While walking down Sixth Street in New Westminster I came across this temporary seating “Parklet” in former vehicle parking at the intersection with Belmont Street. These urban interventions are always more successful when tied to a adjacent cafe or takeout, in this case Tim Hortons. The before and after photos give you an idea of the powerful impact of enhancing the public realm with minimal effort and cost.
The previous street condition below:
A couple of painted jersey barriers, some astroturf, and patio furniture – the antithesis of Vancouver design: it ain’t pretty, but it actually works and people enjoy it! I wish there was A LOT more of this type of thing in the Lower Mainland. Keeping it cheap means keeping it flexible.
I’m glad New Westminster had the good sense to ignore the landscape architects and urban designers, who become physically ill at the very thought of visual imperfection.
The new Vancouver Art gallery plaza, promised to open in the summer yet we wait and wait and wait. Temporary can be fun and cheap and can lead to something permanent. Good on New Westminster for giving it a go
There is greater value in permanence. A good urban designer will recognize the imperfect and often messy uses the masses impose on spaces, and make provision for them with good design without breaking the budget.
These cheap temporary fixes are band aids on the egregious wounds Carmageddon has brought us. They are not solutions for the ongoing seven-decade drain of human scale in our cities. Begbie should become a pedestrian street. Columbia Street needs to have its 17 historic post-Great Fire commissions by GW Grant uncloaked and its sidewalks widened with references to the Italianate architectural heritage. The remaining section of the Great Wall parkade on Front Street needs to be blown up and the hidden heritage building facades reclaimed for public viewing by exposing them to the waterfront. The Lytton Square site that existed when NW was the capitol needs to be uncovered and recognized. The strong transit hubs require greater, exclusive pedestrian access. The four central connections to the waterfront from Uptown need strengthening. And the old idea of a secondary cruise ship terminal on the waterfront should be resurrected along with commuter rail and ferry links that follow the North Arm.
Instead, we have the promotion of an arrangement of parking lot furniture and engineering dept. kitsch in the very heart of one of the deepest and richest urban histories in the West.
Fail.
Another harsh diatribe from the egos of the design community. How do you know all those genius interventions you mention aren’t in the works? Measures like this help stimulate peoples vision for what could/should be and get them on board by buying political capital. I suspect its a lot harder to get things done in council with residents constantly bitching about loosing a parking space, especially New West’s huge senior population. I don’t see these urban parks in any of the other municipalities? Burnaby? Coquitlam? Richmond? Surrey? Again, good on New West for getting started.
I’ve been waiting since 1986 for the restoration of existing NW heritage, something you derogatorily called “genius interventions.” I met with Ken Cameron back then and he referred to SkyTrain as the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg for all the Expo Line’s economic benefits for a city that was coming out of 40 years of decline. Even though that gift keeps on giving, one could only hope that some of its 30 years of benefits would eventually help them daylight their still-hidden heritage buildings and provide inspiration to conduct a meaningful urban design process throughout downtown, including consultation with the masses.
There are many of these street pocket parks in Vancouver (e.g. Main, Fraser ….) that are designed and executed with far better grace still using working class Timmy’s and Rona materials, not an elite screw or genius, highbrow nose-in-the-air intervening board among them. They are still temporary and will not weather well, and transitory, like useless grains of sand in the Sahara that will do nothing to erode the mass asphalting of our cities.
All these things you mention would be nice, but they’ll take years and cost millions. This took about 36 hours and cost less than $2,000. And lo, it works well enough.
The world is not a visual objet d’art to be critiqued by ethereals with architecture degrees. People – who are admittedly often gross – actually live in it.
I agree. Long-term planning and restorative urban design should not be left to ethereals. But that doesn’t excuse its complete absence, which is only highlighted by these cheap, graceless interventions that will not last. Give the people a permanent, affordable mini-park or a half block plaza. New West residents deserve it.
Alex is just irritable because he hasn’t had a snort of Hort with a Tim grease bolus.
These so-called “urban interventions” are successful when beside a coffee shop etc because they are a defacto expansion of that establishment’s seating space at taxpayers’ expense. In fact if you watch them it is clear that the adjacent business has a near lock on the space. All the other businesses get is the loss of customer parking. Add in the fact that they are scarcely used for half the year in soggy Vancouver and it becomes clear these are one hipster fad best consigned to the dustbin of urban planning.