Block 51 Oct 15 and 17th events: a summary

On October 15th and October 17, It was a so called “public consultation” on the block 51 respectively titled “a look back” and “a look forward”. If you were not made aware timely by social media like twitter, there is little chance you could have attended it, since it was quickly sold-out (sic).

The Panel of the first evening was a discussion involving Bing Thom, Alan Bell, Nick Milkovich – three members of Arthur Erickson Architects at the time of building the courthouse complex, reflecting on the 1973 design [7]. In the second event a short 6mn lecture by different speaker was given. The historian John Atkin gave an historical account of the north plaza [5]. Lon Laclair from city of Vancouver was here to talk of how great the Olympic experience was. Jenniffer Sheel and Krisztina Kassay from Viva Vancouver, the brains behind the Robson square programming, gave an overview of what has been done on the square. They didn’t explain why the programming need to be exactly in the middle of Robson street to be successful-and not let say on Bute at Robson [6], but were apparently wanting to make the point that according to them, “people don’t want traffic at all here”. Heather Forbes from VPSN explained that an overwhelming majority of entries to their “Where’s the Square?” design competition selected Block 51 as the heart of Vancouver, omitting to mention that the people choice was the North plaza, but noticing that solutions can be found for other user/need, like transit.

Lausanne, la Sallaz, in Switzerland: Square programming is popular in Europe. Usually it concerns non 'self-sufficient' space, or temporary underused space, like this one (left picture): the programming is poised to give place to buses, in a new arrangement of the square called 'espace rencontre' (meeting place) where buses mingle with the pedestrians (right) - credit photo left (1)

Her speech was followed by Matthew Blackett from Spacing Magazine, who, probably not briefed enough on the agenda concerning transit, incidentally presented those “solutions” starting with London’s Exhibition road:

People waiting the bus 360 on the renovated London’s Exhibition road by Gehl Architects.

He followed up with Pioneer square in Portland, Oregon:

Pioneer square in Portland is well served by Transit (2)

and ending with its preferred, Ban Jelačić square in Zagreb (Croatia):

Ban Jelačić square in Zagreb, where the transit go right into the middle of it, is the “best” square according to Matthew

Since Matthew Blackett is from Toronto, he couldn’t have mentioned Yonge and Dundas square. He doesn’t like the electronic billboard, which are “cheapening the place” in his word, but it his hard to deny it has been a successful place since its opening in 2002:

Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas square has been a resounding success since its opening in 2002 – credit (4)

You will have certainly noticed that all the great places presented by Matthew have a transit component, and it is probably not accident to the success of those places. The bus along Exhibition road was rerouted on a very nearby street (Queen’s gate) during its construction, but once completed, the bus came back, certainly for good reason!

The talk session of the evening, was closed by the Pop Rocks designers Matthew Soules and Joe Dahmen presenting how they have designed their huge pillow from recycled roof material of Canada Place [3]. They proposed some interesting design guideline fro Robson Square, summed up in the below artist’s rendering:

A rendering of Robson square integrating Matt Soules design idea:, flat surface; playful pavment; interactive street furniture, example of Rotterdam’s Schouwburgplein hydraulic lamppost was given – credit (13)

The last hour or so of the evenings was a co design workshop, driven by Stanley King’s team co-design [14].

Comment

Speakers were certainly interesting, but beside the fact the public was not provided opportunities to interact with them, the whole session was missing key points to a public consultation:

What is the problem?
No proper diagnostic of the Block 51 has been done:

• No metric has been provided on the amount of traffic: how many pedestrian, how many bus rider…: does there is a space allocation problem there? [8]
• No geometry analysis of the space has been provided

When come public space, the audience was seeming to think of a one size fit all [12], what is not necessarily true, and it seems that a wealth of diverging opinion has been expressed. Using the Olympic celebration to explain how the place can be is like using your last family gathering to explain how your dining room can work routinely. It is irrelevant. Spatial Geometry of space is important; A failed party in the large living room, can be transformed in a success in the tiny kitchen [9]; and that supposes to have some known metric.

• No analysis of what is working and what is not has been done

It seems to have been an non spelled rule; worship of Erickson work is mandatory; preventing any honest and franck diagnostic of the robson Square deficiencies.

• No context analysis has been provided

The site has been presented on a North-South spine. That was effectively the original Erickson idea. But nowadays, Robson square is dominated by an East-West flow. No discussion on the future of the VAG was opened: The organizers seem to think that a place-making can be done independently of its context, what seems perfectly silly.

What are the solutions?

Since, in fact no problem was identified, the whole function of the consultation was to find a reason for the only proposed solution: “full closure of Robson square to all traffic“. That was the apparent purpose of the co-design exercise.

What are the potential impact of the proposed solution?
No evaluation was provided at all

• Transit?

  Apparently, the organizers didn’t find useful to invite Translink to the consultation table. Transit is considered as a second thought, not to be integrated in the urban thinking of the place, what is a striking departure of successful placemaking. Transit has several implications, among them:

  • Operating cost of the re-routed line
  • impact on handydart if people can’t use regular transit
  • impact on the ridership at large, due to lack of clarity, speed, good network connection, involved by transit change
  • impact on pedestrian safety: transit riders are pedestrians, and have them boarding/alighting in safe spot is important (today bus 5 is rerouted thru Burrard, one of the most pedestrian accident prone arteries of Downtown)

  They are not the only reason Transit is important

• Street vibrancy
  In Vancouver, vibrant streets, with flourishing retail businesses, are more often that not correlated to transit rich corridors. Transit has certainly been a causation effect in the past. could it be still true?
  • The example of the struggling Cambie village area after loosing good transit access and visibility need to be compared to the recently flourishing areas next to the Yaletown station

  Could it be different with Robson? Why?

  There is also the problem of the Robson street segments between Burrard and Hornby and between Howe, Granville and Seymour. Traffic closure between Howe and Hornby, involves a drastic motor traffic reduction on those segments, while a successful Robson square involves an increased pedestrian traffic. We could have one without the other making those segments unappealing as it is the case now – but one could fairly assume it is also due to building construction/renovation. That said, it is hard to see how a space reallocation on Robson square can’t involve one on those segments, and then come the subsidiary question: Will it be enough pedestrian to make this stretch of Robson of success? [10].

…

The displayed lack of sophistication in the discussion surrounding the pedestrianization of Robson square is for the least, curious [11]:

• It eventually helps us to understand why pedestrian squares are largely a failure in Vancouver, and more generally in North America.


Georgia#Granville tends to replace Robson square as the natural meeting place in Vancouver.

• It helps also to understand the lack of forthcoming of some other spaces, like Georgia#Granville: A very busy corner since the advent of the Canada line, one which could tend to replace Robson square for some functions, like demonstration, but more importantly, people meeting. The subway station entrance hindering considerably the space when it doesn’t need to do witness this lack of forthcoming. Similar observations could be done at Yaletown, where the subway entrance is turning its back to the square

What is wrong with this idea of Robson square? answer has not been provided – credit photo City Of Vancouver

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[1] 20mn romandie, July 6th, 2012

[2] Project for Public Space

[3] see ‘Pop Rocks: Soft Urban Boulder Field’ Installation / Matthew Soules Architecture + AFJD Studio

[4] flikr user sean_marshall

[5] The post Block 51: North Plaza capture most of the presentation

[6] That is a spot identified by the Vancouver’s transport 2040 plan

[7] The post Vancouver courthouse Blocks 51-61-71: The Final Erickson proposal fueled by insight of the conversation, capture part of it

[8] Normally any reallocation of space is preceded by a careful study of traffic, pedestrian, transit riders, and vehicles. Of course, that was the case for London’s Exhibition road, On the section illustrated in this article, there are ~4000pedestrian/hr vs 550car/hr at peak hour (Exhibition Road Monitoring, August 2012). What are the number for Robson square?

[9] Verbatim of Jan Gehl, Livable Cities lecture, Richmond city Hall, Jan 27, 2011.

[10] Robson street is 80′ wide. There is virtually no example of pedestrian only street in Europe with such width. New York Broadway Avenue, at ~80′ wide, could be the closest, but the pedestrianized block around Times Square see a traffic of 350,000 pedestrians/day

[11] for matters of comparison, one can refer to the Paris’s place de la République renovation involving space reallocation in favor of pedestrian. the project is €17millions, what is relatively benign in the Paris city budget of €8billions. Nevertheless, the public consultation process is order of magnitude more elaborated that the one in place for Robson square. It includes the elaboration of shared diagnostic on many aspect of the space, walk tour,…

[12] For more idea about the different function of a public square, see Geography of Paris squares or plazas, oct 29th, 2012

[13] vivendesign.com

[14] The company site explains well the process. A 1973 movie, related to the block 51, was projected in the first evening, chairs for lovers, which introduced the “co design process”. co-design has also a blog

Geography of Paris squares or plazas

In a complex urban environment, each square will tend to be specialized toward a function rather another one: Square are not in competition but compliment each other. Hereafter is an essay on the geography of the Parisian squares:

Identifying
Le Louvre (Cour Napoleon)

This place is not a people place, it doesn’t mean to be. This square is the heart of the French DNA. a 1000 years mille-feuille of History in the making. The headquarter of the old regime, transformed into a monument to the culture, is supposed to represent what French are or at least think they are, and it does quite well:

Cour napoleon, where the Louvre’ s Pyramid sits – credit (11)

Representing
Place de l’Étoile

Like for the Louvre, this place is designed to have you overwhelmed by the “grandeur” of the State. The Arc de triomphe built by Napoleon is a monument crowning 500 year of planning of the Royal axis, originating from the Louvre. The hill where it sit on has been leveled, giving it a concave slope, enhancing the overwhelming presence of the Arc, sitting in the middle of a 240 meter diameter round place:

Place de l’Étoile is a very large traffic circle. Going to the middle is usually done thru underpass – credit (2)

Celebrating
Étoile-Concorde: Champs-Elysées

En route from The Louvre (old regime) to the Arc (new regime), it happens to be the Concorde, where the last french king, Louis the XVI has been guillotined. Where French celebrates is on The Champs-Elysées, between the Concorde and Étoile, a vast public space able to contain one million people, with huge plazas, Etoile and the Concorde providing very comfortable overflow, and entry/exit point.

The Champs-Elysées on New year Eve (here 2006) looking toward The Concorde – credit (5)

The size and topography of the Champs-Elysées help people to appreciate the size of the crowd. The celebration like above suppose to close the 10 lanes of traffic the avenue is normally supporting: A celebration on the Champs-Elysées means not “business as usual”.

Demonstrating

République-Bastille-Nation

Demonstrating is also part of the french DNA, and demonstrating supposes to walk, from one point to another:
Those points are usually République-Bastille-Nation, in that order!

Demonstration at Republique – credit (3)

Place de la République one of the largest Parisian square is 283x119m is well suited to accommodate large crowds. Beside it, it is not a necessarily inviting place. It is currently under renovation: respecting its history, its current use as a place to vent social message, while making it a more inviting space, especially outside demonstration time, was one of the challenge the contestant had to address. A water mirror, is part of the answer:

A water Mirror, as seen in Bordeaux, can “activate” large esplanade, while still leave it clear of encumbrance when needed – credit (1)

Programing
Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville
It is a “people place” per design, and the PPS editors like it [7], but this 155x82meter square is not a self-sufficient one, where people will intuitively go. they will go there only knowing the square is hosting some events, usually sponsored by the City:

Paris- Hôtel-de-Ville is a place for programing; ice rink in winter, beach volley in summer, all sort of fair in between – credit (4)

Meditating
Place des Vosges

A plaza in word, a park in theory, this almost perfect square, is a hit with many urbanistas for good reasons.. like Rome’s Piazza Navona, reaching Place des Vosges requires journeying along minor, often hidden streets. Then away of the crowd and noise of the surrounding city, you find an intimate, secluded, and still comfortable place. The square dimension, 127×140 meters,as well as the building lining help it, contribute to it. It is surrounded by a street allowing a light amount of traffic contributing to a safety feeling at any time any season.

Paris Place des Vosges, the oldest suqare of the city is requiring some effort to be found

Place Dauphine dating of the same era work a bit differently- may be too small and carry an oppressive feeling. Place Vendôme, has been designed along the Place des Vosges model (same size), but again it is a colder place. In Paris, Palais Royal, offers almost a similar setting

Relaxing
Place George Pompidou

Better known as Place Beaubourg, or simply the Piazza, it has been created ex-nihilo by architect Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and opened in 1977. In despite of its relatively novelty and use of modern architecture in a city full of heritage building, this square works very well at the difference of many other one created in the same period. Due to this, it makes it a very interesting case study:

It is facing a Modern art museum known as Beaubourg built at the same time by the same architects. Like Sienna’s Piazza del Campo, the 170x65m square has a slight declivity along its narrow edge, which allow people to appropriate the space like it was a beach: it is not uncommon to see people sitting on the pavement, facing the museum, which happen to have corridors and stairs on its outside facades, offering continuous movement of people to watch from the square.
Like Place des Vosges, this square is not obvious to find, and offers some respite, step away, of the capharnaum, the Halles can be:

Paris Place George Pompidou, is a successful square created ex nihilo

At the difference of Place Des Vosges, this square is fully pedestrian, and is surrounded by cafes and other shops.

Meeting
Fontaine des Innocents

Place Joachim du Bellay is a name very few locals know, but no Parisian ignores its fountain:
When they need to meet, Fontaine(fountain) des Innocents is the natural rendezvous.

It is easy to understand why: It is strategically located [10]

• It is at the cross road of the main Parisian arteries.
• Today, it sits midway between the Parisian subway hub (Châtelet ) and the Regional Express Rail network hub (Les Halles)

However, it is not directly on the way, rather on a “corner” of the intersection, so that the traffic doesn’t pass here. but, more important:

• the square’s size, 53x80m, is big enough to accommodate a substantiate activity making a good hangout, but small enough to be able to recognize a person in it (see the notion of social field of vision in [9])
• and the square design is perfectly appropriate:

Fontaine des Innocents IS the meeting point in Paris – credit (6)

This square is also surrounded by Cafes.

Concluding

Paris’s Place Stravinsky, a “secondary” but still lovely place – credit (11)

This geography is far to be exhaustive, Paris has many other squares, of various size, various features, some more interesting than other… what we have presented are what we see as the “staple” squares of Paris, and we can see some features emerging, noticeably regarding the size of the square:

• Different square size are needed in a big city, to accomodate the different function
• And still, the square where people feel comfortable to stay, will tend to be in the 120x120meter

This size could be not purely arbitrary, and could have to do with our field of vision- we tend to not recognize people beyond this distance and from smaller distance, we tend to be able to describe people facial characteristic – the ~100 meter range lie in between [9].

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[1] flickr user hisgett

[2] flickr user ar56

[3] flickr user tofz4u

[4] flickr user babicka2

[5] Franck prevel via Le Monde

[6] Projet Les Halles

[7] PPS page: Paris’Hotel de Ville (City Hall)

[8] See for example: Squaring public space with human needs, Lisa Rochon, Globe and mail, Nov 25, 2011. Curiously enough Vancouver bloggers like Lewis n Villegas and Stephen Rees, will use this square to illustrate Vancouver specific problematic. For the record, architect Ricardo Boffil had a project to built a place inspired by Place des Vosges at Paris The Halles: Parisian didn’t like the idea, and their mayor, then Jacques Chirac, basically “chased” the architect…

[9] Cities for people, Jan Gehl, 2010

[10] Paris, les Halles :introduction to its anatomy

[11] vivendesign.com