Changing in block(s)
An emerging downtown in the image of Laval residents
The Creative Metamorphoses competition is an opportunity to innovate in Laval, to demonstrate our ability to build our cities differently, to create more inclusive, dynamic, green and intelligent living spaces. By proceeding with a multidisciplinary design competition to develop a new narrative and visual concept for the Montmorency sector, the City of Laval is launching a clear call for citizen and professional mobilization to better reflect its emerging downtown while contributing to the enhancement of the cultural attractions, places and institutions of interest that already shape it.
A grid with animated intersections and a human scale
During the first ideation phase of the competition, we raised the need to review the organization of Laval's urban grid in order to give it a new, more human scale and to reinstate the individual at the center of a territory now dominated by the automobile. Through targeted interventions at the intersections of the major axes and arteries of the new downtown, our approach proposes to create new poles of interest in the sector that would then become the anchor points around which a new matrix of events and routes would be woven.
Sid Lee Architecture and MASSIVart are partnering to implement these poles, these routes and their ambitious artistic programming. At the heart of our common convictions, we fundamentally believe that art and the implementation of cultural programs are necessary vectors that can embellish, provoke new uses of a place, resonate with social, political or urban concerns, bring together the interests of city dwellers and formulate social issues.
The Junction Strategy
Our process of redevelopment begins with an analysis of the area using field observation tools inspired by those developed by Jan Gehl and the Gehl Institute for public life, as well as those created by Studio Gang and their Reimagining the Civic Commons initiative. Through the use of these tools, it becomes possible to precisely target the intersections that have the most traffic as well as those that need the most work in order to give them a more human scale. These targeted interventions, such as rest areas, reconfigured crosswalks, and mini plazas, directly improve the comfort, safety, enjoyment and happiness of citizens who pass through or temporarily occupy these spaces. More perennial in nature, the interventions at the junctions can be added successively over the years to promote new routes in the neighborhood, signify and highlight points of interest and create a new dynamism in the area.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
Qualities of the proposal:
- The idea of the poles of interest and the courses grouped by theme is an interesting track.
- Culture is expressed little (and late) in the proposal and in the pathways.
- The narrative framework is expressed more through a consultation process than a narrative proposition leading to strong design orientations.
- The narrative and visual concept is not part of a long-term approach.
- The proposal does not express a synergy between the disciplines (art and design).
Formal qualities:
- The first intervention is formally mastered and offers a lot of versatility.
- The proposal does not clearly define formal orientations for the medium and long term.
- The first intention tints too much a concept that may not be adapted to the scale of the downtown and can hardly contribute to the emergence of a distinct signature.
Experiential and perceptual qualities:
- The delivery makes it difficult to understand the moods that will be put forward for future interventions (the plan is for 5 years).
- Future interventions lack scale.
Social and Cultural Qualities:
- The creation of an incubator for citizens to think about the Creative Metamorphoses deployment plan is a strength of the concept.
- On the other hand, it is not clear how citizen participation will be achieved.
- The programming and the materialization of the concept are of a transitory and event-based nature and the citizen involvement does not last over time.
Functional qualities and feasibility:
- The technical and financial feasibility of the first intervention is demonstrated.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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