Over the past few decades, the prevalence of free, accessible public spaces has been declining in cities around the world. Neither home nor work, these gathering places, such as parks and libraries, bring people from different backgrounds together to socialize and feel a sense a community.
Factors contributing to this decline include the increasing cost and privatization of urban land, as well as the shift toward a more individualistic, fast-paced world with more digital interaction. When these places disappear, the social connections that hold cities together can weaken.
All of this is the backdrop to the latest design-build project from Carleton University’s Architecture Action Lab. With significant input from local community members, the lab has reimagined and rebuilt the Vanier Hub — a vibrant outdoor space in Ottawa’s east end that embodies everything public space should be.
Located just off Montreal Road, a busy thoroughfare in the heart of the diverse Vanier neighbourhood, the former parking lot is now a colourful, homey park with furniture and features that create living room, kitchen and backyard-like environments.
The hub, which opened last November after a year of consultation and eight months of construction by a predominantly volunteer workforce, is intended to be welcoming to everybody in a largely racialized, low-income part of the city with significant Indigenous, immigrant and Francophone populations.
At the same time, according to Architecture Action Lab director Menna Agha, the project is part of a broader effort to nudge a traditionally white, male and capitalistic discipline in a new direction.
“Our lab only serves communities that are struggling with housing, gentrification and food insecurity,” says Agha, an Architecture and African Studies researcher at Carleton.
“There’s often an overlap between these kinds of issues and people not feeling a sense of belonging. And how can you have community solidarity without a place to come together?”
Providing a Sense of Possibility
The first iteration of the Vanier Hub opened in 2021. A collection of shipping containers, picnic tables and a mural transformed a concrete rectangle into a venue for cultural and community events that collectively drew thousands of attendees.
A year later, Architecture Action Lab students began talking to neighbourhood residents about how the space could evolve.
The lab produced a dozen designs, received feedback from locals, refined their final plan and were awarded a provincial Trillium Grant to kickstart construction.
“We didn’t ‘save’ anybody,” says Agha. “We just materialized what the community asked us to do. We provided a sense of possibility.”
The new hub includes a nine-metre-long communal table, a kitchen complete with barbeques, a stage for events, playground equipment for children, a ping pong table and an oversized Vanier sign. It will be home to both casual gatherings and more formal programming, such as the annual Inuit Olympics — Vanier has one of the largest Inuit communities in Canada outside the North — and Iftar dinners during Ramadan.
“Architects usually build things and then walk away, but we’re going to be involved year-round,” says Agha. “We’ll be here to change lightbulbs, to fix and clean things, to help organize events. We’re grateful that we had an opportunity to test our hypothesis that architecture can be done differently.”
Building Relationships in the Community
Beyond community impact, one of the goals of the Architecture Action Lab is to show students that they can cultivate careers outside the private sector.
Sally El Sayed, a doctoral architecture student with an undergraduate degree and a Master of Architecture from Carleton, served as the project manager for the Vanier Hub. She was on site most days, managing a rotating crew of volunteers. On some summer days, more than two dozen turned up, and around 150 people in total contributed.
Some of the volunteers were Vanier residents from other countries — for instance, carpenters who were between jobs. Local seniors also visited frequently, asking questions and checking out the progress.
“That’s the part of the project I’ve liked the most: having interactions and building relationships with the community,” says El Sayed.
“People are invested in their neighbourhood and saw me here constantly, so there’s mutual respect.
“It’s great to have an opportunity to use our architecture skills to do practical things, and this is different than working in an office and designing something but not seeing the end result. It’s amazing to see this project come to life.”
