nathan phillips square: the ramp brightening up city hall josh adler, khalin elliott, sarah harmer,...

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Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

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Page 1: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp

Brightening Up City Hall

Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and

Katrina Sung

Page 2: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

History• The municipality was a residential suburb

known as "The Ward”• Early 1950's Toronto had a design

competition for a new City Hall• Plans were made public which created

controversy over how it was a too conservative approach

• Mayor Nathan Philips approved to hold the "international architectural competition

• Two-stage competition conducted in 1957-1958 with a total of 510 submissions

Page 3: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

• Design of Viljo Revell a Finnish architect was selected as the winner, later joined the firm of John B. Parkin Associates to complete the design work

• Official opening of New City Hall September 13, 1965

• In 2007 PLANT Architect Inc., Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture Inc. and Adrian Blackwell won the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization Competition to change the square

Page 4: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Social UseThe first and most obvious attribute that we noticed during our observation was that The Ramp was actually barricaded and inaccessible to the public. Contrary to what we expected, it appeared that it was being used as a containment area for ready-to-be-used slabs of gravel and concrete. It was not welcoming, and had a restricted feeling because only certain authorities (mainly construction workers) were allowed to go up and down The Ramp freely.

Just by looking at the structure, our group assumed that it was only meant for high standing political figures to drive up to get access to City Hall or to the observatory deck. It has a grandeur that makes it look like it is too important for an ordinary person to walk on.

Later we discovered that originally, when City Hall was built in 1965 The Ramp was meant for people to walk up and go along to the observation deck for a better view of Toronto, City Hall and Nathan Phillip Square. After further investigation we learned that it has been years since The Ramp as been accessible to the general public. Several years ago they closed the observation deck in order to built a “Green Roof” on the third floor of City Hall. Since then The Ramp has only been used for construction and the easy transportation of heavy materials and machinery up to the third level.

Page 5: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Current Use

Page 6: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung
Page 7: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung
Page 8: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

ProposalNathan Philips Square is a place that draws in people from all over Toronto. Whether it’s visiting the skating rink, or City Hall it is definitely a tourist attraction. Our group decided to transform the ramp into a visually appealing installation. During the day the Plexiglass floor of the ramp will glow different shades of green, illuminated by small Sensacell LED lights. This will invite the public to walk on it, and lead them up to the Green Space on the third floor of the building. Solar panels set up discretely around the square will absorb solar energy for the ramp to prepare for the nightly spectacle. When the sun sets the ramp turns into an interactive space, shifting from its deep green color to bright white. The LED lights are initiated and become pressure sensitive. Each time a person steps onto the Plexiglass floor, a coloured light is activated and illuminates beneath the person’s foot. Each pressure point made on the ramp takes about a minute to fade away. Throughout the night a series of live action footage and still images are taken and archived every hour, and later posted onto a website. This will also act as part of the overall experience because a family could come, interact with the space and then go online to collect memorabilia from their experience. A live feed will be broadcasted from Nathan Phillips Square to Dundas Square, drawing more people from one tourist area to another.

Our group designed our installation to match the new, more modernized plans for the square, by PLANT Architect Inc. Our intension was to allow the public to leave their mark on their own city hall. It has a strong relation to the concept of time, as the public watches their footprints slowly fade away. This exhibit will bring people back to Nathan Phillips Square, giving the users a sense of validation and invested interest in the artistic outcome of the space.  

Page 9: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Nathan Phillips Square during the day

Page 10: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Nathan Phillips Square during the night

Page 11: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Background ResearchIn our piece for the Nathan Phillip Square Ramp, we incorporated a range of influences and interactive pieces to create what would become a reason for people to visit Nathan Phillip Square. Our first and most important inspiration was a similar installation using pressure sensitive lights, a product called Sensacell. The link below shows you a short clip of how the artist used Senacell in their interaction, which would be very similar to the technology and technique we would use. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpRE6CM3oOY&feature=player_embedded

Since Nathan Phillip Square is also being resigned to be more modern and "green", We saw this a perfect opportunity to incorporate the sleek design of the plexiglass, including the replacing the cement sides. See the link below to show how our lit up ramp would fit perfectly in with the future design of Nathan Phillip Squarehttp://www.branchplant.com/images/landscape/npspai_overview-night_6.jpg

Lastly, we think a great way to remember and document a personal experience or the overall traffic that ramp receives is to create an online database using screenshot, bird eye photos and videos. The following website by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer a Mexican installation artist, shows a fantastic way of visitors of the ramp to relive their experience in a well organized fashion.http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/english/projects/vectorial.htm

Page 12: Nathan Phillips Square: The Ramp Brightening Up City Hall Josh Adler, Khalin Elliott, Sarah Harmer, Ashley Lewis, and Katrina Sung

Plexiglass Pressure-Sensitive Lights

Description

Interactive piece in which the user is instructed to step onto the Plexiglass floor of the ramp. This will cause a coloured light to illuminate under the foot of the user.

What do we need to further develop this idea?

-prices: how much will the Plexiglass cost?-prices: how much does it cost to install the lights

-how long do they last?-how accessible are they? what happens if one burns out?-how big of an area will be triggered by the light?-how many colors of lights?-do we want it on the asphalt or a clear glass floor?-safety regulations, how much weight, how many people ?-what type of glass does the CN Tower use?-we could limit the space it means that less people could go on it, less weight-how are we going to make it work?-Arduino or Processing-what about skateboarders?-accidents in the winter? during the winter it will turn into a visual exhibition where the lights are just programmed to flashcrew to clean off the snow-during the rain? signs up saying “caution, slippery when wet”