Category: design

condos, design, intensificatioin, Richmond road, Westboro13 Comments

False choices at Our Lady of the Condos — part i

Westsideaction

The site with so much marvellous urban redevelopment potential is back in the news. Our Lady of the Condos is a former convent site running between Richmond Road and Byron. Is it just me, or does this site take on Lansdowne proportions whereby anything aggravates a vocal opposition, so that civil dialogue and compromise becomes untenable in a take-no-prisoners make-everyone-miserable sort of way? Ashcroft is asking for a driveway across the Byron linear park to access Byron Avenue. The alternative is to use Shannon Street. The city traffic engineers become bad guys here, supposedly wanting a full-fledged city street to replace Shannon … Continue reading False choices at Our Lady of the Condos — part i

Chinatown, Dalhousie, design, little Italy, O-Train, pedestrians, sidewalks, somerset street, streetscaping, Trees, west wellington18 Comments

Chinatown Art Installation

Westsideaction

The City sets aside a certain small percentage of its major capital projects budget (such as road reconstruction) for art installations. West Siders know the ones: Preston Street granite postcards from the piazzas, West Wellie’s marble veggies, the red chairs in the Glebe. The just-getting-completed reconstruction of Somerset between the OTrain tracks and Booth had a very small art budget. One that had to cope with three distinct areas: Chinatown, the bit of Little Italy around Preston, and the OTrain viaduct-bridge. With public consultation, the decision was made to have two installations: one on the Chinatown hill, and one on the viaduct … Continue reading Chinatown Art Installation

500 Preston, Bayview-Carling CDP, condos, design, Dows Lake, Gladstone, intensificatioin, little Italy, LRT, NCC, O-Train, OLRT3 Comments

High rises: Gladstone southwards

Westsideaction

Yesterday’s post covered high rise intensification — on an east-west axis — along the north edge — the Carling Avenue line — of our  community. Today’s post covers a north-south line drawn roughly along the OTrain cut from Gladstone to Carling. It is not clear if the drawing (second pic, below) puts the line along the OTrain cut or Preston Street itself. This post is somewhat speculative. Here is the area in Google Maps: Recall that there is a proposed LRT station on the OTrain corridor near Gladstone. Generally, the station is drawn running from Gladstone to the Queensway, with its north exit … Continue reading High rises: Gladstone southwards

Bayview-Carling CDP, Claridge, condos, Dalhousie, design, Dows Lake, housing policy, intensificatioin, LeBreton Flats5 Comments

Future shape of high rises in Carling and Preston areas

Westsideaction

Preston Street is an odd mainstreet, in that it has minimal hinterland of dense residential development. Hintonburg’s and Westboro’s main street areas are more densely built up and have large catchment areas on all sides with a mix of low-rise and high-rise built form. Preston lost its eastern residential areas when 50’s urban renewal wiped out existing urban fabric to replace it with commuter office towers (NRCan), a commuter high school (Commerce, now Adult HS), and a commercial strip predicated on a city-wide market (the ethnic Italian community) rather than an indigenous market. Thus merchants champion converting housing to parking lots, and since the merchants rarely live in the neighborhood, might be more easily convinced of … Continue reading Future shape of high rises in Carling and Preston areas

design, hintonburg, Preston street, somerset street, Uncategorized2 Comments

Commercial renovations

Westsideaction

Commercial renovations are very different from residential renovations. They are often done for different purposes. Sometimes a quick and dirty reno is all that is justified by an elderly building or underused site where something much better is around the corner. Many commercial modernizations do not maintain the historic style of the old building. And too often those that try to open up the façade (the modern need to see inside) while maintaining a look and feel and materials similar to the old,  are derided as “faux historic”. Some commercial renovations in our west side community go awry: consider the strip on West Wellington, which whilst … Continue reading Commercial renovations

design, hintonburg5 Comments

Transformed from the ordinary

Westsideaction

West side neighborhoods can have lots of fairly small and simple houses. Mechanicsville and Hintonburg have lots of boxy small homes, and many are found on the stub streets off Preston. Here, from Google Street View, is 34 Merton “before”: It was a typical small house. Basic old-style aluminium siding. Mismatched windows. Odd, two level front porch (note location of the posts). Useful side door. One mailbox, so its likely a single home. And after the facelift, voila: I like the restrained use of modern materials. There is the ever-popular and trendy corrugated siding, used with some restraint. Ditto for … Continue reading Transformed from the ordinary

Albert St, Bronson, Dalhousie, design, downtown, LRT, O-Train5 Comments

Civic Gateways (absence of)

Westsideaction

Ottawa is nicer than many other cities. Despite the criticisms of the NCC, they do engage in long term planning and city building that generates a sense of grandeur or pride. Without them, Ottawa would be vastly impoverished, just another short-sighted mid-sized city planned with short term expediency the governing rule. Ottawa is engaged in a worthwhile planning exercise for the downtown core, called Downtown Moves (DOMO). The removal of the bus lanes by 2017-18 creates the opportunity to remake the surface streets in a more livable and pleasant way. And not just replace the bus lanes with parking lanes. For this strategic thinking … Continue reading Civic Gateways (absence of)

design, downtown, Uncategorized2 Comments

Dismal, and better

Westsideaction

Downtown, the new EDC building has a planter on the O’Connor side. It’s pretty dismal, if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron. Part of the problem may be that much of the planter is under the overhang of the building, so lacks water and maybe even enough light. The predicted problems were correctly identified by Urbsite last year: http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/2011/08/edcs-trees.html. It comes as no satisfaction to see the prediction come to non-fruition. Such careless architecture and finishing. In contrast, they put a planter by the front door that looks pretty good; maybe you are supposed to forget about the rest of the … Continue reading Dismal, and better

Claridge, condos, design, housing policy, LeBreton Flats5 Comments

Owning the Podium

Westsideaction

Much of Ottawa’s current discussion about high rises focusses on the podium, or base of the building. In theory, the wider larger base is all the pedestrian sees, and the thin elegant glass tower floats off into the sky after a generous set back. Of course, this requires a fairly large lot or thin tower. What we increasingly see are small lot edifices, where either the tower is too fat for the base, or the podium effect is just sort of drawn onto the tower by a few horizontal bits of concrete trim. I stopped recently to look at the successfully done podium … Continue reading Owning the Podium

801 Albert, design, intensificatioin

The shadow knows, heh heh heh

Westsideaction

Dark shadows are of the common concerns about proposed high rise buildings: “How will it affect my house?”  Or, as more commonly expressed: “It will block all my light all day!” Earlier this week I heard an interesting factoid from a major developer, who said his proposed tower, a fairly thin one of 7500 sq ft floor plate, would not cast a shadow on any one place for more than one hour a day. Hmm, certainly sounds disarming. I wonder if there is any fine print? [of course, additional towers will collectively throw more shadows, as will slab-shaped buildings, or a a tall building … Continue reading The shadow knows, heh heh heh

Dalhousie, design, parks, Primrose, Uncategorized6 Comments

Rearranging the benches on RMS Primrose

Westsideaction

 Two neighborhood parks on the west side are getting major surgery this year. The redo of Chaudiere Park on Elm Street seems to have found a winner design. An especially innovative feature will be the expansion of the small park to take over a few parking spaces on Elm Street, although that feature may not be constructed until 2014 while bureaucrats fret over jurisdiction (it’s good to keep them busy on the innocuous). The remake of Primrose Park, a larger site just a block further north, is much more curious. The park was originally designed in the early 1980’s as center piece … Continue reading Rearranging the benches on RMS Primrose

801 Albert, Albert St, Bayview, Bayview-Carling CDP, bike path, Dalhousie, design, intensificatioin, LeBreton Flats, Uncategorized9 Comments

City’s tallest office towers proposed for west side

Westsideaction

Phoenix DCR is going to Council in August seeking rezoning of the parcel of land known as 801 Albert Street. They are proposing a 34 storey office tower; a 31 storey office tower, and a 7 storey office tower. Currently, the tallest office buildings in Ottawa are Place de Ville at 29 stories and Place Bell, both in the downtown core. The parcel of land they propose to build these on is right across Albert Street from the existing Bayview transit station and the adjacent OTrain station. The triangular parcel of land is immediately north of the 8 storey City … Continue reading City’s tallest office towers proposed for west side

Claridge, condos, Dalhousie, design, LeBreton Flats3 Comments

Height that you wish for …

Westsideaction

At public meetings and in media discussions about how high is high enough, a frequent lament heard goes something like “it would be alright over there [insert name of place far from the person making the comment], but not here.” For years, the Councillor and community groups working on the LeBreton Flats plans fought for an essentially low rise community. The final height limit for most of the buildings is seven stories (just like Paris !), with some towers on podiums extending to fourteen (not like Paris!).  The first phase, just built, has two towers on a very large seven story podium. … Continue reading Height that you wish for …

design, downtown, pedestrians, sidewalks4 Comments

Integrated intuitive wayfinding system for pedestrians

Westsideaction

These few pictures are from a tourist-oriented city. No, not Ottawa. This is a cross walk, of course. You recognized it right a way. Red, for visibility. With a decorative wiggling line through the middle that invites walkers. Very unrigid. And this is a similar shot, except now we can see both this intersection and the adjacent cross walk. The line leads the pedestrian on to the park and to harbour front area. Note the lack of signs on posts explaining to pedestrians that this is the way to walk. And the line continues through the park, leading us to … Continue reading Integrated intuitive wayfinding system for pedestrians

Booth St, Dalhousie, design15 Comments

Just how fast do they go?

Westsideaction

Residents frequently complain about speeding traffic.  Signs are only marginally effective, if the engineers design the roads to invite higher speeds. And make no doubt road design is not some innocent bystander in this. For years we have been making our roads wider, flatter, smoother, better lit, and pretending innocence when traffic goes faster. It is faster by design. The first step in fixing the problem is to measure the problem. You can’t fix what you didn’t measure. Some Councillors are buying Speed Boards for their Wards. These boards tell motorists what speed they are doing. There is  evidence that motorists slow down when … Continue reading Just how fast do they go?

condos, design, intensificatioin6 Comments

What are the alternatives to “too tall” ?

Westsideaction

Goldilocks knew she had 3 choices …  At the mayor’s summit meeting held this spring, Watson and Hume were blunt in telling attendees we were in for tall buildings. Lots of tall buildings.  Lots of very tall buildings. It was their tough love moment. But they glossed over explaining why.     Then the Citizen published *  an opinion piece by Sarah Jennings, developer, who argued that we could intensify to the standards of glorious Paris with a eight story height limit on main streets. I thought her argument was as glib as the Mayor’s pretending to tell us it … Continue reading What are the alternatives to “too tall” ?

Dalhousie, design, hintonburg, pedestrians, Preston street, Richmond road, sidewalks, somerset street, streetscaping, Uncategorized3 Comments

Putting the pieces back together in the right order

Westsideaction

Sometimes streetscaping projects by the City use lots of bricks or other paving blocks to enhance the sidewalk experience. Other times they use good ole’ concrete. I have mixed feelings about both. The biggest advantage of concrete is that it begs to be trowelled off level. No matter how crude the installation, or unskilled or careless the crew, the finished walk is usually usable. In other words, it’s a forgiving substance. Pavers look nice, but because each one is small they are subject to being laid with an uneven surface. Pavers have the advantage of being removable and relayable after disruption. When pavers … Continue reading Putting the pieces back together in the right order

design, Dows Lake, NCC, parks1 Comment

Not your mother’s tulip beds

Westsideaction

The NCC tulip beds at Commissioner’s Park at Dow’s Lake are gorgeous this year. And they sure don’t look like the large beds of single colour tulips of your mother’s day. Monochromatic mass displays are so yesterday. Drastic colour combinations are IN. Sometimes the new combinations include perennial beds. And new beds out in the flat lawn areas. The lawn beds can be operated for several years then grassed over and the tulips planted elsewhere. When Ontario banned cosmetic pesticides, it put the kibosh on large monoculture floral displays. Diseases and blights will remain in the soil, or spread unchecked by chemicals. So … Continue reading Not your mother’s tulip beds

design, downtown, pedestrians3 Comments

Measuring the Pedestrian Level of Service

Westsideaction

The level of service concept for vehicular traffic has been around for decades. Segments of road, or intersections, are rated by the how well the motorist is served. A number of US states and cities apparently mandate intersection widening when a level of service F is hit. I know very little about LOS, but apparently if you don’t get through the intersection on the first light after joining the queue, then that is level F. It can scarely escape our notice that rating F is frought with connotations of unacceptability, of could do better. Pedestrian sidewalks, however, are made to a standard … Continue reading Measuring the Pedestrian Level of Service

Albert St, Bank Street, bike path, cycling in Ottawa, design, DOTT, downtown, Laurier Ave, LRT, oc Transpo, OLRT, parking, pedestrians, road diet, roads, sidewalks, streetscaping18 Comments

Major changes coming to downtown streets

Westsideaction

The current downtown Ottawa is rather blah. Some might even call it bleh. Over the decades, it has become a motor-vehicle-oriented environment, with the fast movement of vehicles the main only priority. We all know about the walls of buses. And the priority given to automobile commuters over pedestrians. Trees: rare as hen’s teeth. It has become a downtown one goes to because you have to. It is not a shopping, or even much of a recreation destination. All rather sad. When the LRT is opened, there will be major changes. Most OC Transpo buses will be off the Albert … Continue reading Major changes coming to downtown streets

design, downtown2 Comments

Windows on the world

Westsideaction

Buildings must be interesting on the ground floor, that’s one of the key principles of a vibrant city at the sidewalk level. Too many of downtown Ottawa’s buildings are dead at the ground floor. That’s what makes the Delta Hotel’s renovation of their downtown property so exciting. They are busy tearing off the solid concrete walls of the Skyline  Crowne Plaza Delta and replacing them with windows, windows that actually allow people on the sidewalk to see into the building. In case you can’t remember, here’s what it used to be: I remain unthrilled with their Lyon Street facade, though. While no one … Continue reading Windows on the world

Bayview, Bayview Otrain, Claridge, condos, design, DOTT, LeBreton Flats, LRT, NCC, O-Train6 Comments

The “Other” Iconic Station viewpoint that we lost

Westsideaction

The Confederation Square station entrance (or lack of one) is getting a lot of press.  Earlier, the proposed Rideau Station was straddling the underside of the Canal, with the east entrance coming up at the Rideau Centre and the west entrance coming up at Confederation Square. This was called the Rideau Street station as that was its primary market, and the main reason it was pushed eastward under the canal was the sharp southward curve the track took immediately upon leaving the Rideau Station heading towards Campus:   The prior plans showed the western end of the Rideau station platform connected to a long, fairly … Continue reading The “Other” Iconic Station viewpoint that we lost

Claridge, Dalhousie, design, intensificatioin, Uncategorized1 Comment

Firestone talks (take ii)

Westsideaction

Now I got quite interested when this slide came up. The left axis (vertical) shows the elevation of the condo, ie what floor it is on. The horizontal axis shows increasing rent or price. The faint yellow line shows the rent curve for a building with apartments on the ground floor. These apartments are often the lowest price, as they have no view, no privacy from passersby. The red curve shows what happens if the base of the building is constructed in “townhouse” form. The value of these units goes up significantly. Then the value drops off for the lower rise apartments, … Continue reading Firestone talks (take ii)

Claridge, Dalhousie, DCA, design, housing policy, infill, intensificatioin4 Comments

Firestone speaks

Westsideaction

Last week, the Dalhousie Community Association, of which I am the outgoing president, held its annual AGM. Last year our speaker was John Doran from Domicile, speaking on how to cost out a condo project. This year, we had Dr Bruce Firestone, best known as founder of the Senators. Until recently he was a professor of entrepreneurship at Ottawa U. He has been an engineer, real estate developer, hockey guy, professor of architecture, engineering, and business, a mortgage broker, author, parent, etc. He is an engaging speaker. He talks with confidence born of personal experience on the topic and the … Continue reading Firestone speaks

Claridge, condos, design, hintonburg, intensificatioin, west wellington10 Comments

Look up, way way up Jerome

Westsideaction

I am always dating myself by referring to things by their old name, or to things that no longer exist and so no one (except other older people) knows what I am referring to. Are you old enough to remember the Friendly Giant on CBC TV? I could hear the phrase “Look up, look way way up” when I saw this condo building on West Wellington near Island Park. I do wonder just how well that concrete overhang will shelter the entrance a number of floor below. Or if it will simply feel like it is about to come crashing … Continue reading Look up, way way up Jerome