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Leaside Plaza, Toronto, 2020[open in full screen VR version of this square]  

 
  Previous St. Lawrence Market, Toronto

In most of the cases this collection consists of good, or relatively good, examples of public urban squares. In this case place described here is very far from good. Not only that this open space is very unpleasant as it is, but whoever designed this place was plain stupid!

Check the map bellow. Bluish overlay is actually marking the original location of two rows of retail shops. In between them at the distance of some ~100 m is enormous parking lot with the streets cutting of shops from the parking and making trips from one side to the other, especially in 6 months of winter conditions in Toronto, almost impossible.

  I have never seen anybody parking close to one side and walking afterwards to the other row. Shops are completely separated.

Effort was made to make façades somewhat attractive, in some sense resembling some Mediterranean pedestrian street with both shapes and colours, even gallerias [arcades] are made along the sides. They will make walk along them pleasant during the summer months if they are not broken occasionally making you exposed to sun or rain or even more often snow.

Looking on the virtual reality panorama above, specially in the full screen mode is making this space even more scary.

  On the map bellow I did something I am never doing, making a simple suggestion how this can be improved. I moved two rows of structures closer to each other making nice pedestrian street, connecting not only two sides but making more sense of the architecture, and still keeping same number of parking spots on the outside.

Check those two images bellow the map. First one is real picture, feeling lost among all those cars, and next one quick visual intervention making space many times more logical and user friendly. I talked about this same space several years ago on some of my rants in Ontario Society of Architects. I hope someone remember this issue and prevented this to happen again in the future.

Next St. James Town Plaza, Toronto

 
           
  East York Civic Centre Park, Toronto, Map  
more about
evaluation method
more about
types of squares
sociability
0
ceremonial
x
uses & activities
5
religious
x
access & linkages
5
social
x
comfort
2
residential
x
image
1
shopping
x
tourist value
0
with park
x
total
13
market
x
 
         
  St. Lawrence Market, Toronto - urbansquares.com  
             
  St. Lawrence Market, Toronto - urbansquares.com  
           
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Last time updated on July 4, 2021 17:22