morgenpeers@gmail.com

This is the first in an ongoing series of studies examining local baseball diamonds/parks.

Baseball Diamond – Study 1 | Facebook.

Filed under: Baseball Diamonds, Scarborough, Sports Venues

Saskatoon is enjoying an era of unprecedented growth and development, and with a diverse and vibrant economy, growing population, and highly rated quality of life, all indications suggest that this trend will continue.  At the same time comes recognition of the need to adapt to address new challenges including sustainable growth, economical provision of services, and responsiveness to the diversity of our population.

Saskatoon’s City Centre, which includes the downtown core and adjacent areas, is also experiencing significant change.  Major developments, such as River Landing, new office complexes, condominium construction, and streetscape enhancements, are occurring in and around the downtown core.  Employment centres are being planned for peripheral areas, and a south bridge crossing will be completed in 2012.  New transit and library facilities are being considered for the downtown, and the community has expressed a desire for improved pedestrian and bike access in and around the downtown.

In addition, there are new expectations for city centres with recognition that a thriving city centre must serve a variety of roles, accommodating civic, commercial, residential, cultural, and social activities.  These trends, studies and developments demonstrate the need for a comprehensive approach to planning for our City Centre, setting a framework that will guide growth and development over the next 20 years.

via City Centre Plan.

Filed under: Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

Construction occuring to the left (south) in picture. The SRT tracks run through the photo.

Filed under: Scarborough

The idea behind good Placemaking, and using a Place-centered approach when designing a building or public space, is not that each individual within a given community is the expert on what that space should look like, but that the community, as a group, has an important expertise about how that space is used, and how the people most likely to enliven it on a day-to-day basis (themselves) are most likely to do so. Another commenter, Gil, makes this case quite well:

At the end of the day it is people’s perceptions of how great, or not so great, their places are that matters most…I have yet to attend a public hearing on a proposed project where anything resembling “community attachment” has emerged in the dialogue that emanates from the planners, or engineers, or architects, or those that interpret the rules.

 

Continuing the Conversation: Towards an Architecture of Place « Project for Public Spaces – Placemaking for Communities.

Filed under: General

 

big city of London map | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Filed under: City of London

Filed under: Guidelines

This is an important White Paper on the advent of Local Enterprise Partnerships and the new decentralized approach to the production of economic strategy in the naturally forming micro-regions of England.

Local Growth White Paper – Realizing Every Place’s Potential

Filed under: England

I visited Queensborough this past weekend, just north of Madoc. I’ve chosen Queensborough as the subject of my Year 1 Placemaking project, the first of three major projects during my Masters of Town & Country Planning programme. I want to take another stab at defining “placemaking” and then discuss Queensborough in more detail.

General definitions of placemaking focus on the design and use of public spaces. This is indeed placemaking’s main element, but I think these definitions emphasize this aspect to the exclusion of other crucial components, in particular the redevelopment of private spaces adjacent and near to special public spaces within a town or village. I want to extract one great sentence from the larger Wikipedia defintion and build up something better.

Wikipedia says “placemaking capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential,..”. Why does placemaking activity capitalize on these things and to what end?

In my earlier post I wrote “Good placemaking is a community process that weaves together public and private spaces into a walkable system of spaces, heterogeneous, but sharing a common identity.” It’s a good overall statement but it doesn’t read that well. Let me take another stab.

Placemaking initiatives increase local identity through the creative improvement of spaces and buildings based around clearings or natural wonders joined up through walking paths. Sustainable economic development is the engine driving these changes.

I want to talk about Queensborough now and some basic connections to the placemaking movement.

I arrived in Queensborough before noon on Saturday April 28th. I had the fortune of sitting down with Mr. Pronk, his family, and their guests from Netherlands, for a brief but lively discussion about their continued commitment to this village.

Mr. Pronk operates a machine shop on his property in a newly erected shed to the side of their main building. Their home, the “old white store”, has a long history. The front room, currently a mud room with some ambitious plans, opens on to the main road. The upstairs appear to be an old lodging house with a great common area. Mr. Pronk spoke about the potential of the upstairs to serve the community and visitors to the town once again.

Their building sits across the road from the old Queensborough Hotel. How can this building’s image and importance to the town be renewed? It’s one very key piece in the overall plan.

Another thing visitors will notice is how close to the road such buildings were built. This is true village architecture and this proximity to the “carriage way” reminds us of the European experience and styles that early settlers brought to the High Townships like Madoc and Elzivir. Some of the sidewalks have been re-paved in the village while others remain unrepaired or invisible to the casual observer. Whenever I explore small towns I always wonder where is it appropriate to extend the sidewalk and where is it unnecessary? I’m anxious to listen and learn about plans, if any, to continue sidewalk improvement.

On the road toward the United Church the sidewalk passes over a culvert. Guard rails machined by Mr. Pronk have been installed and are a practical, charming addition to the street. The fact that we never hear the term ‘village design’, only ever ‘urban design’, is testament to the urban bias in planning. This example illustrates the radically different nature of village design, which represents a different economy of design dependent on involvement and support by smaller groups of people, and fabrication of elements and furniture by local tradesmen possessing certain tools and facilities.

In short, it is a village’s tight budget, its tendency to underwhelm with small additions rather than overwhelm, and its fragile peer network sustained through neighborliness that slowly produces a village design. This is something like the adage “measure twice, cut once” taken to what may seem an extreme degree. Change comes slowly to villages like Queensborough. This tempo of conservation bestows on special generations a general development oppourtunity. Because the town’s value lies precisely in its continued conservation and further refinement (as opposed to plain growth), the promotion of this oppourtunity by social community members hinges on a web of trust woven and reinforced through near endless conversation. It seems that progress is made and the case for bolder action articulted through small experiments being undertaken and then talked about among village stakeholders, both within and near to the village.

We installed that over there. Does she sit nice or what? What else could we add? What kind of look are we shooting for here? How can be sure it’ll all tie together nicely while keeping some variety?

Like some other nearby small towns, Queensborough is participating in the First Impressions program run by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. This program has the town developing a Strategic Plan, which after a general survey has taken four main themes: Preserve Heritage, Build Community Pride, Develop, and Enjoy. This plan will go a long way to articulating a local vision. This planning process is happening just as the County of Hastings is wrapping up a Cultural Planning process, which will set down the investment priorities in the area for arts, culture, and heritage. Culture Plans help communities connect the small and big bits of their culture into wider economic development strategies. I want to focus my investigation into Queensborough on the connections between placemaking, village design and physical improvement, and the hopes and aspirations articulated in cultural planning activity.

I’ve avoided mentioning the mill until now. It’s the centrepiece of the town, its original reason to be, and it deserves its own treatment. The old mill building sits perched on the edge of the small fall, sagging a bit further into the water each year. Many around the town wonder how the building can be restored, thereby catalyzing renewal around the area. But a different path forward is seeming most likely. How can Queensborough initiate small experiments that improve daily life and regional identity? How will experience of these small experiments deliberately accumulate, effecting both the spirit and reputation of the village? With such a big piece of shared infrastructure needing fixing (the mill), towns like Queensborough will need to make the case for shared investment by demonstrating commitment and craftiness through fragmented but connected improvements. My research and theoretical village designs will focus on these smaller elements, letting the elephant in the village (the mill) look after itself in the long run. The image at the beginning of this article represents the small wonders that make a place great.

That there is a simple and beautiful country fence, with a nice twisty piece on top for decoration. Those sorts of things are the understated touches that go a very long way. My how they are charming.

Filed under: Hastings County, Queensborough

via Leicester Waterside Adaptable Neighbourhood – YouTube.

Filed under: England, Neighbourhood Planning, Videos

www.alineah.com, International City – YouTube.

Filed under: Videos