Innis Alumna’s Redevelopment Proposal Wins the John Street Ideas Competition
Innis alumna Julia Jamrozik (BA 2002 INNIS) was selected as the winner of the John Street Ideas Competition hosted by the Entertainment District Business Improveme
nt Area dedicated to promoting the economic and cultural vitality of the Toronto Entertainment District.
The John Street Ideas Competition invited the public to propose redevelopment ideas for the corner of King Street and John Street.
Urban Ballroom, Julia’s submission (on which she partnered with Coryn Kempster) proposed a multi-functional space which will add a unique environment to Toronto’s Entertainment District.
Julia works for Herzog & de Meuron a Swiss Architecture firm, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.
URBAN BALLROOM
Urban Ballroom is a proposal for the square at King and John, which aims to provide the neighbourhood and its visitors an exciting and playful multi-functional outdoor room. By radically opening up the underutilized corner, the project facilitates connections for people coming from various directions, while concurrently creating distinct places for them to linger. As a sensitive intervention into the urban fabric, it addresses the needs of its varied occupants acting as a gathering spot, a place to eat lunch, an event space, and an inconspicuous playground. To allow for different scales of occupation, from an individual to a crowd, the space is furnished in distinct zones, which blend between one another and the city’s sidewalks. The ceiling of URBAN BALLROOM is formed by a web of individually solar-powered globe lights which illuminate the space and provide spatial definition, compressing the square in the middle through a catenary bulge. The hardscaped ground lifts up subtly; its complimentary curvature allows the individual to look over the crowd. The east and west ends of the plaza are occupied by balls of various diameters geometrically grouped into informal seating areas.
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