Report to/Rapport au :
Planning and Environment Committee
Comité de l'urbanisme et de
l'environnement
30 March 2005/ le 30 mars 2005
Submitted by/Soumis par : Ned Lathrop, Deputy City Manager/Directeur
municipal adjoint
Planning
and Growth Management / Urbanisme et de la Gestion de la croissance
Contact Person/Personne
ressource : Richard Kilstrom, Manager/Gestionnaire,
Community Design and Environment/Conceptiuon
commuautaire
(613) 580-2424 x22653, richard.kilstrom@ottawa.ca
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REPORT RECOMMENDATION
That the Planning and Environment
Committee recommend Council approve the establishment of an Urban Design Awards
Program, to be held every two years starting in 2005, to recognize and
celebrate quality design within the built urban environment.
RECOMMANDATION DU RAPPORT
Que le Comité de l'urbanisme et de
l'environnement recommande au Conseil municipal d'approuver l'établissement
d'un Programme biennal de Prix de l'esthétique urbaine, afin de rendre hommage
aux réalisations esthétiques dans le milieu bâti, et d'attribuer les premiers
prix dès 2005.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The competition is open to anyone who has
contributed to Ottawa's urban landscape, whether urban designers, architects,
developers, contractors or members of the general public. In its inaugural
year, entries will be invited to compete in three categories: Urban Infill,
Public Places and Civic Spaces and Urban Elements. Winners will either receive
an Award of Excellence or an Award of Merit. The recipients of the Awards of
Excellence will be forwarded on next year to compete nationally as part of the
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's own Urban Design Awards Program,
scheduled to be launched in 2006.
Financial Implications:
Funds in the amount of $25,000 were approved in
this year's budget as part of the Official Plan's "Ottawa by Design"
component. This amount would be requested every two years starting in 2005.
Once the program is established, a search for private funding will be
undertaken to run a 50/50 cost-shared program.
Public Consultation/Input:
The program will be advertised in the newspaper
in June, July and August. Members of the public will be invited to submit an
entry when the call for submissions is announced in the first week of September
2005.
RÉSUMÉ
Hypothèses et analyse :
Par la création d'un Programme de Prix de
l'esthétique urbaine, on veut rendre hommage à la qualité des projets réalisés
dans la Ville d'Ottawa qui sont des exemples d'excellence dans la conception
urbaine. Un important volet de la stratégie énoncée dans le Plan officiel
comprend les mesures prises pour récompenser les réalisations esthétiques et
pour encourager un aménagement urbain de meilleure qualité sur le territoire de
la Ville. Le programme de prix proposé permettra de reconnaître l'excellence en
acclamant les projets de grande qualité réalisés dans la Ville entre le 1er
janvier 2001 et le 1er septembre 2005.
Le concours est ouvert à tous ceux qui ont
participé à l'aménagement du paysage urbain d'Ottawa : urbanistes, architectes,
promoteurs, entrepreneurs ou simples citoyens. La première année du concours,
les lauréats seront choisis dans trois catégories : Aménagement des terrains
intercalaires, Places publiques et Espaces populaires, et Éléments urbains. Ils
se verront décerner un prix d'excellence ou un prix de reconnaissance. Dans le
cas des prix d'excellence, les lauréats pourront participer au concours
national de l'année suivante organisé par l'Institut royal d'architecture du
Canada, dans le cadre de son propre
Programme de Prix de l'esthétique urbaine que l'Institut est censé
lancer en 2006.
Répercussions financières :
Une somme de 25 000 $ a été approuvée dans le
budget de cette année. Ce fonds est rattaché au volet « Conception d'Ottawa »
du Plan officiel et son renouvellement serait demandé aux deux ans à partir de
2005. Une fois que le programme sera établi, on ira chercher des fonds dans le
secteur privé pour financer la moitié du programme.
Consultation
publique / commentaires :
Le
programme sera annoncé dans les journaux aux mois de juin, juillet et août. La
première semaine de septembre 2005, les citoyens seront invités à proposer des
candidatures.
BACKGROUND
The City's Official Plan outlines a multi-faceted
urban design strategy, now referred to as "Ottawa By Design"
(subsection 2.5.6). An important component of the strategy includes the
creation of an Urban Design Awards Program to recognize design excellence and
to help encourage a better quality of urban design in the City. The proposed
awards program outlined in this report will recognize excellence in urban design
through education, promotion and celebration of real examples of quality
projects within the city's built environment.
In formulating the proposed awards program for
Ottawa, staff examined a number of existing and pending Urban Design Awards
Programs in other Canadian cities. The recommended categories have been
formulated to recognize quality projects that reflect the principles and
objectives of the City's Official Plan. Additional award categories will be
added as the program becomes established. For example, discussions have taken
place with the School of Architecture at Carleton University to create a
'Student Project' category in the future. The intent would be to select a site
of mutual interest to the City and to the students as an urban design term
project.
Staff also consulted with representatives from
the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) to ensure that winners from
Ottawa's program would be eligible for the RAIC's planned awards program. Outlined in Document 1, the RAIC's program is
designed as a two-tiered program, where winners of municipal Urban Design
Awards from across the country would compete nationally. The RAIC is scheduled to inaugurate their
awards program in 2006 and run it every two years.
Proposed
City of Ottawa Program:
Awards
The best submission in each category would
receive an ‘Award of Excellence’ as the project that responds to good urban
design principles and the judging criteria.
Other entries in each category would be eligible for an ‘Award of
Merit’.
Winners will:
· Demonstrate
design excellence
· Contribute
to the wider appreciation of urban design
· Contribute
to the city’s environmental and ecological health
· Connect
to their locality
· Be
important to livability issues
· Be
innovative and trend setting
· Be
open to transformation
Categories
The program will start with three categories,
with future categories to be added as the program develops. Participants will be invited to submit
entries in the following categories:
1. Urban Infill:
· A building or number of buildings which achieve urban design excellence and creativity through a thorough and sensitive understanding of its context, site plan, massing and pedestrian amenities in the form of, for example, a residential infill building, a mixed-use or mainstreet building, or a building addition/renovation.
2. Public Places and Civic Spaces
· A place defined by adjacent buildings or nature that exhibits sustainability, and that advances, extends, and embellishes the public realm. These can be indoor or outdoor spaces as long as they are publicly accessible and can include streets, courtyards, plazas, forecourts, trails, parks, bridges, streetscapes and mews.
3. Urban Elements
· An element that adds amenity, enhances the public experience, and contributes to the quality of the environment of the Nation’s Capital, including street furniture, permanent works of art, doorways, gateways, fountains, railings, façades, lighting, canopies, walkways and signage.
Project
eligibility
All types of publicly visible/accessible urban
development projects are eligible:
· Open
Spaces,
· Buildings,
(Residential, Mixed Use, Institutional, Recreational)
· Civic
Structures,
· Building
Additions & Exterior Renovations,
· Public
Utilities,
· Street
Improvements,
· Adaptive
Reuse
Certain projects will not be eligible for the
Urban Design Awards and include:
heritage, historic preservation/adaptive re-use (these would be directed
to the Ottawa Architectural Conservation Awards program); interior design; plans
or proposals not yet built; and anything not in the public domain, such as
backyards and gardens behind private homes.
Who
can enter?
The competition is open to urban designers,
planners, landscape architects, architects, engineers, developers, contractors,
consultants, owners, and the general public who have contributed to Ottawa’s
urban landscape.
Where
the project is located
The project must be located within the
boundaries of the City of Ottawa.
Construction
time frame
The project must have been built between
January 1, 2001 and September 1, 2005.
How
often the program will run
The program will run every two years starting
in 2005.
Judging
criteria
Award decisions will be based on a number of
factors that relate to the Official Plan’s design principles and define quality
public space. For example, the project
will:
· Meet
the needs of pedestrians as a priority.
· Create distinctive places and appreciate local identity in patterns of development, landscape and culture.
· Reflect
a thorough understanding of place, context and setting.
· Enhance and enliven the quality, character and spatial delineation of public streets and spaces.
· Address the environmental aspect, help restore ecological health and address the relationship to the natural environment.
· Demonstrate innovation, uniqueness and a creative response to the Official Plan’s design objectives and to the project's program requirements and site constraints, preferably with the ability to influence trends.
· Contribute to the social and cultural life of the City, and make a positive impact on the Capital by enhancing the urban scene and supporting a livable City.
· Be functional in how it uses space in its entirety, and how it relates to other buildings, open spaces, streets and parking areas.
· Be well executed, with quality workmanship and construction materials, having successfully translated design into reality.
The
jury
The jury will be comprised of up to five
independent expert judges. Staff will request a short list of possible jurors
from the following professional associations: the Ontario Professional Planners
Institute (OPPI), the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), and the Ontario
Association of Landscape Architects (OALA). In addition staff will secure a prominent
person in the urban design field from out of town or country. Actual jury
selection will be made by the Deputy City Manager of Planning and Growth
Management or his designate. The jury
will tour the sites of the finalists to fully appreciate the submissions. The
number and type of awards will be at the discretion of the jury, and its
decision will be final.
Submission
requirements
The submission requirements are designed to be
in a standard binder format. The
submission will be comprised of a three ring (8x10) binder that will include: a
project identification sheet, a summary sheet outlining the project's urban
design merits and its contribution to the City’s design objectives and
standards, a descriptive data sheet, a participant identification form, and a
maximum of ten project photographs (8x10 colour prints or high resolution
digital images). Winners will be required to produce display boards of their
entries for public exhibition. The winning entries will also be linked to
'Doors Open Ottawa'.
CONSULTATION
The preliminary schedule for the launch of the first
Ottawa Urban Design Awards Program is as follows:
June, July, August 2005: advertise upcoming
program
September 12, 2005: call for submissions;
October 7, 2005: receive submissions;
October 17, 2005: jury convenes to tour project
sites, deliberate and select the winners;
November 14, 2005: Mayoral reception for award
winners, at which the winners will be announced and the winning entries
displayed.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Funds in the amount of $25,000 were approved in the
2005 budget as part of the Official Plan's 'Ottawa by Design' component,
Internal Order 903263. This amount would be requested every two years starting
in 2005. Once the program is established, a search for private funding will be
undertaken to run a 50/50 cost-shared program.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION
Document 1: RAIC proposed 2006 Urban Design Awards Program
DISPOSITION
Planning and Growth Management staff will continue to consult with the RAIC and the major municipalities across Canada to ensure that the winners of city programs can go on in 2006 to compete in the national Urban Design Awards Program sponsored by the RAIC.
Royal
Architectural Institute of Canada Proposed Urban Design Awards Program
Launch: 2006
The Urban Design
Awards program of the RAIC is intended to recognize excellence in urban design
and demonstrate its importance to the general public.
The RAIC would
like to acknowledge that urban design involves comprehensive activities and
plans that integrate design quality into all processes that affect community
and urban development. Urban Design may be an important marketing tool for
cities.
Designed as a
two-tiered system, with the citys’ awards programs as tier one, each of the
participating municipalities would forward their winning submissions, which
would have received local awards in 2005, to the RAIC program, in the categories
that apply, in 2006. An open category will be included within the national
program to offer the opportunity to smaller communities to submit worthy
projects. These will be judged separately and the winning entries added to the
tier one winners for final adjudication. The submissions would be comprised of
the same material submitted to the city competition with the addition of the
jury’s reasons for the award. The municipality is not obligated to submit
entries in all of the categories and there is no fee applicable to these
submissions from the municipality to the national competition.
Background
The Royal
Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), established in 1907, is a voluntary
association of architects from Canada and abroad. Members include licensed
architects, intern architects and graduates from university programs in
architecture. The RAIC provides the framework for the development, sharing and
recognition of architectural excellence in both practice and education. Their
primary concern is the quality of buildings, cities, the urban fabric and the
future of downtown areas.
A group of
peers, usually architects and members, who are selected to adjudicate the
submissions and choose award recipients, jury most of these awards. Examples of
some of these awards include the Governor General’s Medal in Architecture, the
RAIC Award of Excellence, the RAIC Gold Medal and the RAIC Foundation
Scholarships and Bursaries. The Urban Design Award will become a new award
program for the RAIC.
A maximum of one
Award of Excellence and one honourable mention will be awarded in each
category. These will be selected from the winners of the Awards of Excellence
from the municipality's programs that were forwarded on to compete nationally.
Categories
Winners of the Awards of Excellence of
the municipalities Urban Design Awards Programs would go on to compete in the
following six categories:
1) Conceptual/Theoretical Urban
Design projects
This category is for a plan or a study
of a significant area within a Canadian municipality that provides a
development or redevelopment strategy for urban transformation in the mid-term
to long-term that has no official status. Urban design studies, master plans,
redevelopment strategies, and community plans of high inspirational value with
the potential for significant impact on the city’s development may be
submitted.
Criteria for
Award:
· comprehensiveness: addressing a wide
range of factors affecting development
· innovative
approach: proposals that highlight new ideas and/or approaches to interventions
in Ottawa
· clarity of presentation:
understandable, readable and well-illustrated graphically
2) Approved
or Adopted Urban Design Plans
This category is
for an Urban Design Plan, or a study that has already been approved or adopted
by the Authority Having Jurisdiction and physical changes have already started
to occur.
Criteria for
Award:
· evidence of success: examples of
quality improvements to the built environment
· creative
resolution: proposed solution that successfully addresses multiple objectives
and competing interests
· acceptance of the
plan by the community: evidence that the community supports the plan and its
implementation
3) Urban
Architecture
This category is
for a landmark building or a contextual building that contributes to, and
supports, an urban design initiative.
A “landmark”
building is an individual building of high architectural standard, which
achieves urban design excellence through its unique relationship with its
immediate surroundings because of its conspicuousness, siting, massing, and
pedestrian amenities.
A “contextual
building” is a building that fits seamlessly into the existing urban fabric.
This may be an individual building or group of buildings of high architectural
standard, which achieve urban design excellence because of the relationship
with its immediate surroundings through its siting, massing, details,
fenestration, rhythm of elements and complementary materials.
Eligibility: A
new building, a renovated building, or a complex of buildings completed or
installed after January 1, 1999 within the municipal boundaries of a Canadian
municipality, and designed by an architect.
Criteria for
Award:
· compatibility with the urban
initiative
· positive contribution to the public realm
· architectural excellence
· demonstration of
the value of urban design - how the urban design plan directed and influenced
the building
4) Civic
Design Projects
This category is
for civic improvement projects such as a park, a public space, civil
engineering infrastructure, street furniture and lighting elements, etc., which
have been implemented as the result of an urban design plan or intiative.
Eligibility: A
construction project completed or installed after January 1, 1999 within the
boundaries of a Canadian municipality, and designed by an architect, landscape
architect, or an engineer.
Criteria for
Award:
· compatibility with the urban plan
· positive contribution to the public
realm
· design excellence
· demonstration of
the value of urban design - how the urban design plan/initiative directed and
influenced the space or the objects.
5) Urban
Fragments
Urban fragments
are single, small-scale pieces of a building or landscape that contribute
significantly to the quality of the public realm. This category includes small
and modest elements such as street furniture, lighting elements, interpretation
media, memorials, public art, or other forms of intervention that contribute to
the beautification, enjoyment, and/or appreciation of the urban environment.
Projects can be of a temporary (but not ephemeral) or permanent nature.
Criteria for
Award:
· positive contribution to the public
realm
· design excellence
· innovation and uniqueness of the
element
6) Student
Projects
A student project
means an urban design project established jointly by a Canadian municipality
and a school or faculty within a University, and carried out after September
2004. The Municipality and the
University shall select a maximum of two student projects that are to be
submitted for adjudication by the jury.
Proposed
Schedule
February 2006: RAIC
National Awards call (primarily targeted to smaller communities for the Open
Categories)
April: 2006: Receipt
of all submissions (including winners from the cities’ 2005 programs)
May 2006: Adjudication of
submissions