John Street Square Competition

Sander Design is specialized in residential design and to keep our range of work open and to broaden our field of work, SD is always interested in competitions whenever time and capacity allows. Usually this coincides with the winter season. This year we found a small local design competition concerning the square at King and John streets in Toronto. The competition was hosted by the Toronto Entertainment District BIA.

Unfortunately we didn’t get selected, but we had a lot of fun creating this design and we now see the John Street Square in a new light and with a whole lot of potential.

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Context:

When SD approaches any design we always look at the big picture. A strong belief in our office is that you can't have a good design if you don’t take the surrounding and the location in consideration. So a big step to generate a design starts with the analytical work. Maybe it is not the most creative work but it is essential in our design process in order to achieve a holistic understanding of how the space currently fits into the fabric of the area, who are its current users and how it is currently used.

John Street Square is located in central downtown Toronto, a very dynamic and social area, where entertainment is prominent activity. The space is surrounded by places of interest, such as threatres, government offices, popular restaurants, cinemas, concert halls, and a sport stadium. The users of the area differs during the day and night.

During the day, the square is occupied by office workers and people taking their lunch breaks. During the night John Street Square becomes alive. In the Summertime people enjoy a night out, meeting before they go out for dinner or meeting friends before they hit the club scene. In its current form, the space is not used to its fullest potential. The existing planter boxes in the middle of the space dividing the place and creating a dark, uninviting and mostly unused space behind it.

Design:

First we outlined general goals we would like to achieve with our design and what we would like to celebrate.

Due to its prominent location within the entertainment district our design drew heavily on the themes of the Arts. We established visual and figurative connections from the square to the surrounding areas of interest. Movies and cinema were a big theme due to the presence of the new TIFF Lightbox building.

With the prestigious Roy Thompson Hall is such proximity of the John Street Square, the theme of music had a big influence on the design. The treble clef symbol inspired the curving pattern of the seating and elements.

While guiding the visitor through the space it also  helps to visually break the space in smaller areas.

Being situated right in the downtown core, we applied the traditional city street grid pattern to our space. But we applied it with a diagonal orientation to help break up the space.

The colour scheme plays on the cinematic and theatrical traditions of the red carpet, red curtains and red velvet seating.

The curving seating creates smaller areas in which public art celebrates the different styles of the performing arts. An oversize directors chair functions as entry to the space and defines the theme. A film roll sculpture serves as public art and seating bench.

A grid of trees provides shade in the summer and provides a connection with nature.

An open theather invites stand up performances and organized events while the back serves as a small coffee shop.