Plan

Alhasan
Karen
October

210-001
Barzak 20617347
Hammond
2nd, 2016

Contents

Analysis
Figure 0.1

Analysis 3
Project Overview 4
Location/Dimensions 4
Designer/Developer 4
Important Dates 4
Significance 4

Site Features 5
Uses and Activities 5
Walls and Landforms 6
Planting 7
Water Features 8
Paving 9

Site Improvements 10
Before Alterations 10
After Alterations 11

II | Table of Contents

Figure 0.2

Parks Success Transferable

Ideas

The Village of Yorkville
Park is a success because
of its location, aesthetics and
functionality. The park is located
in Yorkville, Toronto, in an area
surrounded by local businesses
and near a subway station. This
area will always bring high levels of pedestrian traffic, though
if it werent for the parks aesthetics and functional design
visitors would only use it for interactions that needed to take
place. On the contrary however,
many pedestrians willingly travel
through the park and use the
space for optional social interactions as well. Its vegetation
displays are inviting and numerous walkways connect parallel streets, giving pedestrians
through movement. This park is
appreciated by many on a daily
basis and with its design theres
no surprise why.

There are a number of
design features that could reasonably be transferred to the
UW East Campus Hub. Some
of the vegetation attractions
would make excellent pieces
at building entrances, as well
as a good combat to the large
paved surface area. The manner in which trees are planted
amongst the concrete in the
Pine Grove would be a good
solution to adding tree vegetation on the concrete bed of East
Campus Hub. An image of the
Pine Grove is found on figure
1.7 on page 5.

Non-Transferable Ideas

The more extravagant
site features would not be feasible to transfer to the UW East
Campus Hub. Displays such as
The Rock and Clearance Fountain are extremely remarkable,
and defining features of the Village of Yorkville park, however
could not be rationally justified
in the context of a university
campus. The scale of these
displays, with limited functionality to University students and
faculty members do not justify
the enormous costs they have.
Construction of the park costed
an estimated $2.7 million (Andrighetti, 1994)

Analysis

Project Overview

Figure 0.3

Location/Dimensions
Yorkville, Toronto, ON
Cumberland Street and Bellair Street1
150m x 30m2

Designer/Developer
Designed by Oleson Worland Architects in association with Martha Schwartz, Ken Smith, David Meyer Landscape Architects.1
Public park, owned by the city of Toronto1

Important Dates
1973, City announced its plans to build a park on this site1
1991, Design competition was held1
1994, Parks completion and grand opening1

Significance

A strip of Victorian row houses needed to be demolished in the
1950s to make space for the Bloor subway line on the land that now occupies the park. Residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods vocalized
their desire for a park and in 1973 the City of Toronto announced they
would grant these citizens their wish. Some key features of the Village of
Yorkville park exist to pay homage to the Victorian Row houses the land
its built on used to hold1.

Figure 0.4

1. City of Toronto Featured Parks http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=5c39dada600f

0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
2. Map image and dimension data sourced from tools offered by Google Maps. https://www.google.ca/
maps?source=tldso
Figure 0.4 Image source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/20/12/88/2012889a3307959
27dbda0b6a76b67c8.jpg

Site Features

Uses and Activities

Figure 1.1

The Village of Yorkville Park is divided into 11 sections each representing a different Canadian
landscape. The dividing lines between section are placed on the property lines of the original Victorian row houses which existed 65 years ago. These geometrically defined areas of vegetation are interactive, museum-like elements (City of Toronto Parks, n.d.). This provides the park with many uses.
It is an area for the public to appreciate the landscape, a casual place for people to enjoy their lunch,
as well as walkways that connect parallel roads providing functional through traffic. There are also
plentiful seating arrangements, ideal for members of the public to relax and appreciate the green architecture and beauty of the site.

The Victorian row houses that used to occupy this site
had open frontages that functioned as both social spaces
and movement spaces. This
park serves similar functions,
offering an area for people to
interact and travel where they
need to go with the numerous
walkways. Figure 1.2 depicts
the park graphically and seperates each section of vegetation
over the original property lines
as well as walkthroughs and
other site features. The above
banner, figure 1.1, is an aerial
image of the park.

Figure 1.2

Site Features

Planting
Figure 1.3

Figure 1.3

Walls and Landforms

Figure 1.4

Figure 1.7

Site Features

Figure 1.6

The most prominent site feature in the Village of Yorkville Park is the large granite rock.
To many, this is the parks primary source of
identification. The Rock is approximately 1 billion years old and weighs 650 tonnes (City of
Toronto Parks, n.d.). This site feature represents
the roots of an ancient mountain range which
has unfortunately now eroded. In order to transport the rock to the site it needed to be removed
in pieces from the Canadian Shield to Toronto,
utilizing 20 flatbed trailers. The Rock has numerous creases that can be functioned as
seating arrangements and is a favourite
meeting place among many. The Rock
was the most costly attraction, claiming most of the up the majority of
the $2.7 million budged (Andrighetti, 1994).

Figure 1.5

The VIllage of Yorkville

Park features an extremely elaborate set
of vegetation meant to
reflect Canadas diverse
natural landscape. Figure 1.5 is a diagram
representation of the
parks designated sections for vegetation from an above viewpoint as
well as an elevation view.

The Amelanchier Grove, shown to the right
of The Rock in the above banner of figure 1.3,
features a strip of native shadblow serviceberry
trees within a bed of ferns as well as Virginia
bluebells and white trillium (Oberdorf, 1994).

The Herbaceous Border Garden hosts a
multitude of plants including the flowering dogwood, hosta, daylily and astilbe.

The Prairie Wildflower Gardens, depicted in
figure 1.6, feature prairie grasses and wildflowers.
Many of the plants found here are representative
of plant species native to Ontario, Manitoba
and Saskatchewan (Oberdorf, 1994).

The Pine Grove presents anarray of
Scots pines with dynamic lighting attempting to recreate an early morning atmosphere found in evergreen forests.
Close ups of pines in the grove can
be seen in figure 1.7 (City of Toronto Parks, n.d.).

Site Features

Water Features
Paving
Figure 1.8

A focal point of the Village of Yorkville
park is its signature fountain. The Canadian
Shield Clearance and Fountain is constructed
of a steel frame and serves different functions
between seasons. In the spring and summer, it
shoots water downward from the top crossbar,
emulating a waterfall as it appears in figure 1.8.
This adds to the natural atmosphere and the
noise created by passing water creates soothing
sounds which remove users from the presence
of the city (Oberdorf, 1994).. This is a challenging task as the park is enclosed by roads and
businesses which invite lots of traffic.

In the winter months, this system functions as an icicle fountain, as it appears in
figure 1.9 (Andrighetti, 1994). During this
time period, the park loses most of its vegetation, which are some of the parks most
defining character pieces, and the icicle
fountain is one of the few remaining focal features. This makes it an even
more central attraction as the park
has fewer other ways to entertain
its visitors.

Site Features

Figure 1.10

The Village of Yorkville Park creatively deploys its use of paved pathways to turn something
that is human-made, and not found in nature, to
something that celebrates wildlife and Canadas
natural features, much like the rest of the park.
At the Festival Walk, depicted in figure 1.10, an
arbour planted with purple clematis, red honeysuckle and white silverlace vines can be found
(Brown, w). Travelling this walkway when the
vines are at their fullest hinders visitors abilities to
see high rises surrounding the park, taking them
one step away from the presence of the city.
These vines, which twine and climb the walkways
structure offer excellent visual appeal during the
spring, summer and autumn months. The paving
of this walkway was designed with a pattern that
resembles an extended film strip (Landscape
Voice, 2012). This was done in recognition
of Yorkvilles role within the Toronto International Film Festival. This floor pattern
is displayed
in figure 1.11.

Figure 1.9

Figure 1.11

Site Features

Site Improvements
Before Alterations

Figure 2.1

After Alterations
Figure 2.0

Site Alterations

This unaltered photo of
the park features two vegetation
patches, a concrete sidewalk
and a center wooden boardwalk. These pathways lead to a
street, providing visitors an easy
access in and out of the park.

The alterations made to this photo of the
site include 3 people, 3 trees, 3 lamp posts and
2 plants. The 3 trees are found in the center
grass patch, the last one may be more difficult to
spot because it is behind the first two. 2 of the 3
people are found on the right hand side, looking
up at the sky, and the last person is standing on
the wooden pathway on the left. The 3 lightposts
are stationed on the left curb of the wooden
pathway. The 2 plants, in the form of floor vines
are also found on the center boardwalk.

Site Alterations

Library Meeting: Thursday September 22nd 11:30 drop in session

References
Andrighetti, R. (1994, August). Village of Yorkville Park, Toronto. The Canadian Architect.

Retrieved from http://searchproquest.com/dcview/881737772?rfr_id=info:xri/sid:primo
Brown, S. (2014, May). Reading Meaning in Designed Landscapes. University of Guelph.

Retrieved from https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/bitstreamhandle/10214/8043BrowSaa
h_201405_MLA.pdf?sequence=1.
City of Toronto, Featured Parks, Village of Yorkville Park. (n.d.). Village of Yorkville Park - Featured

Parks - Parks & Trails | City of Toronto. Retrieved October 02, 2016, from http://www1.

toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=5c39dada600f0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89
RCRD
Oberdorf, C. (1994, August 13). Village of Yorkville Park has many faces and places: [SA2 Edi
tion]. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/437070943?rfr_
id=info:xri/sid:primo
The Village of Yorkville Park Landscape Voice. (2012, March 09). Retrieved October 02, 2016,

from http://landscapevoice.com/the-village-of-yorkville-park/
End Notes
1. City of Toronto Featured Parks http://www1.
toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=5
c39dada600f0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RC
RD
2. Map image and dimension data sourced
from tools offered by Google Maps. https://
www.google.ca/maps?source=tldso
Images
Figure 0.1 - http://mom.girlstalkinsmack.com/
image/062012/Greenspaces_5.jpg
Figure 0.2 - http://www1.toronto.ca/parks/
img/319/1.jpg
Figure 0.3 - https://www.google.ca/
maps?source=tldso
Figure 1.1 - https://www.asla.org/2012awards/
images/largescale/034_02.jpg
Figure 1.2 - https://www.asla.org/2012awards/
images/largescale/034_01.jpg
Figure 1.3 - http://landscapevoice.com/
the-village-of-yorkville-park.jpg
Figure 1.4 - http://1.bp.blogspot.
com/-i188rK313zs/T3EfYEBE-pI/
AAAAAAAAAc0/gjkz5zvX4cw/s1600/
CanadianShield.jpg

10

References

Figure 1.5 - https://www.asla.org/2012awards/

images/largescale/034_01.jpg
Figure 1.6 - http://landscapevoice.com/thevillage-of-yorkville-park.jpg
Figure 1.7 - http://landscapevoice.com/thevillage-of-yorkville-park.jpg
Figure 1.8 - http://static.wixstatic.com/media/
c33ee4_3a8a7cdbd1ee4706a305eb80d7470
fe7.jpg_srz_1903_1360_85_22_0.50_1.20_0.0
0_jpg_srz
Figure 1.9 - https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3125/
3244178254_5ff502192a_b.jpg
Figure 1.10 - https://seasonsofyorkville.files.
wordpress.com/2012/10/dsc_1143.jpg
Figure 1.11 - http://farm9.staticflickr.
com/8459/7940784132_dce9ed0e5e_b.jpg
Figure 2.0 - http://www1.toronto.ca/City%20
Of%20Toronto/Parks%20Forestry%20&%20
Recreation/Images/Slide%20Show/yorkville/4_
featured_530wide.jpg
Title Page Image 1 - http://bloor-yorkville.com/
wp-content/uploads/cache/images/Picks-15/
Picks-15-1027867700.jpg?6a91f4
Title Page Image 2 - http://1.bp.blogspot.com/jRiRFalsdOY/Tlr2kPk4cKI/AAAAAAAAMis/AsX3QXlhSrA/s1600/DSC_8242%2Bcopy.jpg
Title Page Image 3 - http://www.artonfile.com/
images/LAIII-06-09-04.jpg
Title Page Image 4 - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/T1YmfRPxVqQ/Tlr2l2q8XCI/AAAAAAAAMkM/
DaKay55wYT0/s400/DSC_8101%2Bcopy.jpg