Smith Promenade, Griffintown

Granny Smith

“Inspired by the power of the raw nature of the railway brownfield, the project proposes to amplify the qualities of this industrial landscape in repurposing residual spaces into a structured, identity-shaping site, a promenade to be discovered among the city’s pathways. A hybrid of garden, street, park, and public square, the Smith Promenade affords the opportunity to celebrate urban biodiversity and create a true in situ exhibition of its spectacles.

“In cultivating the site’s plant heritage, perfected over time through urban movements and assaults, as the legacy of a process termed hemerochory, the project reinvents the archetypes of the city and the relationships between vegetation and city dweller, and between urban ecology and public space. This strategy leaves room for a sophisticated biodiversity, inserted into the urban fabric via the hatched organization of the ground, allowing for flexible invasion by plant species according to the various spaces available. This flexible system is adaptable to future realities, to eventual lifestyles, to the evolution of the various phases of the project, and to the varying scales of the events that will be presented along the promenade.”
– Excerpts from the text of the winning presentation

“In the eyes of the jury members, this project was the “richest” of all, both in terms of its ideas and its integration into the urban development projects. The main thrust is to plan the site space via a project that is simple, intelligent and responds in a flexible manner to the project requirements. [...] This project is innovative in its design and in the way the public spaces will be used. It is the one most likely to incite positive, lasting change in the area, despite the challenges of upkeep. And it is one that can truly bring people on side, generating enthusiasm among those in the neighbourhood and those who will develop it.”
– Excerpts from the jury’s report

The jury also awarded a special mention to The Commons inc. for the originality of its concept, its inovative and poetic approach and its sensitivity towrards the character of the site.