Toronto David Crombie Park Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

[AlexBozikovic]

Here, we see the preservation of the cast-in-place concrete walkways with rather sparse bands of brick. We should be using more granite and stone in our public spaces. It lasts a long time and makes for higher-quality public realm. Bare concrete retaining walls look cheap and utilitarian.

The concrete in this park looks very good (though it needs a clean) and it's 50 years old! Not a bad case for the longevity of the material...

 

[junctionist]

The concrete in this park looks very good (though it needs a clean) and it's 50 years old! Not a bad case for the longevity of the material...

That's a good point about longevity, but concrete tends to lose its appeal in landscape design as it ages (and usually after just a couple of years as the clean white look gets stained and turns grey).

 

[Northern Light]

That's a good point about longevity, but concrete tends to lose its appeal in landscape design as it ages (and usually after just a couple of years as the clean white look gets stained and turns grey).

Here's a question for you, not necessarily specific to the concrete in David Crombie Park..........but then again...........

The 'white' you see in typical concrete application in Toronto isn't the colour of the concrete per se; its the curing compound.

But, its entirely possible to dye concrete. It actually dyes quite well and you can a range of colours.

We don't see that done all that often in Toronto.

Here's an image of Cisco Systems Campus, whose landscape features this:

Source: https://www.daviscolors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/davis-colors-cisco-systems2.jpg

Would you feel different about concrete as a material if we made better use of this application?

Question 2:

The current Green Streets design the City is implementing features standard concrete curbs around planting areas, but the seatwall is capped in limestone. What about the use of capping (you could think of it as a veneer, the though the seat slab is decently thick). You can cap just on top, but in theory, you can cap on the sides too.

One can also affix other materials. In the Cromibie proposal, you'll see some wooden seating being affixed to some of the concrete seat walls. You can affix wood, or Corten steel among other materials to add warmth or texture to concrete.

I'm not advocating here, just curious on your thoughts.

 

[Skyhighzz]

I genuinely hope this project turns out well. Everyone was so excited by the Nathan Phillips Square revitalization that was focused on restoring the original design but with enhancements.

The end result, while an improvement overall with the stage, restaurant and washrooms, highlighted the weaknesses of the original design as well. There's a vast expanse of concrete in front of City Hall that's sterile and boring. The overhead walkways remain problematic from an operational standpoint and are often closed to this day.

Here, we see the preservation of the cast-in-place concrete walkways with rather sparse bands of brick. We should be using more granite and stone in our public spaces. It lasts a long time and makes for higher-quality public realm. Bare concrete retaining walls look cheap and utilitarian.

of note …If Nathan Phillips Square was the 3rd or 4th big public space in town, then maybe one can look past the cost-cutting, drab, boring, overly concrete unimaginative reno; but the fact that this square is the “Premier Space” in this booming big city is just woeful & shockingly short-sighted by city staff & then council under mayor Tory.
The “Let’s cut 12 mil. from this project and get it down quicker & no one will ever notice the difference” …crew.
May we assume lessons were learned!???

 

[junctionist]

Here's a question for you, not necessarily specific to the concrete in David Crombie Park..........but then again...........

The 'white' you see in typical concrete application in Toronto isn't the colour of the concrete per se; its the curing compound.

But, its entirely possible to dye concrete. It actually dyes quite well and you can a range of colours.

We don't see that done all that often in Toronto.

Here's an image of Cisco Systems Campus, whose landscape features this:

View attachment 569377
Source: https://www.daviscolors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/davis-colors-cisco-systems2.jpg

Would you feel different about concrete as a material if we made better use of this application?

Question 2:

The current Green Streets design the City is implementing features standard concrete curbs around planting areas, but the seatwall is capped in limestone. What about the use of capping (you could think of it as a veneer, the though the seat slab is decently thick). You can cap just on top, but in theory, you can cap on the sides too.

One can also affix other materials. In the Cromibie proposal, you'll see some wooden seating being affixed to some of the concrete seat walls. You can affix wood, or Corten steel among other materials to add warmth or texture to concrete.

I'm not advocating here, just curious on your thoughts.

Colouring concrete helps to give it a more aesthetically pleasing design for sure. It'll still lack the texture and sheen of granite and other kinds of stone, as well as traditional red paving bricks. It'll therefore still feel inferior to stone but to a lesser extent.

It's surprising that we have so much gneiss and granite in the Canadian Shield in Ontario but almost never see it used for pavements in public spaces here. In terms of curbs, we could use more granite curbs and gutters in the city.

I like the idea of capping concrete retaining walls/benches with stone and warm materials. But the people undertaking the project need to know what they're doing because the veneer can crumble if it's improperly constructed. Many kinds of wood are attractive as accents at first but fade to a neutral and dull brown colour after a few years (unless they're treated regularly). Our public service isn't great at that kind of maintenance, unfortunately.

 

[DSC]

The school playground block at Lower Jarvis keeps flooding, after very little rain so let's hope that PFR know about it (yes, I reminded them) and does something.

 

[bcx]

Jamii is creating a little David Crombie Park "to archive what David Crombie Park looks like today before the revitalization of the park starts"

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[Northern Light]

@AlexBozikovic has a good piece out today on the future of this park.

He went for a stroll with Rasmus Astrup of SLA, the firm leading the work.

He notes Rasmus appreciation of what the park already is/was.........and his take to build on and refresh that, rather than the more radical 'start over / clean slate' approach that had been proposed by the Planning Partnership.

I much prefer SLA's take which is more thoughtful and less wasteful in one stroke.

****

Now this comment from Rasmus I do think is interesting in a few ways, if perhaps not entirely accurate in the Toronto context:

This was a pretty bold/original idea at the time........but has been done quite a few times in Toronto since. Though I appreciate this may be relatively rare elsewhere in North America.

In Toronto, most of these sites have included both a dedicated school yard and an abutting park, with the two co-mingling as one space with joint-use agreements.

But more recently we've returned to the idea of the dedicated park as the school yard notably with the Sugar Wharf proposal.

****

I agree w/the characterization below:

I'm very glad to see SLA depart from the above........ of course..........this does beg a question about essentially having to pay for park design twice, the first being high concept and not working drawings.......but still, all that process money that could have been given to SLA's implementation budget here, or to any number of other worthwhile Parks projects, both big and small.

I've lamented the Islands Master Plan which was similar in terms of just flushing money down to the toilet..........and I will have to hope there that the various 'implementations' will be given to people with more vision and skill, even though that's more process $$$ down the drain.

*****

We've already discussed elements of the new plan here, so I won't poach much more from Alex' column, which I would encourage people to go read by following the link. But I like the description below.....

This reminds of the best of what MVVA produces. Good solid work ecologically, but also aesthetically, typically making really good use of perennials, often native, where one might contrast the examples I gave recently in the Problematic Park Design thread in regards to Memorial Gardens. Those weren't terrible...........but were ...unimaginative and didn't evoke the same sentiment one gets from SLA or MVVA's best works of this type.

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Alex winds up his column with this question:

He rightly notes that Park Re-dos when farmed out, are typically given to some very mediocre local firms that produce everything from underwhelming adequacy to disasters. Though it does need to be said the odd outsider has royally muffed things up too.

In-house re-dos of any size are relatively rare these days..........and the risk from them tends to be not so much bad designers (though we have some), but rather fragmented work with budgets that are too small.

I do want to shout out PMA Landscape who are local, and I think did a wonderful job on St. James Park.

****

Outsiders are needed for our Parks here, and I'll take what I can get............but I really want one to go in-house for a year at the City and teach PF&R why and how its done. They used to know, some still do, but at a departmental level, the knowledge just isn't there, and when it is..........the passion gets drummed down by process and by budget limitations.

We need a higher degree of competence, vision, and passion.

One last shout out to CCxA, SLA and MVVA for all doing what the locals do too little of...........push back against orthodoxy and make passionate cases for well thought out design.

 

[DSC]

David Crombie Park actually doubles as TWO schoolyards (for three schools!) . One at the west end @ Lower Jarvis for St Michael's TCSB & the TDSB Alternative School and the other at east end for Market Lane TDSB School.