Setty Pendakur, an emeritus professor of planning at UBC, has been devoting time to a revitalization of the Turntable Plaza at Yaletown’s Roundhouse (actually, a vitalization, since this public space has never worked all that well from its inception).
The turntable is a historic public plaza that with the exception of a few programmed events is rarely used on a day-to-day casual basis even though the surrounding neighbourhood is busy and bustling.
After a successful charrette in 2008, the group came up with some new ideas to introduce “new, more contemporary but historically compatible elements to animate the plaza and create a stronger sense of place.”
The idea:
Nick Milkovich Architects and Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg Landscape consultants designed “a multifunctional weather protection
in a form of a movable tent in the middle of a plaza and canopy … A custom designed crane in the middle of a turntable is hydraulically operated foldable structure that can carry a web of cables. Hi-tech fabric is then tensioned across the cables in different scenarios that fully or partially cover the plaza. Without the fabric, cable structure can be used to suspend banners, lights, lanterns and other different objects that may vary seasonally.”
The Park Board approved the concept. But then came the challenge of raising the money and meeting community concerns. (Now there are actually people living around the Plaza, anxiety over change is higher than when the planners were in charge.)
But now, Setty reports, some good news:
The project budget is $1.8 million. This includes a federal contribution of $600,000. About $500,000 came from our savings from renting the Roundhouse to Casa Italia during the Olympics. We are also grateful to the $250,000 grant we received from B.C. Transmission Corp. The remaining funds came from the City and Parks Board sources.
We expect to complete the project by early fall and plan to celebrate the City’s 125th Anniversary under the new canopy.
This would be a great location for a whole bunch of food carts. There aren’t enough places to grab a quick bit along the seawall and a real concentration of them here, within a short walk of the Canada Line station, could make it a bit of a destination.
I agree with Mark. William Whyte would say food and moveable seating are most important. The crane + canopy sounds very neat, but I think this part of the proposal is actually more important to getting people in the plaza:
“Variety of a “soft” design elements are introduced to enhance the sense of a place and create a warm and inviting feel: improved way-finding and lighting, mist feature, new plaza furniture, and vending kiosk opportunities.”
Glad to see efforts to make this space more animated – it could be a great public place.
Food carts would be a good idea (but local restaurants may not agree).
Remember that no matter how pretty a plaza is, they are usually dead space unless there is active programming (i.e. Robson Square) – but programming costs money.
People aren’t going to sit around a plaza twiddling their thumbs when there’s much more entertaining pedetrian traffic on the adjacent seawall (and David Lam Park) to sit an bide their time.
Give a square or plaza a coffee shop, places to sit and people watch/read, and I’ll be there.
I agree that it may more interesting watching Seawall traffic, slow marine vessel activity along the Seawall but keep in mind there is often enough people sitting outside of Urban Fare who have bought something to eat from there.
Sometimes it’s just useful to sit outside on public seating with a table to set down a drink, use laptop, etc. –under a canopy for protection from rain, wind etc. but not feel obligated to buy something from an eating establishment in order to use their seating facilties.
Public spaces as active, people-occupied space requires…facilities for them to sit, lounge and chat/meet. Not just stand and walk about.
Already there are/have been restaurants and cafes ringing that area.
Great to get people’s additional thoughts via Price Tags. We look forward to people enjoying the vitalized plaza in a few months! Leslie Adams, Chair, Building Committee