EXACTLY! The artist/creator is the one who should decide what final design is, after all, it is his creative vision. The public will always water down everything.
 
interchange42 said:
Who gets to be the final arbiter on what number of dogs is the right number? "The neighbourhood says six dogs! Seven dogs would be cheesy! Eight would be certifiable!" A year later, when it's being built, people may stand around saying "we voted for one dog too few, we wish it had more dog".

The public is fickle, and to my mind it's absurd to leave this kind of thing up to a vote. Let the designer figure out how many dogs, and move on. Allowing neighbourhood associations to micro-manage these kind of things is idiotic.

42
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Agreed, in this case there was a good discussion at the public meeting and I think the end result was that the designers (Claude Cormier and Marc Halle) came to see that fewer dogs was actually better. Claude & Marc certainly have too much professional integrity to do something they felt to be unsatisfactory and I don't think anyone at the public meeting thought that they had either the right or the artistic ability to give him orders on dog numbers! There was certainly no voting on dog numbers ->
 
interchange42 said:
Who gets to be the final arbiter on what number of dogs is the right number? "The neighbourhood says six dogs! Seven dogs would be cheesy! Eight would be certifiable!" A year later, when it's being built, people may stand around saying "we voted for one dog too few, we wish it had more dog".

The public is fickle, and to my mind it's absurd to leave this kind of thing up to a vote. Let the designer figure out how many dogs, and move on. Allowing neighbourhood associations to micro-manage these kind of things is idiotic.

42
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I agree to a certain degree; That is, meddling into the design of a clearly talented architect / designer / artist can only result in a comprised final product, but at the same time, it is the local community that needs to live with the corresponding piece of work, not the artistic, so some public input is more then justified. Though I do agree by far and large public input is an almost pointless endeavor; Simply because (not in this example, but take a typical development) the people who show up at such meetings fall into the 'I do not want any changes, period, go away' category and will not listen to any counter viewpoint, a completely illogical viewpoint ...

Anyway in this context, my issue wasn't the # of dogs per say, rather I thought a typical fountain of some sort would be best (e.g. just consider what is already there), if you want to add on top of this dog sculptures that shoot out water, hopefully in a way people can interact with (I think this is key if you want to go down this route), kind of like a splash pad that would be great (Chicago's Millennium park has an example of this that would be easy to reproduce through said dogs here).
 
.....not to coin a phrase ..... but this thread has now 'gone to the dogs'.....
 
To be accurate to Toronto's downtown condo/co-op appropriate dog population, I hope the dogs are all pugs, weiner dogs and shih tzus.
 
As a resident of the neighbourhood (and one whose dog walks there almost every morning) I like this design a lot, dogs included.

As to breeds in the hood, there are all kinds of big dogs around: greyhounds, sheepdogs, great Danes, boxers, labs, Bernese mountain dogs, you name it. Lots of big dogs are good apartment dogs.
 
I noticed this morning that surveyors had been around yesterday, staking and marking for the Berczy Park rebuild (mods, feel free to move this if there is a separate Berczy Park thread I couldn't find).
 
Ryan_T said:
Love the dog fountain.

Good to hear they're calming Scott st. too.
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Unless I missed it, there's something I'm not clear on.
Is Scott Street being re done just beside the park or will it be finished right down to The Esplanade to match Market Street. If so, are those horrific double height shipping container dressing rooms beside the Sony Centre getting taken down to help facilitate in the re-hab of the street?
 
Granny said:
Unless I missed it, there's something I'm not clear on.
Is Scott Street being re done just beside the park or will it be finished right down to The Esplanade to match Market Street. If so, are those horrific double height shipping container dressing rooms beside the Sony Centre getting taken down to help facilitate in the re-hab of the street?
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When Berczy park is redone (August 2014-May 2015) the City will also fix up Scott between Front and Wellington. "Traffic calming" will be installed (access fully maintained to garage) and apparently lights at Scott and Front. The street will end up looking a bit like the new part of Market Street. Cost partly being paid from Section 37 funds from 88 Scott.
When L-Tower and Backstage are finished the section of Scott SOUTH of Front (and the section of The Esplanade from Scott to Yonge) will be fixed up but no firm planned yet on how, as far as I know. This will include an already approved traffic light at Yonge and The Esplanade) Costs partly paid from Section 37 funds from L-Tower and Backstage.
 
The refurbishment of this park is terrific news! As for dogs in the fountain? Ok, why not? Sometimes it's something quirky such as this that over time becomes beloved. I can imagine generations of kids growing up in the city and taking their kids to go see the dogs in the fountain…

As for the park design itself the only element i'm questioning a little is the grassy mound area. This is such an intensely urban park and so why the need for the grass? I could see an area of wrought iron tables and chairs working nicely, people sitting with coffee and reading their iPads...
 
err, it'll take a whole year for Berczy park ?? Just start now already : - ) and be done by summer !
 
taal said:
err, it'll take a whole year for Berczy park ?? Just start now already : - ) and be done by summer !
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It's a VERY big project involving removing most of the existing soil, creating proper tree pits, a new fountain, new drainage, new lights, lots of new trees and a much nicer "piazza". The detailed plans are not yet finished but the City has just put out pre-qualification tender call. The park is used most in summer and the intention is to keep park open until late summer this year and the work is supposed to be completed by early summer 2015 (certainly for the Pan-Am Games). Even if everyone agree to close it "now" the work cannot start until late August this year as the detailed plans are not yet made, the actual construction tender has not yet been posted/awarded and there are events planned (World Pride etc) this summer.
 
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