LET’S LEAVE THE 1950s BEHIND
Private sector can step up to plan a better capital, writes Barry Hobin.
To mark the 150th birthday of Confederation, we asked local residents from a variety of backgrounds to share their wishes for the future of the capital and the country. Today: Barry Hobin.
Over the past 100 years, Ottawa has joined other cities across the country in a demographic shift to urban areas. As an architect interested in urban design and city building projects, my hope for Ottawa’s future is that it plays to its small-city roots while maturing and responding to the challenges of urban development.
Today’s Ottawa has largely been shaped by the urban planning of the 1950s. The parkway system, the government campuses, and even the greenbelt need to be revisited.
Recent interest in neighbourhoods such as Hintonburg, Wellington Village and a revitalized Lansdowne Park reflects the growing desire to “live/work and play” in vigorous, mixed-use urban neighbourhoods.
In contrast, the government campuses of Tunney’s Pasture and Confederation Heights are mono cultures, detached from city life. Traditional shopping centres such as South Keys, Lincoln Fields, St. Laurent and the recent Train Yards development were created primarily to serve one function: retail. There is tremendous opportunity to reshape these single-use campuses, by adding compatible uses, extending the public realm and making them into true mixed-use areas.
The parkway system was conceived around the 1950s’ fascination with the automobile and the notion of driving through nature. Unfortunately, it has cut the city off from the rivers that shaped our existence. The city needs to once again embrace the river with strategic development: cultural and recreational, as well as supportive mixed use.
Ottawa thinks of itself as a green city shaped by our mental map that includes the Rideau Canal, Dow’s Lake, the greenbelt and various parks in and around the city. Most of these reflect the planning of the NCC as the nation’s capital and not necessarily the municipality. We seem to depend entirely on school sites, community parks and road cross-sections to shape the public realm as the city grows. The notion of a fine-grain public realm with small squares and boulevards, urban parks and enhanced streetscapes is missing.
With the pressure to increase density within the city, the public realm becomes extremely important. Instead of focusing on the large acreage, we need to integrate a variety of smaller urban green spaces to enhance the more compact footprint of the future. This is a challenge not only to the private sector, but more importantly to the public sector including all levels of government that create new buildings. The new City of Ottawa main library is a prime example and holds great potential to create a vibrant facility that should transform the public realm around it.
As the city grows, our environmental footprint also becomes increasingly important. Our building stock needs to address strategically how we can achieve a zero-carbon footprint. We will need to address the design of new buildings and renovations to a vastly different standard as well as engage with alternate energy strategies.
While governments attempt to guide, real progress will be made when the private sector rises to this challenge.
This is one of the challenges of Ottawa, where the footprint of the federal government is substantial. While the private sector is small, there are numerous signs of innovation in the arts, entertainment, food services, culture, high-tech, design and development. Ottawa has a bright future.