06-02-2017, 08:43 AM
(06-01-2017, 12:35 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I’m sensitive to the issue of detracting from street life, but on the other hand they can only do so by attracting people inside. If people prefer to be inside, who are planners to say they’re wrong? However, the real solution is to integrate the indoor and outdoor spaces so people have a real choice of which route to take. It should be a realistic choice to decide to take the outside route on a nice day and stay indoors on a crummy day. For example, in the specific case we’re discussing, I would have an exterior path or sidewalk separated from an indoor route only by a glass wall with occasional doors. I would put signs for the businesses inside immediately outside as well to help people find what they want.
You say they’re not at street level. That doesn’t have to be the case, depending on the location, and in this particular case my proposal was that the ground floors (street level floor) of all these buildings should be linked together. But there is a more fundamental issue, which is “what is the street”? Does it have to be where motor vehicles circulate? What is so magical about them? My main gripe is that people talk as if putting a roof and walls around a pedestrian route somehow ruins it. The reason the corridors of Conestoga Mall aren’t ideal pedestrian environments isn’t that they have roofs and climate control.
tomh009's suggestion seems good to me. I do think that it makes sense in this particular context. But indoor connections among the shops on King St in either Waterloo or Kitchener would be strange, I think for similar reasons to how it would be strange to have indoor connections among the houses on your street.
More fundamentally, it's not the roof and walls. And so Toronto Premium Outlets fails at this also. It's that these spaces are not public spaces. They're private spaces in which we are the guests of the owners. Waterloo Town Square or Kitchener's Speaker's Corner are public spaces, and people who might make us uncomfortable have the right to be there. This is more relevant to spaces where people might congregate for some time, rather than passageways like the ones between buildings on university campuses.
(06-01-2017, 12:35 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I took a look at Toronto Premium Outlets on Google Map. I’m not impressed one bit. It’s exactly the same kind of layout as Conestoga or Fairview or any other big “island in a parking lot” mall, except they’ve cheaped out on construction by leaving off part of the roof. There is nothing magical about being rained on that makes shopping more enjoyable. Fail.
Not just rain, but also snow and cold!