalysis including points for health and wellbeing for Liberty village, Toronto (Author’w own, 2021)

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Increased biodiversity aims to create a dialogue between nature, people and the built environment. At the street scale trees and hedgerows provide connections between habitats enabling species to move through the city. Whilst increasing imageability and passively connect people to nature. At the Plot & Building scale, the hands-on experience of growing food, crops and native vegetation contributes to educating people on healthy food and provides a sense of achievement through nurturing them from seeds (Beatley, 2017) and providing local food resources. Local food growth can be delivered as small urban farms, rooftop farms or community gardens integrated into the buildings

THOUGHTS

- Landscape urbanism also called as ‘walkable and transit served’ developments can potentially address the grey areas of contemporary urban conditions

- It works collaboratively with other disciplines to produce solutions that cater to the site and its occupants, contributing to the natural and cultural setup

- It helps designing authentic places with its rich landscape feature that can make its inhabitants feel highly connected to the place

- Helps achieving a balance between necessary environmental qualities and appropriate and suitable urban built forms

Place- making is prioritized rather than spaces shaped by roads and other transport network Landscape Urbanism is a key concept here that binds Nature and the urban built environment across different levels

10 W3 Socio- economic + Cultural Issues

FOCUS

Developing design strategies for people and places of varying cultural and socio-economic diversity is essential in fast growing, highly dense cities with high intensities. Meanwhile addressing gender, privacy and religion are key considerations.

The aim here is to boost social inclusion, respecting and designing appropriately for a wide group of people by recognising their varying culture, way of life, gender, nationality, social class, religion etc. There is a high level of competition between cities for economic investments at both local and global levels. The changing demographics of a city over time makes new markets reinvent and rethink about new

possibilities and choices.

As many cities embrance globalization, novel solutions and design ideas now seek to address common social problems in inequalities such as income, disability and oppurtunities. Hence good architecture and urban design focuses on accommodating cultural, socioeconomic and other social diversities, rooted but not

stuck in the past and also be transcultural.

IMPORTANCE

In Toronto, the lowest income neighborhoods are concentrated in the inner suburbs. These areas have the poorest access to transit, putting people on low-income living there at greater disadvantage. However its comparatively less affordable when compared to other Canadian cities.

INCOME DISPARITY: Toronto is the city with the most inequality in Canada, and this inequality has grown extremely rapidly over recent decades. Over the last 35 years, racialized populations, newcomers, and young people have had no income growth, while the rest of the population has often had greater than 50% income growth.

LOCATION DIVERSITY: Although Toronto has diversity as one of its strengths, it is also heavily segregated in terms of varying neighbourhoods of culture, religion and race.

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY: It is inextricably linked to transit. Many of the neighbourhoods with the worst access to transit also have lower rent, which is partly why they are affordable. A recent study of transport poverty in major cities found the areas in Canada with the highest population and the most apartments with greater than five storeys had a higher risk of transport poverty than other types of dwellings. COMPLETE COMMUNITIES

To improve the quality of urban environments, the Ontario’s provincial Growth Plan emphasizes the need to create “complete communities”. Complete communities are “mixed-use neighbourhoods or other areas within cities… that offer and support opportunities for people of all ages and abilities to conveniently access most of the necessities for daily living, including an appropriate mix of jobs, local stores, and services, a full range of housing, transportation options, and public service facilities” (Growth Plan, 2017).

The projects outlined below aimed to cater a wide group of population and improved social inclusion and cohesion between neighbourhoods and communities.

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CASE STUDY- TORONTO

#1 The 6-Points Interchange Reconfiguration may sound like an infrastructure renewal project, but it is primarily focused on creating a more complete community. After more than 10 years of planning, community consultation, engineering, and design, a major intersection in Toronto known for being dangerously hostile to pedestrians, with little to no public space on offer, is being transformed.

Reconfiguring the intersection is intended to allow the creation of a “vibrant, mixeduse transit-oriented community” that new pedestrian facilities, wider boulevards, more trees and street furniture, improved cycling access and facilities, new parks, public art, and even a district energy plan (City of Toronto, 2014). - Schemes should be designed considering the role of people at the foremost.

- Pririority must be given to provide more open spaces both in ground and upper levels to ensure good environmental qualities across the whole scheme.

- Communities must allow flexible

activities both outdoor and indoors to

cater to different groups of people. Organsiations could actively organise events especially for the homeless or sport events for youngsters

- Design principles such as active streets and vibrant open spaces can help bringing communities closer together

#2 Tower Renewal Project is a bold and innovative venture aimed at retrofitting Toronto’s aging post-war apartment tower clusters into vibrant, socially and economically viable urban communities.

Though valuable sources of affordable rental housing in Toronto, these neighborhoods often lacked the multi-use zoning and public spaces needed to create safe and welcoming urban spaces. In an effort to create more complete communities, the Tower Renewal project has helped revitalize many post-war apartment communities through a mixture of community engagement, economic development, and local capacity-building in addition to muchneeded building improvements.

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ANALYSIS OF LIBERTY VILLAGE SITE: There are several discrepancies and inequality issues mainly due to grain patterns of the built environment, where high rise condomiums and other high rises are often conceived as being used by people who have higher incomes. Transport infrastructure such as rail and motorways result in lack of connection between neighbourhood, which often creates communities with different character. Some of the upcoming complete communities approaches would help transform and improve the relationship between landuses and territories.

HOW CAN THE CONCEPT OF COMPLETE COMMUNITIES APPLY HERE?

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This concept eliminates and buries some of the road networks and uses green corridors to bring people closer. People feel highly connected with nature and form stronger communities. The urban masses are then shaped based on the green network

THOUGHTS

W4 Identity by design

Rootedness, transculturality and empowerment are factors that highly contribute to a place and its identity. Designs that are contemporary yet having past roots could become highly compatible with the local context. Contemporary designs that suit the modern population and styles along with satisfying traditional cultural values can also boost identity. Regionalism has deep roots unto the past which illustrate its enduring significance to the practice of architecture and urbanism. Cities are nowadays a milieu of studies, a represnetation of its people, culture and place. Designing the urban environment while respecting the diverse attributes of its inhabitants is key to achieving its authentic qualities. Place identity can be constructed from many sources of ideas; geography/ landscapes. Co-dwelling with nature is a key attribute that allows people to relate better with the local character of the place. Oxford, England is a historic city that highly values cultural and natural heritage. The evolution of buildings from early 1800s to present day, in my view highly reflects the regional’s characteristics through key elements of architecture. Pointed arches and large windows, the Gothic architectural style from early 12th - mid 17th Century, is clearly seen from early churches of the 1800s to hotels and contemporary buildings at Oxford.

Here renovation and regeneration works restore the classic properties of the native buildings. Any contemporary construction in classified zones follow the styles of the local context. As seen in the collage above, the novel developments follow a similar window, corniche details and level pattern reflecting the architecture of the Elizabethan era.

IMPORTANCE CASE STUDY

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GOTHIC Spires

Gothic arches

2 level

1 level