After a couple of years of blogging, taking the big view, writing about issues of significant import, from our urban future to climate change, what gets the most response?
A set of stairs.
At least it’s something people have an opinion on. Or a question. What, some of you wondered, is the story behind the ‘stairs to nowhere’ in George Wainborn Park?
You wanted to know – so I asked a principal of the firm that designed the park, Jeff Philips of the PWL Partnership. Here’s the scoop:
The PWL design premise for George Wainborn Park, which was lead by Bruce Hemstock, was to develop a downtown, urban, formal waterfront park. The basic components that make up the park are the upper plaza area with its formal wall and lookout, soft, passive lower green and seawall walkway bikeway edge. The general organizing principles were based on the symmetrical parti of the Beaux Arts with some latitude to respond to playfulness of a park setting. The symmetry and formality of the park wall was quite important to the design especially when viewed from the seawall and lower passive green. A great deal of effort was taken to ensure that the grades, layout, plinths, lights, beacons, etc. were mirrored on the centre axis of the lookout to ensure that this formal Beaux Art organization was carried out.
A practical issue arose when the grading for the second stair east from the western edge revealed that in order to accommodate the grade change and the number of risers required, the stair would need to extend into the path of travel of the east west walkway that allowed the city sidewalk parallel to Beach Crescent to move through the park. We felt that this would not be appropriate and after careful thought proposed a design solution that maintained the overall design symmetry and created a folly within the park. We proposed to build only the stairs that we could fit within the space allowed ending them in the balustrade, essentially creating a folly. We thought this would be a great spot to sit given its south facing aspect. We thought that this wonderful sun trap would provide park users a place to sit and enjoy the great view to False Creek and beyond in a protected and very warm location. We discussed this with the VPB staff and all agreed it was an interesting solution.
I am pleased to say that this has been embraced by the public and we have, on many occasions, seen people sitting on the ‘stairs to nowhere’ enjoying the sun and the tranquility that this little place in this park has to offer.
I hope that this helps to explain the George Wainborn Park “stairs-to-nowhere folly.”
Thanks, Jeff!
Thanks for that!
The east-west pathway – is that the one at the top of the stairs or at the bottom of the stairs?
I suppose it may beg the question – if the park is symmetrical, why didn’t the set of stairs on the east side of the balustrade similarly encroach onto the pathway? (whether at the top or the bottom?)
Gordon,
I’ve blogged for almost two years. The one post that received the most comments so far is the one where I make a comparison between Mexico City’s Metro System and Vancouver’s Skytrain, and the whole hoopla about the Provincial Transit Plan.
http://hummingbird604.blogspot.com/2008/01/provincial-transit-plan-and-mexico.html
I think it’s all about what makes people tick. At least you got some responses!
Visually this stair well is much more exciting that the last set of stairs. But it does look a bit odd, so maybe the explanation should be on a plaque near the stairs for the curious to read.
Com’n Budd, it’s a joke – explain the punchline…jeez! If you look around cities you’ll find all sorts of these little architectural gags. Sometimes it takes years to figure them out. That’s the fun of it.
Stairs as piece of art, I like it.
Thanks Gordon for digging into this for us. I guess Ron was on to something with the symmetry and all. The funny thing is the stairs being useless as stairs, you don’t realized the rise is short 2-3 feet.
Well, you’ll find them in Salvadore Dali too, Mark. But some people won’t accept a joke staircase, so maybe it does need explaining on the site.
Great work Gordon!
As a resident of Beach Crescent I immediately forwarded this update to various people who had also wondered over the last few years about the stairs.
I also learned that folly can now be extended to architectural and public space spheres.
maybe it leads to Hogwarts…