[evandyk]

We don't go often because it's all the way across the city for us, and I'm sure it could be better, but we sometimes meet friends from the west end there and everybody always likes it. Could use more seating, as always!

Though if we're going to that area with kids, we'll probably suggest Roundhouse (which has trains, a nice little playground, and a beautiful setting between the CN Tower, Skydome, and towering wall of condos to the east. Too bad about the Gardiner and the lack of seating and shade. Or go a little farther to Little Norway, where you have a nice playground and can watch the airport ferry toddling back and forth (even today when there are basically no flights). Lots of shade at Little Norway, but again... not much seating.

 

[Northern Light]

That’s true but park existence instead of industrial debris and scrap looks better in every way, I think.

I'm not accepting this, at all. If a Park is acceptable in terms of its design only because it could have been a brownfield of former industry instead, and vacant........that's lowering the bar of design.

To add, every park reflects design ideas at the time.

Sure.....and that's often a problem; people in any field of design should be expected to see beyond 'fads'; and to achieve timeless functionality and beauty.

HTO park is designated to accommodate cultural events among others. That is why its paths look excessive.

Others may have something to contribute here, but I certainly have never seen any 'cultural events' on the interior paths. Only on the dockside paths; and rarely much worth talking about. Aspiration and achievement are not the same thing.

I would say that even from top their maze is a good balance with foliage, no more no less.

We will have to disagree. The foliage (something on which I might be knowledgeable)......has multiple problems. Its not unhealthy overall; though key sections are terrible.................

But it lacks 4-season interest, and in connection with the way in which the space is laid out, leads to under-use and appreciation of about 1/2 the park.

The question is where those arts and small businesses who have to be a luring part of design to crowd the park with visitors?

Not there, because, the park isn't really large enough for them, and the interior spaces certainly aren't large enough for them.

 

[Aleksei]

Aspiration and achievement are not the same thing.

By the way, Claude Cormier and Hariri Pontarini Architects, the authors of Berczy Park and the One skyscraper respectively, are among other designers for HTO. Was it a bad day for them?

If you ask me, I count HTO as designed not so bad if compare to other parks. It is well maintained, accessible, clean, safe, has accent lighting and an interesting panoramic view all way around. Seating or lying on the grass, you can rest, read, watch people, make art (draw, paint), sleep, talk to friends, hide in a shadow. A controversial part to me is the beach. Missing washrooms are also calling questions. A beach without bathing seems to be imperfect, but the urban beach probably can be like this, having a specific designation. What I would do to facilitate the design and safety is to add a dozen Muskoka chairs at the side of the park adjacent to MGT, build permanent washrooms in the vicinity, and lower the speed limit to 40 km/h on Queen's Quay Street. Also, there is an offer to add to the park square some public arts which is might be a worthy idea. To sum up, the transition between the park and MGT looks done careless for the those who look from inside, but whether any fence solve this problem?

 

[bilked]

Rebuild of the Charles Fraser Public School playground… with a whole lot of asphalt:

 

[Northern Light]

Rebuild of the Charles Fraser Public School playground… with a whole lot of asphalt:
View attachment 371553

Tough to tell from this aerial view: (but is this significantly more paved that in was before?)

Edit to add, this Streetview from Euclid makes me think so (that there is a net increase in paved area)

 

[bilked]

Tough to tell from this aerial view: (but is this significantly more paved that in was before?)

View attachment 371554

Edit to add, this Streetview from Euclid makes me think so (that there is a net increase in paved area)

View attachment 371555

Most definitely a net increase in paved area.

 

[Northern Light]

Most definitely a net increase in paved area.

How unfortunate, and inconsistent w/TDSB policy generally.

 

[Northern Light]

A single image from me from my walk today (Dec 26, 2021), from Amsterdam Square Park.............this just irritated me.........

This Park has a feature fountain, which the City just put a tender to restore (yay!) ....

But as I'm walking past said fountain.............

Well, let's start w/the picture shall we:

So.....? What's so wrong you ask?

1) The path to the fountain is off-centre. Visually this makes no sense. the fountain itself is centred and symmetrical and therefore the best view is almost certainly on-centre. There might be an argument made for a 45 degree angle to the centre from the north and south (V-shape); though w/the way the rest of the park is laid out.......it reads as awkward.........

But what definitely does not work, in my opinion is slightly off-centre and not even with symmetrical balance! Ugh.

2) The picnic tables are absurdly located. They are a visual barrier between the primary park path and the fountain, which is the park's centerpiece. They're also directly behind a bench, which itself obstructs the view of the fountain, but also obstructs it from the picnic table! Gah!

3) The Benches beside the fountain do not match the historical period or style of the fountain, nor do they match the path to the fountain which also doesn't match the fountain. FFS

4) Oh, and you can't see from this photo, but they also have no clear view to the fountain either from the principle corner on which the park is located, or from either entrance: (additional images from Streetview)

Can you even make out eh fountain tucked way in the back? There's also no pathway from the corner. I've said this often in this thread; the Park must have a 'there', there. (this one does, the fountain);

But it then needs to invite you in, to visit the 'there'...........ideally being able to see the attraction of the park from the entrance; where that is not possible due to distance, you want an inviting entrance with a relatively direct path to the star attraction of the space..........

But no such luck here.

So how does it look from the south entrance?:

What fountain? Hell, there's barely a path...............no seating, no signage..........no flowers.................

North entrance?

While you can see the fountain here, looking from across the street, if you were pointed the direction of the park path, you would have no idea there was a nice old fountain at all.........

Nor would you see a sign with a park name, nor any feature landscaping..............

Sigh.....

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

So do you propose cutting down the trees? From what I googled, the fountain and the park have been there since 1929!

https://thislandisparkland.com/2015/05/29/a-tale-of-two-parks-glenn-gould-and-amsterdam-square/

 

[Northern Light]

So do you propose cutting down the trees? From what I googled, the fountain and the park have been there since 1929!

https://thislandisparkland.com/2015/05/29/a-tale-of-two-parks-glenn-gould-and-amsterdam-square/

No. At least that's not needed to make the biggest fix.

There are no trees in the way of a properly centred path at the fountain, with a proper treatment of said path, appropriate and well placed benches, and no picnic tables at that particular spot.

From there, there are different options to consider to improve the paths.

The existing main path should be widened somewhat......best as I can discern, if you wanted to keep it straight (ish), and/or straighten the south-east leg, only 1 tree would need to be removed, the one by the south entrance, which is a non-native, invasive
Norway Maple whose future growth is limited by its roots clearly going under the existing path.

The only disruptive idea is the centre-line (ish) trail from the corner.

In truth the fountain isn't centre-line to the corner, so there would be some awkward compromises (either you bring the path out centre-line to the fountain (but off-centre to the corner); or you have a centre line path, but it doesn't line up with the fountain.

As moving the fountain seems impractical........

You can see plausible additional pathway alignments on this photo (my drawing)

Red represents the closest to direct line of sight from the fountain, its not ideal

Blue tries to get you from the corner to a new path centred on the fountain. (a reasonable option)

Black ignores the corner and gives you the best centre-line view from the street that is possible; though that is not from the corner.

Lets look at the options from streetview:

You can see the same red and blue options as above here.

I don't think the blue adds much value, it might require the removal of one large tree, but that might be avoidable, I'd have to ground-truth it.

The Red line actually doesn't do too bad at showing you the fountain, though the approach is off-centre; again 1 tree might be at risk of removal in this scenario. From here I can't ID it or ascertain its health and didn't make note of that on my walk.

***

The Black Line path I couldn't get a well positioned pic to show from Streetview, as a streetlight pole was in the way.

Despite the optical illusion, its the tree behind the one where the black line is that would be at risk of removal in this scenario.

Again, it would require ground truthing to see how the angle would be cut, and whether it would directly encroach on an existing tree, and/or put it at risk due to proximity/root damage.

****

My overall assessment, the base improvement requires zero tree removals.

The second level of improvement requires removal of a single Norway Maple (non-native/invasive) specimen with an already limited future.

The third level (best view of the fountain from the street) is the most challenging to achieve and might not be worth the bother, most alignment options appear to put one tree at risk.

 

[Northern Light]

Time to revive this thread.........in so doing......before I start in a on a review.......if anyone has any parks they'd like me to look at..........I'm happy to take requests......... LOL

***

So let take a look at St. Andrews Playground/Park at Adelaide and Brant.

Images have already been posted by others, in other threads of the nearly complete work, but I wanted to see the space active and in bloom.

Have done so, there is much to recommend it...........but yes.........there are problems as we shall see!

Lets start at the south-east corner of the park.

Points for getting a clear, prominent entrance that leads you to the centre of the park, where the playground and seating are..........

However, there is no signage here identifying the park, that's a minus, as are the completely empty planting beds that are both weed strewn and baked into oblivion.

The seating is good, and there should be seating near a park entrance, but I disagree with the placement here, for a couple of reasons.

1) The seating blocks the view of one of the planting beds (not really an issue in their current state, but not ideal once they are planted, assuming they do it properly)

2) The benches are square in style, with straight edges, but the beds are curved, this is a mismatch of design aesthetics.

3) The bed and the grass would have benefited from the protection of the benches, had they instead lined the path into the park.

*****

You can see how rough the grass is in spots in this next image, just in from that south-east corner of the park, looking south-westerly:

Bench placement might reduce the traffic over the grass a bit, and working irrigation would help (we'll come back to that)............but overall, in seeing how this space just south of the play equipment was being used......I'm not sure grass is the right treatment for much of it.

The next image takes us to the north-east corner of the park and another disasterous planting bed with what looks to be 80% or greater attrition of the plants.

This bed was planted with several native plants, ferns and wild geraniums, amongst other things........ I think it could have worked..............the absence of irrigation is likely a partial explanation for the failure here, but with such a wet spring....

I suspect there's more to it than that. It doesn't look hugely trampled though, so I'm not sure if we're looking a bad planting technique, trampling, inadequate watering (particularly right after planting) or something else in combination here. Suffice to say an expensive re-do is in order here.

Below is an image of a few survivors from the planting bed, the aforementioned ferns and wild geranium. (along with some litter)

Now lets be a bit more positive w/these next few. Popularity is a good indicator of successful design elements.

The fellow you see off in the distance was one of 2 contractors in today working on............yes............an irrigation system.......apparently re-routing it.............(raised eyebrow.....when was it put in...........why is it being re-routed, who is paying for it?)

That explains why nothing is irrigated, which may also explain why the planting beds at the south-east corner are empty and the rest under-performing (said with just a hint of understatement)

Lets almost finish with 2 more not so-great bits........

Ummmm...........no, this is not a planting................no, ..this is not grass.............this is neglect:

And the planting bed at the south-west corner:

There is a bonus post next due to space constraints for images in this one.

 

[Northern Light]

Bonus post........from the park above...........we see that a tree had a whoopsy the other day........

These things will happen; though always be glad your not under the tree when they do!

But....but.................I had to look and see how the break occurred .............and I saw something else.............

The tree is not finished falling.............careful where you walk if you visit this space! Particularly those w/young kids!

PS, I have reported it to 311

 

[TossYourJacket]

Time to revive this thread.........in so doing......before I start in a on a review.......if anyone has any parks they'd like me to look at..........I'm happy to take requests......... LOL

If you don't mind, I'd be curious to see your thoughts on Barbara Hall Park. Mostly cus it's (A) one of my local parks, and (B) The way it wraps around the 519, and tries to fit a lot of uses in that space, is interesting to me in terms of what went well and what went poorly.

 

[evandyk]

We get to the St. Andrew playground from time to time, even though it's across town for us, because a very close friend with a toddler as well lives at King and Bathurst. It's a really nice park for people with kids - the playground stuff is good, lots of seating, and lots of coffee/pastry options nearby.

 

[evandyk]

We actually met them at the new(ish) Canoe Landing playground on the weekend. Would be interested in your views on that, since a bunch of stuff just felt off to me.

Though the ice cream from Scoop'd was pretty good. Every park should have ice cream next door.