Planning Pool

This post comes to you from an afternoon session entitled “Saving our cities: Contemporary approaches to heritage planning.” The two joint speakers are Phil Goldsmith and Antonio Gómez-Palacio, who have worked together on several projects. Mr. Gómez-Palacio works with the Office for Urbanism, while Mr. Goldsmith has extensive experience in adaptive reuse of Toronto’s heritage buildings.

Phil Goldsmith and Antonio Gómez-Palacio argue for a hybrid approach to heritage restoration and new architectural styles. Photo by author.

The session opened with the quote “Although […] heritage belongs to everyone, each of its parts is nevertheless at the mercy of any individual” (Amsterdam Charter, 1975). Intensification of urban fabric places stress on heritage buildings, so the present is an important time for the heritage of … Continue Reading

Funding public transit service and infrastructure is a challenge anywhere, but transit providers in small towns and rural areas have even fewer resources to work with. In my travels through small-town British Columbia, I’ve been continually amazed at the resourcefulness demonstrated at bus stops.

Along the Sunshine Coast Highway, where the first photo was taken, bus stops are furnished with every imaginable kind of seating by the people who use them. Lawn chairs are the most common bus stop furniture, but old kitchen chairs are also a favourite design solution. Sechelt is a District Municipality: to qualify for this designation, the incorporated area must be greater than 8 square kilometers in size and have an average population density of fewer than 5 persons per hectare. This … Continue Reading

Sorry all, another lame title by me! Anyway, check out PP’s shiny new exclusive video.

A Streetcar Named… Revival? from Planning Pool on Vimeo.

Did you notice the vintage ads in the old streetcar, I reckon they’re a bit more modest than the stuff Vanessa saw in Portland. And be sure to pay special attention to the fantastic soundtrack, performed by our own very talented Vanessa Kay!

Having long been interested at the sight of those old streetcars that still made a circuit along Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek, trundling along with elegance and poise when seen against the car traffic that rushes past, I thought it would be neat if PP did a feature on it. After … Continue Reading

The venerable Architectural League of New York has fostered interdisciplinary approaches to urbanism since the late 19th century, opening membership to painters and sculptors as well as to architects and other design professionals. Launched earlier this year, its online project Urban Omnibus further expands the organization’s scope by tapping into participatory media culture. It solicits and displays photography in ways that have only became possible in the last few years, and that reflect democratization of the means of producing and disseminating images of the city.

Amity Gardens Shopping Center, 2007 via Groceteria

Amity Gardens Shopping Center was a popular shopping center in Charlotte, NC, during the 1950s. Now, the blighted strip mall is slated to be bulldozed and replaced with a Walmart with the hopes of revitalizing the area.

According to Groceteria:
The Winn-Dixie at Charlotte’s Amity Gardens Shopping Center opened in November of 1958, right in the middle of the most thriving retail strip in the city. The center also included Woolworth’s and a Barclay Cafeteria. By 1961, it also included Charlotte’s first (and only) branch of Clark’s, an early “supercenter” with both general merchandise and groceries.

Oversized Shell Toe Adidas shoe sculptures are located at the corporation’s North American headquarters. For Adidas, the art is the foundation of a publicity stunt and multimedia ad campaign. (The left shoe was painted by artists from the West Coast, while a New-York-based collective provided decoration for the right shoe.) For residents and visitors of Portland, the shoes might represent conflicting meanings: love of skate shoes; East Coast-West Coast rivalry; a splash of colour in the urban environment; an irritating corporate intrusion.

Meanwhile, a huge sculpture of a drill bit looms outside a big-box power centre on the side of Vancouver’s Grandview Highway. Shavings embedded in surrounding landscaping are engraved with Canadian Tire advertising keywords like “fixing” and “driving”. The municipality required this development to include a public art component as a condition of site rezoning. Apparently, the developer’s plan promised artwork … Continue Reading

Just arrived back from a trip to Asia where, among other things, I took part in a short exchange with the National University of Singapore.

This was all part of a History course that took a comparative approach to exploring planning issues in the ethnic spaces (mostly chinatowns) of Vancouver, Singapore and to a lesser extent Malacca, in Malaysia. The students were divided into several working groups, covering areas such as mapping, architectural modeling, real estate marketing, and video (which I helped to facilitate). Each was responsible for creating a final project presentable to university and government officials, professors and local planners.

So as our little group nosed around these two fascinating cities, talking to planners, historians and local residents as we went, we managed to produce this film. Its purpose is to function as a snapshot of life as it’s being lived … Continue Reading

On March 20th, the New Orleans City Planning Commission (CPC) released a working draft for its new citywide Master Plan and Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO) to the public. The CPC anticipates that the final plan will be posted to the website for public access in June. The city hopes that the plan will be a “roadmap” for the next two decades, emphasizing sustainability, community infrastructure, transportation, arts development, future land use, and citizen participation in planning decisions. The development of a new CZO is especially interesting, because the last one was created almost 40 years ago. The city anticipates that the new CZO will be clearly written and organized. It will also contain illustrations to help users understand the regulations. The overall goal of the CZO will be to give clear direction … Continue Reading

Mike’s post about silver linings to bad economic times struck a chord in my mind.  One upside, as he pointed out, can be necessary structural change. A second kind of silver lining might be the preservation of buildings or land uses that in good times would be uneconomical.  These could be valuable for cultural, community or heritage reasons.

Maybe I am just feeling philosophical because I spent the evening attending St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Gastown. This well loved heritage district in Vancouver has plenty of character, and is home to architecture dating mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This makes it one of the oldest neighbourhoods in an absurdly young city.

Gastown photo by Sea Turtle

From the 1930s to the 1960s, … Continue Reading