We want to thank you! Because of your involvement, we
collected over 1000 comments that described what you wanted to experience at
The Junction, the site for the new Library/Art Gallery and Convention/Performance Centre. Centreline Design and Cumulus Architects have created an
integrated site design that reflects all of your feedback. Key themes included
design, parking, location, programs and entertainment, walk ability, shops,
roadways, Sudbury history, hotel development, transit/shuttle. So, what do you
think of the preliminary scenario?<div>
<img src="https://s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/ehq-production-canada/redactor_assets/assets/01004c63e7c0679f2edc5711dc6823f04ba84094/000/006/916/original/Picture1_with_tags.jpg?1532005541" alt="Integrated Site Design Scenario" style="float: none; margin: 0px;">
 
</div>

Integrated Site Design

I was too late to comment so I'm adding ideas here. This site design feels to me like a heroic 60's urban plan dressed up with some some contemporary aesthetics. Did the architects even walk our streets to understand the fragile and charming character of Elgin? It's the only stretch that works in the area and they just ignored those strengths. In this new scheme, small scale activities and street level programming have been obliterated for a cold, abstract urban design gesture that just dominates the area. 

I'm not sure another vast open public space and monolithic, daytime single-use buildings with no evening life will improve the economy of our downtown in the way we need it to. A library and an art gallery are pretty quiet places. Not urban generators. 

Also, breaking away from the established, strong street edge of a historic street is rarely a success in a winter city. Look 500 feet north for proof. Who wants to spend time anywhere near the blank street edges of Tom Davies Square? It's awful in every direction and this new scheme seems to be a tarted up version of those failed modernist ideas. 

We should learn from our mistakes - a big architectural gesture and bleak, unprogrammed outdoor spaces do nothing good for urban life. We need more --not less-- fine grain activity at street level, and a much more complex mix of uses, day and night, on all perimeters. A library and art gallery are wonderful but they are not economic drivers at the scale we need here.

The hotel atop the convention centre is a good start but that base building will only be used for big events, so it will likely end up as yet another blunt street wall - designed for security not street life - with nominal permeable edges and openings. Why not continue that tall mixed-use strategy for the entire site, with 5-6 storeys of residential above the art gallery and library, with stores on the street edges. Build out to the edges with commercial uses and connect to the existing Memorial park in a nicer way. Density and carefully scaled development is the only way to save this fragile downtown at this point. 

The site is too huge to be defined by such a totalizing urban scheme. I'm guessing the designers spent more time staring at their screens than on the site observing people and feeling what works already. The most interesting existing bits of street life are the tiny Old Rock patio and the Townehouse entrance. Nobody wants a series of windswept modernist desert plazas anymore. I say break it up, sell it off in pieces and get a few different architects and developers to take it on and let more humble and pragmatic ideas guide the growth over coming years. The more diverse uses and designs we get, the stronger our downtown will be. 

This misses the mark completely. That's my two cents. 

Design for Winter. Street Life. Vibrant Mixes. Higher Density. 

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