TOWNSHIFT Suburb into City / Semiahmoo : Up
2009
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada- Planning
- Districts
- Square
''TownShift: Suburb into City'' is open an international ideas competition seeking innovative ideas for five of Surrey's established Town Centres: Guildford, Fleetwood, Cloverdale, Newton and Semiahmoo. The aim of the competition is to ''Shift'' thinking and opportunities for each of these ''Town'' hubs towards more intense, public-minded and productive urban futures. Approved by the Architectural Institute of British Columbia, this competition is proposed in order to generate innovative new thinking about suburbs transforming towards sustainability in an era of increasingly expensive energy. TownShift has been conceived to open up debate and communicate design ideas amongst the general public and city-building professions, and we hope its results will shape this rapidly-evolving city for decades to come. Indeed, the civic slogan proudly displayed on Surrey's new urban brand is ''The Future Lives Here.''
Semiahmoo: Up
Forming Plaza through Residential Towers
The Challenge
Semiahmoo is one of the longest-established retail nodes in South Surrey. It is located immediately adjacent to the City of White Rock, a long-established and affluent portion of Surrey that formed its own municipality, after a public vote several decades ago. Semiahmoo's geographical position creates a particular set of identity and place issues. Going down to the sea from Highway 99 along the major arterial of 152nd Street, only a small sign and a change of road design standards indicates that one has passed from Surrey into White Rock. Even local residents have difficulty identifying where one municipality ends and the other begins.
Semiahmoo also faces a changing retail landscape, with many 'big box' and national chain stores migrating to the rapidly expanding Grandview Crossing area east of Highway 99, already South Surrey's largest retail concentration. Improvement of the public realm and an increased density and range of housing choice is crucial to Semiahmoo's setting its own vital character, a future and identity separate from both White Rock and Grandview Crossing.
The Charge to Designers
For TownShift proposals, we are requiring a housing density matched nowhere else in Surrey, save for small portions of Central City. The thesis to be tested here is whether high rise residential construction can be humanized through considered design, revenues from these discretionary increased densities funding a long-overdue public amenity-a Semiahmoo Town Centre Plaza. High rise residential and new public square will together form a desirable gateway into what will become a more and more pedestrian-oriented zone of South Surrey. Density together with amenity will make a sustainable lifestyle a reality here.
We are mandating Semiahmoo's first downtown public square along 152nd St., but also ask for proposals on how to temper this busy arterial itself-through plantings, bikeways, traffic management or other strategies. This is a high profile hilltop site near existing housing, so a palette of materials and forms is needed to acknowledge this building as an icon visible from afar, but also nurturing of the spaces around its base. Vancouver's trademark tower and podium building typology is neither required nor discouraged for this site-use your own intuition on issues of architectural expression and form, and be bold and playful, qualities this corner of Surrey could use.
(From competition documentation)
Semiahmoo: Up
Forming Plaza through Residential Towers
The Challenge
Semiahmoo is one of the longest-established retail nodes in South Surrey. It is located immediately adjacent to the City of White Rock, a long-established and affluent portion of Surrey that formed its own municipality, after a public vote several decades ago. Semiahmoo's geographical position creates a particular set of identity and place issues. Going down to the sea from Highway 99 along the major arterial of 152nd Street, only a small sign and a change of road design standards indicates that one has passed from Surrey into White Rock. Even local residents have difficulty identifying where one municipality ends and the other begins.
Semiahmoo also faces a changing retail landscape, with many 'big box' and national chain stores migrating to the rapidly expanding Grandview Crossing area east of Highway 99, already South Surrey's largest retail concentration. Improvement of the public realm and an increased density and range of housing choice is crucial to Semiahmoo's setting its own vital character, a future and identity separate from both White Rock and Grandview Crossing.
The Charge to Designers
For TownShift proposals, we are requiring a housing density matched nowhere else in Surrey, save for small portions of Central City. The thesis to be tested here is whether high rise residential construction can be humanized through considered design, revenues from these discretionary increased densities funding a long-overdue public amenity-a Semiahmoo Town Centre Plaza. High rise residential and new public square will together form a desirable gateway into what will become a more and more pedestrian-oriented zone of South Surrey. Density together with amenity will make a sustainable lifestyle a reality here.
We are mandating Semiahmoo's first downtown public square along 152nd St., but also ask for proposals on how to temper this busy arterial itself-through plantings, bikeways, traffic management or other strategies. This is a high profile hilltop site near existing housing, so a palette of materials and forms is needed to acknowledge this building as an icon visible from afar, but also nurturing of the spaces around its base. Vancouver's trademark tower and podium building typology is neither required nor discouraged for this site-use your own intuition on issues of architectural expression and form, and be bold and playful, qualities this corner of Surrey could use.
(From competition documentation)