Planning and Design for Urban Districts

 Urban Districts:

The main learning objectives really are to understand what is involved in the successful planning and design for urban districts, how you can understand the components involved in such districts, and then how to communicate ideas graphically, and what tools we use to show the ideas we're thinking about.

Case Studies

I'm going to talk about three case studies. The first one is Lakeview. This is a 270-acre site in Mississauga just west of Toronto. And here you see downtown Toronto towards the east. And that orange rectangle towards the west is the Lakeview site. And the site, it sits right on Lake Ontario and is served by a number of highway and street networks, and also a transit system is nearby.

The Long Branch Station sits within a walk or bike ride from the site, which you see in orange over there. There is also an extensive lakeshore recreation, pedestrian, bike trail which is being implemented, and the site would very much become part of that.

The site used to have a major power plant, a coal-burning power plant, that was torn down about 15 years ago. And the development team that was selected to move forward with a design and implementation of a new district bought the site and is now working with a team of consultants--we're one of them-- and the city, and the community to develop a great design solution for this remarkable site with its piers, and waterway inlets, and impressive position for Mississauga at the lakeshore.

 

An earlier plan was done-- you see that on the left-- in 2018. And we were asked in early 2019 to come in and relook at it, improve it, and make strategic suggestions of how to move forward as a new framework plan was developed. And so we had a number of ideas based on the previous plan but some significant changes to the plan. And I'll go through some of the ideas that were developed. In thinking about urban districts, it's important to look at the context.

 

What is the setting of the project?

 

And I'm just showing you some brief images here, and there's a lot more behind this. But this drawing shows how the site might connect to the larger systems around the site, both planned greenways, greenways that are being implemented, and adjacent neighborhoods.

 

So this diagram starts to show those basic relationships. At a certain point, we move to a more definitive framework plan. And here, you see a diagram that shows how the basic block and public realm structure will work.

 

We have a very powerful lakefront park, which we see in the light green, a grid structure of different kinds of neighborhoods moving from the lake up until Lakeshore Road, which is the major east-west arterial connecting the site to other parts of the region.

 

And you see a green central park, which tees into the lakefront park. And that becomes the green heart of the project that all the neighborhoods embrace.

 

You see the main street coming down from Lakeshore Road, and that arrives in Lakeview Plaza, where you have restaurants, retail, arts, culture, and other things like that. And overall, the whole project is highly connected to this emerging, regional, pedestrian trail along the waterfront.

 

All over the world, people want to get to the water. And here, you see a plan that has emerged out of that framework where we have a block structure in orange. You see some cultural uses which are being proposed, not exactly determined yet, but arts-related.

 

You see an array of parks and public realm places that expand on the framework of the previous diagram. And you see a sense of the density of the buildings and the fabric, the urban fabric.

 

We're all the time, working in the plan, in section, in 3D to determine the optimal organization of the project. Part of our work involves extensive meetings with the local community, not only local residents but stakeholders of various types, and we get very good feedback as part of that effort. So the framework plan is very much focused on the public realm.

 

It's a major driver of how we think about the district, and you can see that we downplay the form of the buildings just to emphasize streets, public spaces, linkages, walkways, and systems throughout the district.

 

We integrate transit. Here you see a transit loop coming into the project. And here you see one of the early studies of three-dimensionality.

 

This is a dense, mixed-use district. You see us exploring a range of urban forms, from street wall edges defining public space to taller tower elements strategically positioned. And this goes through an iterative process. And here you see a more recent version where we've reduced some of the densities, shifted some of the height. And you see the mix of uses, you see employment in blue. You see the culture and schools in pink and in the yellow, different kinds of residential.

 

We use a lot of data to track everything and tools that track density, gross square feet, parking, all sorts of metrics that help us understand what is being produced and helps the client develop their economic studies that go with the design. And so here you see on the corner now we're working with urban blocks and their relationship to the street and the public spaces.

 

In the middle of the project is a waterway canal, a very pedestrian-oriented space. We think about how its edges are defined, how the taller elements relate to it, the animation of it. We think about it in winter, summer, evenings, and mornings. And this gives us a sense of what kind of place we're making.

 

We do diagrams to study the distribution of height, not only for our own purpose but to explain to community leaders, to city planners.

 

What is the logic of the height distribution?

 

And here you see how the taller and lower elements relate to cultural buildings in the big park, Ogden Park, in this case.

 

We do shadow studies. We do wind analysis, which helps us understand the urban form and how it relates to the public space and the pedestrian experience.

 

So this is what I'd call a well-connected waterfront district, a major waterfront park at the edge of the lake for everyone to enjoy, completely accessible, defined by a strong urban edge with buildings set back. And here you see what it's like at eye level with restaurants facing the park and then the Lakeview square where is retail, and markets, and events,a whole experience related to different cultural activities that might occur.

 

So the plan that ultimately emerges is a highly connected, highly integrated,open-to-all new urban district on Lake Ontario for the city of Mississauga and the Toronto region in general. And here you see many of the issues we're dealing with, from sustainable design to social issues of urban form issues.

 

The next project I'm going to talk about is Zidell Yards in Portland, Oregon, a very interesting site on the river in an emerging area of Portland, used to be a factory that produced barges, sitting in an area that has had a lot of investment for transit and a strong medical industry that is emerging. And in the distance, you'll see the downtown. And so here you see the site in relation to a hospital at the top of a hill, the connections along the river and into the downtown. And there's a great opportunity here to make the heart of this emerging district.

 

Portland has a great urban culture, many innovations, innovative in terms of urban design thinking. And just south of the site is an emerging district with a lot of towers. And we wanted to look at this area as a whole and start to make a strong place. One of the tools we use is working with what's there now.

 

Here's this great barge factory. They made their last barge a few years ago. And we thought maybe we should keep parts of this as part of the design, the industrial heritage of the site.

 

We also wanted to bring the sense of the river deep into the site and the greenness of the hills down the site through the area towards the river.

 

And so this became a strong structuring device, a strong pedestrian edge along the riverfront,

a very public place, a network of pedestrian paths, and bike routes, and places right at the river, and then developed a framework, a kind of loose grid defined by some strong public spaces always related to the waterfront.

 

And so here you see the block structure and then, as we start to investigate the urban form in plan and 3D, how you'd define these public spaces and begin to create a mixed-use, dense neighborhood. Very important is the experience at the street level. Here, along a transit route, we have retail.

 

We have an anchor in the historic building. We have a mix of office, and residential, and public places along the waterfront edge. And we start to do perspectives and study what this district could be like. And here, you see in the main square where the industrial building transformed, facing this plaza right at the transit and with residential and workplace environments embracing this area.

 

So you see the old factory, the barge building, there at the edge of this new public space that relates the transit, the cable car going up to the hospital on the hill directly to the riverfront, and the slipway that is now transformed into a great, accessible place for the waterfront. And here you see a view from a cable car that already exists and arriving at this plaza looking towards the horizon.

 

How does this place work at night with markets and other kinds of cultural and commercial activities? How we think about the massing--we didn't want a row of towers along the front of the site, so we step them down from the transit spine, getting lower and lower as you get to the waterfront edge. We incorporate the industrial heritage and think of these places with a cultural potential, weekend, day to day, evening, mornings, a diverse set of experiences possible in this place.

 

And here at the riverfront edge, we're working with the industrial elements, working with the bridges that are already there, thinking of the bike networks, thinking of how a quieter, residential district relates to the river. And here you can see the buildings opening up to a neighborhood park with views of the new bridges and the neighborhoods on the other side of the river.

 

So it's a 24/7 experience, mixed uses, lots of diversity, lots of things for people to do, and a place that becomes a heart for the district.

 

The owners have realized that it's going to take many years to implement. And so they've already started with night markets and weekend events, movies, to create interest and transformation of the site from one industrial use to a thriving, new urban district.

 

The last case study I'll show is in Latin America. It's in Chile. And here you see this great Pacific community facing the ocean. And we have a very strategic site in this city. Interestingly, Veña Del Mar is due south of Boston in a very exciting area in this town that was formerly used by all-storage tanks.

 

But here you see the emerging districts around on the hill. You see a neighborhood that's cut off from the ocean. You see a hillside edge that has been affected by industrial uses.

 

But it's an amazing opportunity to create a new district that's very much part of an existing city. This is what the site looked like 10 years ago. It's in the process of being cleaned from the contaminants, which aren't very significant.

 

But it's an important component of moving forward. We begin our work with understanding the ecology of the region, of the city, of the topography, how water works, how nature works within these various systems. And we look at the history of the town, and its streetscapes, and planting, the waterfront culture at the ocean edge. And we begin to look at how this new district will fit into this existing context.

 

On the hilltop is a neighborhood that's very much thriving but cut off from the sea. And so here is an opportunity to reconceive those connections. You see the site here from the ocean. And those towers next to the site exist, and the regulations say you can just carry on, build more towers along the front.

 

We definitely did not want to do that. We were concerned about how new buildings are

relating to their sites, to the public realm. We were concerned about the domination of cars, the lack of public realm.

 

We worked with the community through a number of work sessions to understand the aspirations of the community, what was possible. And we looked at the deep ecological forces influencing the site.

 

Early on emerged this idea to make a new park right on the seafront and connect that park through this mixed-use district up the hillside to the neighborhood so that the city gets not only a new urban district but a major new public space open to all, creating value not only for civic society but for the development and the districts around this new emerging transformation.

 

So you see the park in red. You see commercial restaurants, things that would attract people to the site, future transit. And you see all the block development, the kind of framework that emerges.

 

Here we're looking at the massing and the array of uses within this massing, always concerned about the ground floor. And here is the plan as it's emerging, very much an extension of the city but also very much a new urban place with a block structure that allows for a phased implementation and makes all the connections that are required for a thriving urban district.

 

Here you see the park facing the ocean and how we weaved the pedestrian routes up the hillside to a new community center at the top of the hill. Instead of building a condo tower with a stunning view, we built something for the local community and community spaces, as well as a basketball court that has a great view of the horizon.

 

That connection today is in very bad shape, and part of our work was to reconceive this in terms of water management, pedestrian routes, and local ecology to make a strong urban connection

from the top of the hill down through the site towards the sea, introducing cultural uses, pavilions in the park, restaurants, retail, making it a very public place with great views not only of the development around but, of course, to the horizon and the sea in the distance.

 

The local ecology was very important, working with our ecological team and our landscape team, thinking about how it relates to the systems that impact the site and then thinking of a strategy for streetscape and street planting that would make great urban environments for pedestrians, biking, buses, transit, and all the mobility systems that support such a place.

 

Here you see the ecological strategy from the hillside to the sea, and the water management strategy highly integrated with our thinking, and eventually this urban plan, which seamlessly fits into the town of Veña, making a highly connected, integrated, mixed-use new urban district in a thriving community.