IDEA Series - Terminated Vistas

 There is a thing that many mall builders know - major retailers know - monument builders know - that somehow in our North American street plans we forgot. The value of the Terminated Vista.

It was not just convenient geometry that Sears, Hudsons Bays, Macys, JC Penny, Simons, and other national and international mall retailers always want the end of the hall. They know that being at the end of the hall means that they can be seen from the entire length of the hall - that their brand will be the focus, that all the other retailers will be the frame for them at the end. People will provide directions relative to them. "Its down near Sears".

Under Napoleon the 3rd, Georges-Eugène Haussmann famously rebuilt Paris into the City we know it as today - with staggering monuments terminating the vistas down broad boulevards. This one thing is the foundation of why Paris came to be known as one of the worlds most beautiful cities, and in fact, when you look at pictures of cities great and minor all over the world, you will find that what we take pictures of is where the vista or view is both framed (by trees, cliffs, shops, buildings) and terminated (by the focus of the picture whether it be mountain, waterfall, monument, building or persons).

The Arc de Triomphe terminates the Avenues des Champs-Elysées - (picture Mike Norton Flickr)

The thing is, grids are really really bad at terminating vistas. All the streets just continue on ad infinite - or at least it feels like it as a pedestrian. Psychologically it serves to make walks feel longer than they really are due to a lack of destinations in sight, and it fails to provide medium distance anchoring points that you can reference yourself too. While the road off into the sunset may make a space feel open - it also servers to make it placeless. 

The grid (and curvilinear suburban streets) are "rational" in terms of desiring a predictable outcome for delineating land in the new world, the grid has not produced the most memorable environments. These were effective ways of turning greenfield land into consistently sized and orderly plots for sale. But great cities with fantastic urban realm, they have not made.

Many early American towns, mostly on the East Coast, terminated vistas within their grids with parks, city hall or court houses - putting the buildings of greatest civic significance in view. As colonists moved west though we sort of abandoned this type of placemaking, and became more interested in standardized real-estate units that were exactly the same block to block. 

Terminated Vistas need not be buildings - Sometimes nature provides great vista termination. Consider one of the most famous vistas in Canada, that of Banff Avenue being terminated by Cascade Mountain - lending Banff its instant recognition.

Additionally, in order to well-terminate the vista, its important that the vista has a frame. Often that means continuous, multi-story buildings on both sides along not overly broad lanes. In the Paris photo above, the cut trees actually achieve the same effect on the extremely wide Champs-Elysées. Without those trees, the road would be too wide and the frame wouldn't be as effective.

Below in Chepstow, Wales, squat single and two story buildings on a narrow street achieve the same. Its simply proportion - the buildings don't need to be towering. Many have said anything between 1:1 to 2:1 in favour of height is the best for a sense of urban enclosure and comfort, psychologists have suggested that our brains favour this environment for evolutionary reasons as a compromise between the exposes open areas and the claustrophobic canyons, both which would have posed mortal dangers for different reasons. Notice how one view of Chepstow terminates in the river, the other with a pub.

Terminated vistas need not be "old" either. In the history of Paris, Haussman's Paris is only a couple hundred years old, the Arc de Triomphe itself built in 1836 and the Eiffel Tower younger than Canada at 1889, not much older than Stuart Wood and the Old Courthouse. This neighbourhood in Bilbao has been made much more valuable since its vista was terminated by Frank Gherys' Guggenheim. This building terminates many streets and thus is much more impactful than a mid-block building. Notice that the buildings framing this view don't need multiple materials or "articulated facades" to frame the real prize here. The side buildings don't need to be fancy or expensive to achieve the real goal, which is to terminate the vista.

Terminated Vistas generate huge amounts of value. Not only are the sites themselves worth more proportionally than the ones around them - they make the sites around them also more valuable by proximity. Times Square (a pretend terminated Vista, but about the best NYC has in its grid) is the most expensive real estate on this continent. It makes everything around it worth more by its proximity to the terminated vista. The historic value of the "square" came from the concept that you could sell advertising facing the direction that people would be facing on the street. In New Yorks grid, just about the only place that a person could do that is where Broadway cuts pie shaped lots through the grid. The second most famous street level vista in NYC after Times Square? The Flatiron building, also on Broadway and adjacent to Madison Square Park.

So if we want to add value to Kamloops, what do we do in regards to Terminated Vistas? Well first of all - The North Shore is filled with blocks that could terminate in them. The North Shore is chock-a-block in the vernacular street patterns that are more like pre-1800 European streets than they are like the plats of modernity in North America. However our planning documents fail to identify or address them. Similarly many of these plots which are pie shaped or terminated vistas actually have the same zoning criteria as the ones around them, and thus, would actually make it harder for them to stand out and be special.

My suggestion is that any property parcel that terminates a street on the North Shore should be immediately subject to regulatory relief and incentive through some combination or all of Tax Exemptions, Zone Variances, Density Bonuses, DCC reductions, grants or other method. They should be granted these in exchange for creating terminated vistas of architectural significance. Buildings lining a road are quite happy being boring and bland, rarely if ever, do you look directly at them. But buildings which terminate the vista in my opinion have both a duty, and an opportunity to create an outstanding identity for Kamloops that other gridded cities in our region could not hope to compete with.

The same goes for the North Shores pie-shaped lots, amazing opportunities for Flatiron, pie shaped buildings which people adore from New York to Gastown - however parking requirements and the rectangular 80' rectangles required to build parking lots make utilizing the pie shape very difficult for designers and developers to design and meet parking requirements.

The North Shore and its streets are a diamond - one we are not polishing. No other neighbourhood in interior BC has even a dozen terminated Vista opportunities, the North Shore has hundreds. Remember too that views of Mt Paul/Peter, Kenna Cartwright, Lac du Bois can function as fantastic terminated vistas - should they be framed well. 

But why stop there? There are many more strategies and low hanging fruits in our little town.

Renowned urbanist Leon Krier has published and built dozens of grid interventions for situations like our downtown:

These would require involved commitments from landowners, developers and the City. Some great spots that are already identified for large public spaces and investments in our City are the site of the proposed Performing Arts Center, the 4th Ave Pedestrian Plaza and the large parking lot adjacent to TNRD. Leveraging these projects that are already on the books to create terminated vistas and well framed streets would be maximize the return on investment in these locations.

Many however could simply be achieved by re-allocating superfluous traffic lanes. In fact you could fix the non-continuous facades that are needed to frame the street (like the blank walls of a large strip mall for example), while simultaneously terminating the vista in nearly any urban road that has 4 or more traffic lanes - like Tranquille in the 700 block, Victoria in the 500+ blocks, McGill where it is university adjacent. Traffic volume on McGill isn't limited by lanes, but by too many lights, and too much through traffic, but that is a subject for another article. 

In this example the City could sell these lanes, or partner, to build housing, shops, etc. while maintaining a traffic lane in each direction. This would terminate the vista enclosed by Library Square and the Holiday Inn looking East (and Cottonwood could eventually do the same looking West) and with the removal of parking actually create the first real "Square" in Kamloops) as well as terminate the vista looking down Tranquille from the South. The building would function much like this building in Bath, England:

This could of course be repeated, or adapted creatively favouring one side of the street or another anywhere there is 4 traffic lanes in a mixed-use, dense urban area. Many of our road right of ways in Kamloops (like McGill) are over 140' wide. Traffic lanes need only be 24', (the Red Bridge is under 19'). By my math, with generous sidewalks, there is 100' of extra space that could be sold for creating some terminated vistas and well framed pedestrian oriented spaces (Or even better a Land Trust or Land Lease to improve access to affordable market rentals). 

In the McGill example you already have high quality mixed-use dense buildings on one side that are desperate for a pedestrian oriented street to activate them. And a University District of thousands of daily pedestrians with no great pedestrian realm.

A final thought on the matter, would be to think of buildings of cultural significance that we have left and didn't knock down (looking at you former St. Paul Street Methodist Church). Think of how fantastic (and under-utilized) Stuart Wood and The Old Courthouse are. They are the only two buildings of grandeur from early last century in our entire City - and they sit obscure, unfocussed and uncelebrated. A cornerstone of Vancouverism style planning which has gone world wide has been to protect and enrich "view corridors" which our mid 2000s plans mention. But trying to use those assets to activate our City seems to have sort of fallen off the table.

I would suggest that their sites should be redeveloped with new buildings surrounding their site to finance their renovation as well as to frame them. New plazas and squares at their doorsteps would bring them vitality and promote them as cultural centres of our city, rather than things you speed by, unnoticed on highspeed one way streets as they are now. I plan to provide specific drawings and concepts for their redevelopment in the future. I am afterall always about the Nuts and Bolts.