PROBING INTO NORTH AMERICAN & CANADIAN URBAN PARKS PLANNING

Ideas | Blog

THE AUTHOR/PHOTOGRAPHY: CHAGN YU

1, The Activieties Of The Park

Vancouver Stanley Park, Montreal Mount-Royal Park, New York Central Park are although dominated by large though trees, emphasizing its ecosystems and inclusiveness, at the same time providing a large amount of participated supporting facilities and activities. Different from many domestic park construction, dominated by greening and visual landscapes. The lacks of participation of parks, considerations of activity items bring a huge park input, while with lack of popularity.

Based on the original basis of pastoral style, Central Park in New York added on the amount of activities, including sports venues, skiing, skating rink, lookout towers, mineral water fountain, fabricated cottage cottage, wind lyre, Indian handicrafts shop, three-wheel car, children cars, skis, ice breakers, business scale and so on. This makes the Central Park perennial attract a large number of residents and visitors.

The world famous STANLEY park is only fifteen minutes walk away from Vancouver. Around the waterfront trail of the park, attracting countless people biking, running, roller skating and pedestrians. The park has beaches, lakes, amusement parks and picnic sites. In the Stanley Park, in addition to cute raccoons often seen, there is a zoo and Vancouver Aquarium. Founded in 1956, the Vancouver Aquarium is Canadian largest aquarium, planting a large number of Amazon tropical plants. It will hold environmental protection and animal protection education programs for children, with entertainment in education, which is very popular with children and parents.

Toronto waterfront park is not only a green park, it provided sufficient experienced participation activities, including two distinctive artificial beaches, nine waves-like waterfront decks, play pools both can be used in summer & winter, and the rich water projects added make the participation of the waterfront activities greatly enhanced. At the same time, in the large lawn, different types of festivals can be organized in summer, increasing some temporary facilities, so that residents and tourists are well drawn to the waterfront space, which greatly increased the popularity of the park, and the whole city becomes the most vibrant region.

2, Incorporation Of Parks And Urban Development

Toronto City Hall was determined to initiate the overall transformation of 10 kms long waterfront, forming the public leisure landscape belt really used by human beings. When enhancing the experience and participation of waterfront park programs, at the same time the Toronto government plans to set about from the  surrounding development, greatly enhancing the vitalities.

Enhancing the accessibilities of waterfront. Historically waterfront road is mainly the traffic road, there is a certain degree of difficulty crossing it. It planned to make a traffic separation on the road, changing the original two-way 6 lane to a single 2 lane, and added another streetcar line, other space transformations for the bicycle lanes and pedestrian. This allows people to cross and boot from from urban areas to the waterfront more easily, while making the urban fabric extending to the waterfront, and the tram & bicycles greatly enhances the accessibility of non motor vehicles.

Peripheral development control.  In addition, focusing on the while control of the developments along the waterfront belts. First of all, emphasizing on creative commercial sex public projects in commercial, avoiding the waterfront space privatization. And giving strict definition of private development and public space constructions, but also blurring the boundaries between architectural space of private development and waterfront park of public development, integrating them together. In the design requirements, not only limiting the height of the building, but also requesting to guarantee a certain length of the façade, to ensure the continuity of waterfront walk interface.

3, The Commemorative Cultural Park

Located at the foot of Petronas Twin Towers in the former World Trade Center , the 911 National Memorial Hall covers an area of more than 3square meters, which built the crater left in the Petronas Twin Towers into square pool of 6 meters deep and 4000 square meters, composing the huge square waterfall pool-currently the largest artificial waterfall in the United States. The surrounded artificial waterfalls eventually join pool central abyss. Periphery of the pool  engraved the victims names in New York City, Pennsylvania, Prefecture and  the world trade bombing in 1993. 225 trees planted around the waterfront pool, including one pear tree survived in the 911 event, nowadays, it is growing in a piece of white oak forest (the oak tree is the country tree in USA), the solemn atmosphere makes people feel strongly miss for the dead and the hope of rebirth.

The park retained the pit of the twin towers. Just as the 911National Memorial Museum curator Jo Daniels described it: this memorial will make people feel a strong shock, because this kind of vanity and lost is peoples true feeling who experienced the event. Of course, it also symbolizes the disappearance of the two buildings is a emotion reflection just when people see the scenes.

This example lets us understand that, cultural Memorial Park covers an area which maybe not too big, the cost does not need luxury, not necessarily having outstanding sculpture or slogans. But it needs to grasp the core of the Memorial park tightly. And often the conceptualizing of landscape processing can bring astonishing mind blast and solemn atmosphere for people. While the names of the victims engraved at the periphery of the pool can highlight the respect for individuals life.