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District Central – Signature du territoire
By : EN TEMPS ET LIEU/HUMÀ ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN/ZARATÉ LAVIGNE
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Landscape & Territories
Categories : Concept / concept in landscape and/or urban development : Silver Certification
Categories : Special Awards / Environmental Project : Gold Certification
The territory of the Central District is located in the metropolitan region of Montreal, QC, Canada. Known as one of the city’s old industrial centers, it covers an area of 3 km². The physical territory still bears some scars from its past activities. The lack of mobility links within the territory is notorious. Although there is a high concentration of jobs, there are five million square feet of vacant and concrete spaces. The neighborhood is centered around automobiles and trucks, and the pedestrian experience is uncomfortable and even dangerous.
However, the territory has the potential for resilience. In 2022, facing the inevitable reflection and positioning of the City of Montreal towards regenerative projects, we chose to revisit the past of our site and this phrase, inscribed in its history: the indispensable territory of textiles was once a land covered in fields. Our intervention plan seeks to reconcile its emblematic history, its activity centers, and its natural landscape potential. Our goal is to achieve the articulation of interventions, sustainably developed into strong signature proposals across all sectors of the Central District, to confer them with metropolitan-level radiance. To do so, three stages spread over five years.
Momentum1; Germination An immense field of potentially 250,000 sunflowers, located at 50-150 Louvain. This site was the birthplace of a munitions factory during the war, destroyed ten years ago. The vast vacant space of four hectares has remained intact since. An important urban wasteland in the middle of the city, 50-150 Louvain is surrounded by high-rise buildings, both offices and residences, and is an ideal site to lay the foundation of our intervention plan.
This monumental gesture brings the countryside to the city and aims to create local and international ecotourism towards a previously atypical site. Pedagogical for urbanites unfamiliar with agricultural terminology, a vector of influence for the Central District and the city of Montreal, regenerating and allowing for increased biodiversity, this domain would have had endless benefits for its population.
Moreover, custom-made furniture (designed in intelligence with the site’s industrial and textile past) comes to provide seats and break times directly on the ground: a moment out of time and out of the city for users.
Momentum2; Contamination. Within a 5-minute walk radius of our main intervention, there are already four other sites that are good candidates to become signature lands as well. Therefore, momentum2 is the ideal time to make a strong territorial marking by connecting and reconciling some enclosed sites, opening them up through new pedestrian paths, and linking them with an identity signage.
Momentum3; Pollination. Pollination relies on an expansion principle: The last years of our intervention plan consist of consolidating our lands, our furniture, and our access paths, allowing for a more porous and increasingly green territory, seeking safety and the pleasure of walking for pedestrians.
The proposed landscape and signage language can quickly take on a vast and heterogeneous territory to create a synergy, favoring economic sharing through vacant public and private spaces.
Collaboration
Architect : Humà Architecture + Design
