276 replies to this topic

[Nparker]

...Now if this were an entrance to Save On it’d be hopping busy.

The entrance to Save-on-Foods at Vancouver and Pandora would be just as busy without the plaza.

[Mike K.]

It’d be busier if it weren’t on Pandora at Vancouver, that’s for sure.

[aastra]

 

Why are these plazas so bad, again? Can someone articulate this for us?

 

Check out the forum at VibrantVictoria.ca. Years and years of elaboration on this topic.

[aastra]

These spaces tend to be the antithesis of the pleasantly intimate urban feel that characterized old Victoria. If you check out the language used in "A Townscape Rediscovered", they don't mince words about it. The objective was to subvert and invert Victoria's established built form, because Victoria's established built form was obviously all wrong. The logical contradiction should have been plainly apparent back then and it should be plainly apparent today, and yet the exact same mistake is still being made. If we just keep on doing things wrong in a blindly aggressive manner then maybe one day the sheer excess of errors will magically come together somehow to produce something terrific.

 

We've talked about it countless times. 'Spaces for the sake of spaces" is a faulty philosophy. One or two good spaces in the right places are worth infinitely more than 10 or 20 crappy ones scattered throughout.

 

Daily Colonist
November 21, 1963

Solid Effort Praised

 

"Too many of our buildings are just plunked right on the sidewalks without any OPEN SPACE."

(aastra steps away briefly to vomit. Why are Victoria's streetscapes so Victorian? We need to fix that.)

Edited by aastra, 04 May 2022 - 12:24 PM.

[aastra]

 

If we just keep on doing things wrong in a blindly aggressive manner then maybe one day the sheer excess of errors will magically come together somehow to produce something terrific.

 

And when it happens we'll all be able to pat ourselves on the back for how we re-invented Victoria.

 

But wait... why did Victoria need to be re-invented in the first place?

 

Duh! Because we love it so much! We love it and that's why we wanted it to be less like sucky old Victoria and more like suburban Calgary or Toronto.

[Mike K.]

‘Pleasantly intimate urban feel turf’ would make a great name for the grass at the Empress, the Ledge, the lawn bowling field, St Anne’s, the Cathedral, Pioneer Square, Harris Green and Reeson Park.

Where are these intimate spaces? Not at public plazas, I hope. Victorians like their hidden alleys, and congregate in walkways. Open space? Forget it. We’re a city of intimate hiding spaces, so nevermind the acres of open space in Old Town. That’s all just temporary.

[Nparker]

...'Spaces for the sake of spaces" is a faulty philosophy. One or two good spaces in the right places are worth infinitely more than 10 or 20 crappy ones scattered throughout....

Many wrongs apparently can make a right.

[Mike K.]

I say that about the failed mid-block walkways, but you guys defend them.

Old Town has acres of open space, and plazas, but no, we’re a downtown of intimate spaces.

D’Ambrosio builds a plaza at 1515 Douglas, everyone cheers. MCMP wants a plaza at Douglas and Caledonia, everyone jeers. Diamond Schmitt wants a plaza at the Telus on Douglas, everyone cheers again.

[aastra]

The other thing that needs to be considered is the flow of people. Sincerely and honestly think about the actual number of people that would be going through a space. Don't just say, "There are some new condo units and a few offices, so therefore we can surely expect mobs of people 24 hours per day." Planners and developers seem to get this wrong everywhere, but in Victoria the misjudgement is becoming its own sub-genre of urban development theory. The Y-lot square, the old square between Pandora and Cormorant, the passages on 800-block Yates, Centennial Square itself...

[aastra]

 

D’Ambrosio builds a plaza at 1515 Douglas

 

I raised no end of concerns about it, especially its first incarnation.

[Mike K.]

Did you just call walkways “passages?” What are we now, a city of secret escape routes?

[aastra]

 

I say that about the failed mid-block walkways, but you guys defend them.

 

Dude, all the time I say do the mid-block passages right or don't do them at all. Years ago at the inaugural VV summer bocce event I was wearing a t-shirt that said as much. (on the first day... I wore a different message for each of the three days)

[Nparker]

...D’Ambrosio builds a plaza at 1515 Douglas, everyone cheers....

Who cheered about that?

[aastra]

 

Did you just call walkways “passages?” What are we now, a city of secret escape routes?

 

Did you know this forum has a search function? Search for "passage" in posts where I'm the author. Also, welcome to VV!

[Mike K.]

So the 1515 Douglas Plaza is fine, then? Do we need to check with Victoria Urbanism Twitter just to make sure?

Bastion Square isn’t cancelled yet, is it? We can still enjoy that, and not pretend to not like it?

I mean everyone raved when they closed Government Street and celebrated people sitting on chairs, on Government, drinking coffee. And no, it wasn’t the same when people were sitting on Government drinking coffee on Streetview in 2011, the 2021 version was so much more urban looking.

[Nparker]

...I mean everyone raved when they closed Government Street and celebrated people sitting on chairs, on Government, drinking coffee...

Did they? I didn't.

[Mike K.]

You’re not part of Victoria Urban or Housing Twitter.

[Kapten Kapsell]

Plans have been submitted for the supportive housing component of this project (along Discovery St., immediately to the north).

 

[Victoria Watcher]

That looks alright.  Of course there is a person on a bike coming down the hill.  Not that a person on a bike has ever gone down that route.   Or has there ever been 8 people on that same block at once, short of a concert or game letting out at the arena.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 10 May 2022 - 11:23 AM.

[Nparker]

It looks like a cross between the new parts of Royal Jubilee Hospital and a prison.

I do love how Discovery Street has been transformed into a park though.