This project for Downtown Oakville was completed as a senior study project at the University of Waterloo. The goal was to inspire the Town of Oakville to re-imagine their Downtown as an even better and more successful place. It consists of a Public Realm Vision that enhances the existing street network, open spaces and builds on the strong identity of Downtown Oakville. The framework was presented by the team to a room full of Oakville staff in April 15, and the report contains the content from that presentation. You can download both by clicking on the images below.

I was privileged to work with Ryan Felix, Meaghan Mendonca, Matt Perotto, and Graeme Ruck on the project. The team acted as a consultant for Oakville, so this project was much more similar to a real-life urban design study than typical student project, requiring creativity, flexibility, and communication. We worked closely with urban designers at the Town of Oakville, including Gabe Charles and Kirk Biggar, under the guidance of our professor of urban design, Karen Hammond. We all enjoyed doing the project!

Lakeshore Rd. & George St., illustrating how our vision could be applied to George Street to create a new public space that will transform the pedestrian environment and the way people think about Downtown.

Our vision for Lakeshore and Downtown Oakville is to enhance the streets so that they balance the needs of all street users. The streets will serve a multitude of social, recreational and ecological needs that benefit both visitors and business owners. More complex, vibrant and equitable streetscapes will better serve the needs of residents. Furthermore, it will enhance the open spaces and increase the importance of Downtown’s heritage & and preserve their character.

This photo-simulation illustrates how our vision could be applied to Lakeshore Road to improve the pedestrian environment.

There are opportunities to create new open spaces in Downtown. One space in particular that holds great potential is the former Post Office lot at Randall and George St. Here, we have proposed the new 16 Mile Square. 16 Mile Square would provide a new, engaging destination that highlights the presence and importance of 16 Mile Creek in Oakville. It would allow for the reanimation of the Post Office building with public uses, restaurants, shops, or services and strengthen the pedestrian network in Downtown.

Seaton Community on the Map at DSEA Conference

Making a Sustainable Community Happen, the theme of a conference hosted by the Durham Strategic Energy Alliance (DSEA), put the City of Pickering’s Seaton Community on the map with a first-ever student competition that challenged university and college students to design a neighbourhood within the community.

The new, sustainable urban community in Central Pickering is currently in the planning stages. Upon initial build-out, 35,000 people will work in Seaton and up to 70,000 people will call it home. More than half of Seaton’s 3,000 hectares will remain in their natural state.

As part of the competition, teams from across the province were required to consider numerous aspects of new community development, including the environment, urban design, housing, energy and conservation.

DSEA student competition winners Urban Marvel with Dan McGillvary of the Ontario Centres of Excellence and Ursula Hatherly of the Royal Bank of Canada, both competition sponsors.

Urban Marvel, made up of planning students from the University of Waterloo, was awarded first place. “The team received top marks in a few of the main categories, including its final presentation, which captured the imagination and admiration of the judging panel and audience,” says Mark Guinto, a judge from the City of Pickering.

The third annual conference, held October 12 and 13, explored ownership, partnership and financial models for designing and building the community of the future. It also examined elements from building technology, water and waste management, and energy and transportation solutions. Keynote speakers included Wayne Robbins Chief Nuclear Officer, Ontario Power Generation. The City of Pickering was a proud breakfast sponsor.

DSEA (www.dsea.ca) is a non-profit organization comprised of business, government and educational institutions working together for the advancement of energy initiatives. It’s addressing the energy challenges facing Ontario and Canada by being an active participant in the global quest for clean, affordable energy solutions.

The DSEA 2010 Chairperson Award was presented to Warren Beacom, President of Intellimeter Canada Inc. The award acknowledges his commitment to the DSEA on a national and international level, as well as his vision and leadership in the energy sector – from research to product development in renewable energy projects such as wind and solar.

Intellimeter Canada is an accredited meter testing, sealing and re-testing facility – a certification typically reserved for much larger corporations and public utilities. Congratulations!

In October, I participated in a great urban design competition with team Urban Marvel: Ryan Felix, Matt Perotto, Graeme Ruck, and myself, Jeremy Krygsman. Through, hard work, dedication, unique ideas, and a great presentation, we received the first place award in the competition.

The City Of Pickering is a rapidly growing metropolitan region on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Throughout the years,suburban growth has created unsustainable development, deteriorating livability, creating traffic problems, and damaging the environment. Our vision is to transform the town of Seaton into a sustainable, mixed used, urban village, integrating parks, institutions, and open spaces. This will expand the City Of Pickering’s capacity for urban living, employment and recreation.

Our Seaton Vision will achieve sustainability by creating a town that is centred on a compact urban area of mixed uses and exciting activity. Upon completion, our proposed development will support 16,000 jobs and 10,000 residents while consuming only 50% of available land.

Public spaces are designed to meld seamlessly with private spaces to facilitate social networking, civic engagement and physical activity. Building heights of three to 12 storeys will create urban ambiance. Street frontages are active and permeable, facilitating commerce and social activity with tree-lined streets that will encourage walking, bicycling, and transit use. The transportation system will connect people using multi-modal transportation to the rest of the Seaton development and the Greater Toronto Area.

Industrial and employment lands for green technology will be integrated into the urban fabric, always within walking distance of a transit corridor, shops, and restaurants. Large agricultural lands are preserved to protect precious farmland, and conserve native plants, wildlife habitat, and wetlands.

The town’s compact form is rooted in the surrounding environment, and strongly woven together with a densely walkable street network. Without this solid foundation in design, any additional sustainable technology would be an illusion.

Site drainage will use existing stream systems to clean water and slow runoff within natural environments. These forested areas will also clean the air, provide recreation spaces, and preserve animal habitats.

Pedestrian walkways complete the grid in some areas to create direct, accessible routes, complemented by an extensive, interconnected park and open space system.

Urban Marvel’s goal for the Seaton community is to create a place that sets the precedent for new development in Ontario.

Team Urban Marvel: Ryan Felix, Matt Perotto, Graeme Ruck, and Jeremy Krygsman

Green Motion City
This urban design project was an entry for the Incheon Urban Design Completition. It was designed by me and my friends Ryan Felix, Jiffy Lee, and Meaghan Mendonca, over a few months in early summer 2009. Below the fold is a series of images from the display panel, formatted to fit your screen. Enjoy!

Alliance Tower is a premier office tower design conceived in 2006 when I sketched the concept on a peice of paper in one of my high school classes. I even made a quick model then, but this summer, I decided to test my 3d Studio skills and turn it into a real architectural visualization.

The tower is 42 stories and 144m high. It features a three storey, circular lift hall sheathed in glass, with a radiant pattern of light wells to fully naturally illuminate the interior of the space. The spire tapers geometrically, inspired by the layers and petals of a flower. Most of the usable floor space is within a few metres of a window, with great views from any spot in the tower.

I learned a couple cool things while doing this project. Number 1, glass curtain walls look great in the model when all the hardware (support lattice, etc) is included. Number 2, it is hard to get a good feel for the services (elevators/stairs) needed for the tower; I think I may have overdone the number of elevators.

Belmont Village: The Movie may not be coming to theatres near you soon, but it is a story that will touch your heart (if you like city planning, that is). It is a story about the agonizing decline of a well-known commercial strip near downtown Kitchener, now transformed into a glittering urban district. Experience the soaring, eco-industrial space of the Atrium, and the unique shapes of the Convex and Concave parks… you can see it all here in the A Digital City presentation of Belmont Village: This City has Curves.

Published March 15, 2009, and featuring the design and contributions of the TwoTen6 Team:

Andrea Horan, Laine Watson, Scott Hindle, Jeremy Krygsman, Joyce Chong, Katja Sostaric

This work was completed as part of the Plan, Design, and the Environment class at the University of Waterloo. The purpose was to take a declining commercial strip in Kitchener and redesign it into a vibrant, modern destination for live, work, and play. The area is designed to be dense, sustainable, and walkable, and human scale; it gives priority to people, not the car. I (Jeremy Krygsman) did the 3D modeling (including video creation) in 3ds Max. Additionally, I put together the display panels as in Photoshop with the help of Joyce Chong and the input of the rest of the TwoTen6 group.

Need I say more? Go check it out!

[above] The original version of this image was printed as as a presentation panel for our site analysis. The layout and graphics, as well as the “Timeline” section, were done in Adobe Photoshop, and the rest of the content was contributed by the team.

[below] The following 3d models were done by me in 3dsMAX based on the designs ideas of the team. They are currently a work in progress.