PARC DES QUATRE RIVIÈRES
NATIONAL URBAN PARK OF QUEBEC
A National Urban Park is a collection of naturally, culturally, and agriculturally important landscapes. All can be found within the Capital National Watershed and even more so in the City of Quebec!
Our proposal works at multiple scales to deliver a guide for transitioning the Capital National Watershed into a National Urban Park. This guide outlines a series of large and small scale measures which can be employed during the process of making Quebec a Water-City.
Canada has a rich history of developing national parks, protecting land for public understanding, appreciation and enjoyment, and maintaining iconic landscapes for the un-born generations. The Parc des Quatre Rivières can be used as a new bio-physical border within and around the city which can influence the city to grow towards its rivers, and blur the lines between the natural and the urban.
The park is based on the philosophy of Every Man's Right, and is realized through four strategies: Lines, Patches, Points, and Plugs.
The four strategies and the over-arching umbrella of the National Urban Park work both in the short-term and long-term with varying levels of interventions, and have different natures physically. They are the layers which overlap to create a symbiotic approach to revive, transform, engage, and activate the public to the diversity of the riparian landscapes in the region.
The advantages that can be gained from maintaining a national urban park include: ecological health, sustainability, contact with nature, education, public engagement, respect and partnerships, diversity, local heritage, and a common understanding of urban ecology.
Quebec's rivers are its life veins!
However, today they are the forgotten souls of the city. Quebec has one of the strongest Identities out of any city in Canada. Its rivers deserve the same! The rivers will be the highlights of the city. The basins collect diversity, are explored, cared for and become integral to the environmental and socially resilient future of Quebec. All of the rivers have unique identities and opportunities waiting to be re-discovered and shared with the world.
Float down the Cultural Cap Rouge. Celebrate along the Saint Charles. Get productive on the Beauport. Tame Montmorency the Wild.
Enjoy the Water City & Parc des Quatre Rivières!
(Competitor's text)
The idea of an urban national park appeared innovative and daring, bringing a fresh look at the relationship between the city and its rivers. Here, the intentions are clear and the means of realizing them convincing. This proposal is among the most coherent of the lot, both in terms of ideas and their representation. The general theme and its many variations promote a real reappropriation of rivers, emphasizing the right of citizens to enjoy them in a multitude of ways, through the multiplication of light facilities born of the meeting of urban and natural environments. While a few of these facilities have been developed, some of them very imaginative in the eyes of the jury, it would be easy to imagine others in the same spirit, making this an inspiring proposal. However, despite the interest of being able to multiply interventions under the same strong general concept, they seem for the moment to be rather little anchored in a local specificity that we would have liked to see more asserted. Also, the concern for ecosystem preservation, which normally justifies the creation of parks, is not very present in the micro-scale proposal, at least not to the extent suggested by the concept. The few arguments put forward in this respect left the jury rather perplexed. On the other hand, the quality of the atmospheric renderings and the wide range of water-related experiences they evoke were much appreciated by the jury, as was the high level of professionalism and development of the proposal. It's very easy for people to understand the concept and project themselves into the images.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
16 scanned / 16 viewable
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Schema
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Schema
- Perspective
- Schema
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Schema
- Site Plan
- Perspective
