(08-11-2023, 01:35 PM)westwardloo Wrote: https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2023/08/den...hill.53529
Ah yeah, I know this one. It's a good example of how to design such large communities in one go while also (at least hopefully) allowing it to feel a bit more lively. The various massings, positions and orientations of the buildings really helps the place feel a little less curated when you are on the ground.
There is a nice variation on green spaces: instead of just one large park/field, there are lots of different places with sufficient foliage/grass and lots of shade, which is not only pleasant for people who want to be outdoors but also for the ecology. It's often overlooked in planning and design the necessity of good greenspaces. Reason being is that different areas, spaces and plant life can have an impact on things like pollinators, birds, other small animals and even insects that live in the urban environment. Most creatures don't like to coalesce in one specific place - particularly if it's very open. These sort of micro-ecological niches allow for greater environmental diversity (as insufficient as it is...but creatures will still try to live there) in urban environments. They're also good for handling storm water runoff, snow piles in the winter from plowing and better urban heat island mitigations.
At the same time this project also illustrates the issue with developments like these: suburbs in the sky, as mentioned. For one, the character of these sort of developments is and likely always will be inadequately vibrant and unique. By this I simply mean how in every place human beings settle, different characteristics of different areas of said settlements contribute to the culture of the place and people. Think of places like Mile End or Kensington Market in Montréal and Toronto respectively, or just the local characteristics and difference in vibe which differs between Victoria Park, the Market District or Hespeler. Sculpted new neighbourhoods like this one or the one at Bathurst/407 risk forever suffering from feeling as lifeless and dead as an average SFH suburb. You might see more people outside but they're places in an urban space that will either take a long time or never really have a sense of culture and community.
The location of this project (the one in North York and this local one) also illustrates the problems with transit when you build incredibly dense neighbourhoods so far removed from things like transit or significant places (universities, business centres, culturally signifcant areas etc), recreational spaces and so on. I know the LRT is planned to go nearby but who knows if that will even get built and even if it does, it barely suffices as rapid transit for a region that will be nearing 900k to 1'000'000 people by the time any of this is completed. But I suppose the long, long, looonngggg term vision planners have is that very large swaths of the low density industrial and commercial on either side of Hespeler Road will be developed into high density (especially if/when the LRT is there), but that's a long way off. It's a great area to redevelop in time, but it has to be done right. I mean visit Beijing and you can lots of modern mixed-use development in recent years that is utterly lacking any soul and personality. You have to carefully plan and integrate that in minute ways for tangible community and culture to actually evolve.
Edit: If anyone wants to read a good short book on this, I suggest Marc Augé's "Non-Places - An Introduction to Supermodernity". In urban planning and architecture a non-place in his definition is (to borrow from Wikipedia) defined as: "anthropological spaces of transience where human beings remain anonymous, and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". His book and concept tend to define them in terms of places like malls, airports, train stations etc as they are places where lots of people congregate and utilize, but do not occupy to any extent, resulting in them being devoid of any significance and personality. In more recent theory, it has also been used to define modern high density developments like these because many residents are renters or condo owners who don't make it a permanent home; they are disconnected by transit and thus utilize cars; likely don't work or spend much time in the development; a micro-culture and community struggles to take root etc, making the space feel like a non-place. It's a really good read and a theory that is increasingly being revisited in this field. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/328450.Non_Places
Also just realized I confused this with the SmartCentres development...lol...point still stands about it being in an awkward area that will definitely need some transit improvements! High density smack dab next to highway exits are basically suburbs.