Win Place Show takes inspiration from Lansdowne’s rich history of competition, exhibition and display, reclaiming the park as a place of both pomp and pleasure. Win Place Show maximizes the park’s impact by extending it both literally and perceptually beyond the limits currently being imposed. By pushing its boundaries both into the OSEG zone on one side and the canal zone on the other, it seizes the potential of the park to emerge from a terrain vague into a place of great civic and national significance. It counters the negative perceptions of OSEG’s appropriation of public space by allowing the park to counter-colonize the commercial development – a win-win for all. More importantly, by reconnecting the civic and federal identities that gave this site its original significance, it allows Lansdowne to re-emerge as a key node in the mental map of the neighbourhood, the city, the region and the country. Lansdowne Park has held a complex relationship to the city of Ottawa. Its grand scale and civic focus has given it regional and national status, marked by sporadic and intense exhibition and sporting events. Its cultural and ceremonial importance is reinforced by physical linkages to Parliament Hill, Dow’s Lake, the Central Experimental Farm and other major institutional sites via the Rideau Canal and the NCC Parkway. It functions simultaneously as a much loved neighbourhood park accommodating everyday recreational program for nearby residents. Currently, these functions occur in an uncoordinated and disconnected fashion, involving separate areas of the park. Lansdowne Park is at a pivotal point in its evolution. When it was functioning as a more integrated site, hosting events of national prestige and showcasing the best of Canadian skill and ingenuity, the park had a much more significant civic and national identity. The fragmentation and dissolution of the site keeps undermining that embedded value. The plan proposed by OSEG needs to be sensitively and imaginatively integrated within the overall park scheme to avoid dissipating the Park’s already lagging identity and expression as both grand civic destination and intimate neighbourhood amenity. The parkland component needs to maximize its visibility, identity and connectivity in multiple ways. Otherwise it will be perceived as leftover, inaccessible space incidental to a commercial development. Win Place Show reinstates Lansdowne Park as a single, rich, multilayered node in the mental map of the city and the region. It makes it more accessible, more visible and more diversified. It succeeds in knitting the site into the fabric of the city, the region and the country at multiple scales: Nationally and Internationally As a recently-designated World Heritage Site, the Rideau Canal corridor has become part of an international family of sites of outstanding universal value. Although Lansdowne Park is but a blip in the overall 198 kilometre length of the canal, it is one of the most intensively used public spaces anywhere along the corridor. Currently, its connectivity to the canal, both spatially and conceptually, is limited. Win Place Show reinforces the waterfront location of the park, and creates the first real opportunities for dynamic and intimate interaction with the Rideau Canal World Heritage site. It allows for a weaving together of the stories of local First Nations, the building of the Canal and the history of Lansdowne Park. The result is an obvious destination not only for local residents but also for visitors from across Canada and abroad. a recently-designated World Heritage Site, the Rideau Canal corridor immediately becomes part of an international family of sites of outstanding universal value. Although Lansdowne Park is but a blip in the overall 198 kilometre length of the canal, it is one of the most intensively used public spaces anywhere along the corridor. Currently, its connectivity to the Canal, both spatially and conceptually, is limited. Win Place Show reinforces the waterfront location of the park, and creates the first real opportunities for dynamic and intimate interaction with the Rideau Canal World Heritage site. It allows for a weaving together of the stories of local First Nations, the building of the Canal, and the history of Lansdowne Park. The result is an obvious destination not only for local residents but also for visitors from across Canada and abroad. Municipally Lansdowne Park occurs at a point of overlap between two unique Ottawa movement systems: the curvilinear federal parkways radiating out from Parliament Hill that are connected to natural features, and the rectilinear urban grid. Win Place Show recognizes this juxtaposition and takes on the character of both. The other major public space in Ottawa to do this is Parliament Hill, whose expression is naturalistic on the north side, featuring the Ottawa River escarpment; and rectilinear METERS and formal on the south side, conforming to the grid of Wellington Street and the 0 20 40 60 100 200 N central business district. This is a defining character of Parliament Hill, whose central SCALE 1:2000 lawn is the living room for the nation. Lansdowne Park has the potential to function COMPLIANCE PLAN 1:2000 Our Compliance Plan closely follows the competition brief’s strict division between private development and public park, leaving the OSEG as the living room for the city. METERS . plan intact and moving the Horticulture Pavilion to the ‘public side’ of the park. 0 20 40 60 100 200 Bank Street has always been Ottawa’s major north-south axis. To regain its civic SCALE 1:2000 status, it is important that Lansdowne Park maintain its Bank Street address, and that Bank Street becomes the front face of the park. O’Connor Street, another of the few north-south streets that originate at the Parliament Buildings, connects directly to Lansdowne, and is extended to link to the canal. The federal parkways, Queen Elizabeth Driveway (QED) and Colonel By Drive, express the federal, rather than civic, identity of Ottawa as a National Capital. Win Place Show hybridizes these two identities, civic and federal, blurring their boundaries to effectively create one of the essential places where the community of communities can emerge and take shape. Locally The radical juxtaposition of scales at Lansdowne Park has always been an issue, resulting in attempts to screen the entire park from the Canal, Bank Street, the Glebe and more outlying neighbourhoods. The challenge is to weave the park back into its surrounding context, recognizing and expressing the history of larger recreational and performative spaces on the Lansdowne site while respecting the scale and material qualities of the Glebe, and the commercial and community qualities of Bank Street. More recently, Lansdowne has operated as two seemingly separate parks. In Win Place Show, the best of the existing Sylvia Holden Park is stretched southward along the O’Connor axis to expand community amenities while integrating it formally into the overall park. This effectively connects three historic Ottawa neighbourhoods – the Glebe, Ottawa East and Ottawa South – via a bridge over the Rideau Canal, the Pasarelle Aberdeen. Planted medians and enhanced streetscaping along Bank Street, a second linking axis, establishes the park’s presence on Ottawa’s primary street. A third axis, the Aberdeen Allée, directly connects Bank Street to the Aberdeen Pavilion and the Rideau Canal. This east-west walkway is heavily programmed with water in all of its states, conceptually bringing the Rideau Canal through the Aberdeen Pavilion directly to Bank Street. COMPLIANCE VS. VISION PLAN EXISTING Expanding Park Presence The following strategies are used in both the Compliance and Vision Plans, to enhance the perception of a truly interconnected and public park: • Sylvia Holden Park is claimed as an integrated and continuous expression of Lansdowne Park, while maximizing and enhancing its existing neighbourhood program. • The surface area of the park is increased through the vertical complexity of added topography and an occupiable bridge. • Access and usage of the Rideau Canal is intensified. METERS OSEG • Connectivity is increased to both the QED and Colonel By Drive Parkways. • Diverse seasonal programmatic variety and potentials are accommodated. 0 20 40 60 100 200 N SCALE 1:2000 VISION PLAN 1:2000 The Vision Plan diverges from the Compliance Plan in the following ways: Our Vision Plan moves away from this strict private/public divide. It increases both the physical and psychological perception of the public METERS realm, and the connectivity and accessibility of the park. 0 20 40 60 100 200 • It retains the Horticulture Building in its present location, in conformance with SCALE 1:2000 UNESCO and ICOMOS conservation principles applicable to any World Heritage site. 1 Bank Street Promenade 16 Childrens’ Gardens 32 Lansdowne Wharf 2 Aberdeen Promenade 17 Carousel 33 South Lawns • A reversible, sustainable island is placed in the widest section of the Rideau Canal, 3 O’Connor Allee 18 Rubber Hill 34 Toboggan Runs to create a new level of access and appreciation. 40 4 Aberdeen Pavilion 19 Concession Shell- Visitor Parking 35 Bank Street Landing 3 42 6 5 Horticulture Building 20 The Crossing 36 Glebe Landing • A linear public plaza forms the entrance to the park from Bank Street. It showcases 41 43 39 36 44 6 The Great Lawn 21 Water Plaza 37 Community Gardens 45 5 37 the entire western façade of the Aberdeen Pavilion, includes glimpses of the park 9 WIN PLACE SHOW 8 38 7