Reintroducing the harmony of Sudbury's Rock and Greenscape, we reimagine the built environment to form the foundations for future growth. These foundations are interpreted both literally and figuratively through design intervention. Through literal interpretation, we wish to reform the concrete base of the Downtown into a lushus greenscape filled with life and movement; just as lichens would begin to regenerate the base of the crater through primary succession. Figuratively, we want to change the fundamental way in which people move through the downtown, reducing the dependency on vehicular use and creating a pedestrian and cyclist-friendly environment. This future consists of pedestrian streets, green alleyways, cycling lanes, and the extension of park spaces. Through three targeted areas for design intervention, development of the city's current Rainbow Centre, Memorial Park, and the Sudbury Arena takes place. This begins to provide green pockets within infrastructure such as the alleyways, creating fluid, pedestrian-friendly paths to public parks and providing easy access to the core's public services. Revisiting infrastructure that once flourished in the downtown area with modern design intervention for the public becomes an opportunity to invite visitors to the core. Developing public green space allows the city's festivals to flourish, and encourages tourism and alternative events to occur throughout the year. As a nod to the city's previous mining-driven industry, these futuristic proposals recognize materials that make up the hardscape, and embrace the process of decay by celebrating several lichen species, which played a crucial role in restoring the city's moonscape. The breaking up of the city's infrastructure with green space provides safe and serene environments for the users to experience, in emphasis on steps towards a sustainable future, leaving behind the industrial past.
Carrying on the journey of beautifying downtown Sudbury that the city has already embarked on, this proposal of reimagining the alleyways introduces green pockets to the surrounding urban landscape (Panel B). These reimagined alleyways integrate artwork to the streetscape along with introducing environmentally and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. Just as lichen once behaved on Sudbury's moonscape, a green space and marsh replaces the once paved hardscape of these elongated spaces. Within the urban context, alleyways are commonly avoided by the common public, but have the opportunity for providing serene gathering points for everyone to access, while encouraging cyclists and pedestrian use. The experience of discovering artists' murals throughout hidden nooks of the downtown is emphasized with these pathways, creating a blank canvas for upcoming art festivals to immerse within the city. Moreover, Memorial Park has the opportunity to extend its green space to the paved parking areas adjacent to the YMCA. The addition of organically placed rock seating areas are proposed throughout the park space to encourage summer events and festival seating. The installation is intended to collect lichen over time, symbolic to the regeneration of the Sudbury crater, and blend within the surrounding landscape. Reimagining the existing Pavilion with a glulam paneled hemisphere dome, grounded in concrete covered in lichen brings together all the natural elements that constitute the park into a new and unique way. The pavilion embraces the natural elements of its surroundings, including the surrounding foliage and natural decay of a rock's surface by communities of lichen, as experienced by Sudbury's landscape. Surrounding the redesigned venue space, the organic shapes of the seating installation shape the existing pathways through Memorial Park, similar to the shape of a river stream around a branch. The extension of the park space emphasises the "lungs" of the city, encouraging public use and a social gathering space.
The City's Rainbow Centre was once a significant point of gathering as the main shopping centre of the downtown core, and now provides opportunity for major design intervention within its generous scale (Panel C). As Sudbury currently faces difficulty in the housing sector within the downtown, the Rainbow Centre becomes an opportunity to integrate public green space and apartments within its amenities. This proposal features the removal of central department stores including Hart and Designer Depot to reveal a vast park space facing Elm Street. This allows for a fluid connection for pedestrians to access the centre through the newly integrated green paths created through alleyways. The central courtyard features a bio-crete walkway, with additional seating spaces that continue the organic language of seating from Memorial Park, which overtime will thrive with lichen and blend with this landscape. The open-face courtyard encourages public events and gathering, creating a major green pocket to a very active axis of downtown. The Shopping Mall still provides access to food and retail services for the public, as well as reserved office spaces for local businesses to thrive. Atop the structure, 3 storeys of apartments are proposed, provided with their own private access to green space and balcony space looking onto the public park. The main public greenspace becomes inviting for cyclists and pedestrians, with several bike stations provided with street access, with the addition of bike lanes along the extension of the sidewalk. By condensing the number of vehicular lanes within the active streets, it begins to encourage an increase of pedestrians and cyclists for a low-emission direction into the future. The extension of bike lanes as well as the integration of additional green space dividing the direction of traffic provides a more pleasant experience for visitors of the downtown core.
Really expressing our vision of Grey to Green, the surrounding area around the arena is retrofitted to be hospitable for vegetation (Panel D). Through the use of native species of lichen, we can transform a lot of the built concrete environment into something full of life. The lichen will slowly eat away at the existing concrete infrastructure and it will slowly decay into usable nutrients to support vegetative life. Along with some landscaping help, planting a diverse range of trees at various stages will increase biological resilience. A high level of biodiversity and strong ties to the earth is essential for plant life to survive the Sudbury winters and harsh cityscape.
To further the image of a decaying greyscape into a greenscape, relating to the Arena we designed a geometric shell around the existing building. This facade is set back
from the existing building consisting of a series of triangular panels supported by a wook and steel frame. A Lower series of panels facing the street made of primarily recycled concrete with lichen slowly growing its way through the pores. A mid level series of panels consisting of staggering panels of reclaimed wood to allow ventilation through the structure. And the top tier panels consist of slabs of bio-crete; this special type of concrete that will allow larger species of vegetation to grow on its surface and within its pores. Adjacent to the Arena is our interpretation of the proposed Elgin Greenway. Consisting of a walking path wrapped in trees that not only reduce the noise of traffic but also the adjoining trainyard. This will run along Elgin and lead into the park and Eco parking spaces that are located between the arena and Paris St. This eventual overtake of lichen, vegetation, and trees will eventually be a source of inspiration of the growth possible within a once harsh and rigid concrete jungle.
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