Square Dalhousie - Quai

At an urban park in Old Montreal, we designed an intervention to resolve the junction between a historic building—once a train station, now a circus school—and the plaza that slopes down alongside it. The new raised area beside the building required a flat surface for entering and exiting the building easily, and steps and a ramp to the paved thoroughfare for accessibility.

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The park was designed as an homage to this formerly industrial part of the city, and features railway tracks embedded between the pavers and pointy metal buffer stops at their ends. To continue this theme and help blend the new construction with the existing landscape, we chose Corten steel to face the edges of the platform and the stair risers. Timber decking covers the top of the platform, and thin steel railings accompany the stairs.

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Despite the small scale and minimalist appearance of the intervention, the project involved a complicated construction that required a four-foot gravel pit to place the wooden structure upon, and retaining walls to hold the ground in place. All of this is carefully hidden, making it seem like this new platform was part of the original park design from the outset.

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Team:

Sophie Robitaille  Partner, CSLA,  ASLA, AAPQ

Teressa Peill  Landscape Architect, CSLA, AAPQ

Andrew Curtis  Partner, AIA, MRAIC, LEED BD+C

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Contractor:  Multipaysage

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Client:  Ville de Montreal

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Photography © Nanne Springer