Design Issues
The adjacent land uses of the John Fry Park include several industrial businesses and various non-residential functions. The site contains number of ball diamonds, rugby fields and The City of Edmonton Parks operations yard. Currently, the open, sparsely planted site is vast and expansive, and does little to invite civic activity beyond scheduled sport. The new program has the potential to not only augment sport activities, but also provide reasons for the users of the park to stay and socialize, celebrate, or relax.
Rationale/Concept
The 'proposal' is organized as an linear depression, an eroded path that is carved into the existing landscape. The path emerges as a mapping of existing use patterns on site, linking the parking areas to the activity fields and connecting one side of the site with the other. The path topography re-renders the site to include habitable edges and human scale enclosures without obstructing the existing site lines. This undulating erosion acts like a meandering prairie river carving the land to expose and create canopies and depositing activities on the opposite side of the bend along its path. The change rooms, concessions, offices and support services are organized along the sunken corridor, providing an active and interesting edge perceptually shortening the distance between points of interest and condensing the otherwise dispersed user movement into a singular, active channel. The path is not intended as an attraction itself, but rather as a guide to the various park functions.This approach respects the hierarchy of the functions on site, rendering the new program subservient to the the sport activities that deservedly remain the primary focus of the park.
Description of Design Solution
The program is organized in five separate clusters along the main path, with the first phase of development placed towards the south parking area, and the majority of the second phase program towards the north end of the path. The concession and the multipurpose rooms are located at the centre of the path, near the secondary access depressions, organized perpendicular to the main path.
(Competitor's text)
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