Dundas Square

Dundas Square is a public square in downtown Toronto, Ontario, on the southeast corner of Yonge Street and Dundas Street. It was opened to the public in November of 2002, and a "grand opening" concert was held on May 30, 2003.

Because Dundas Street bends at the square, a triangular portion is chopped off one side, so the shape of the square is actually like a square with a triangle taken out of one side. This northern side of the square that runs at an angle is known as the hypotenuse, which features a structure supported by 11 cement pillars of the type used to make overpasses on highways. This creates an industrial urban aesthetic, which, being to the north, casts no shadows on the rest of the space. The other three sides are square (i.e. at right angles to one another and to Yonge Street and Dundas Street West).

Designed by Brown + Storey Architects, the square was intended as a new public space in Toronto, somewhat akin to Nathan Phillips Square, designed by Viljo Revell for New City Hall. Unlike Nathan Phillips Square, however, Dundas Square is operated as a commercial venture, with a separate Board of Management.

The square is opposite the Eaton Centre and just south of the Ryerson University campus, and is part of a revitalization effort by the city and the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area, an association of local businesses. Until the late 1990s, the Dundas Square site was occupied by a block of retail stores, and considered by many to be a "seedy" or dangerous corner. In 1998, as part of its Yonge Street Regeneration Project, Toronto City Council approved the expropriation and demolition of the buildings on the site, and the construction of Dundas Square.

Design Features

The square is actually on a slight incline, which architects Brown and Storey have said was intended to evoke a theatrical stage. It is made with modular raised square textured 35.125 by 35.125 inch granite slabs (each slab costing approx. $1500: $1,000 materials plus $500 labour), features a diagonally running zinc canopy along the northern hypotenuse of the "square", a movable plinth which serves as a stage for concerts and other performances, a row of lighted fountains set directly into the pavement, a row of small trees along the southern edge, a transparent canopy over the plinth, and a new entrance to Dundas subway station below.

The granite slabs, made of two kinds of granite, modularize the space, with a period of 7 slabs (every 7th slab has a slightly different texture and darkness). This period intertwines with the 5-slab periodicity of the splash fountains, with a spatial period of 177 inches (one splash fountain every 5 slabs), making a mathematically intricate space.

The centerpiece of the square is the array of fountains designed by Dan Euser of Waterarchitecture. Two rows of ten fountains are spread out across the main walkway of the square, so that visitors have the opportunity to walk through or around the fountains. Unlike many other city fountains, the Dundas Square fountains were meant for waterplay, and include a sophisticated filtration system that, according to both of the architects, keeps the water at or above "pool quality" water. According to Dan Euser, the water is treated to maintain health standards for waterplay. According to facility administrator Christine MacLean, the slate that was chosen for the entire space has nonslip properties for the safety of persons running through or playing in the fountains. Each of the ten water fountains consists of a stainless steel grille with 30 ground nozzles (arranged in three rows of ten) under it.

Surrounding buildings

During the summer, the large open space, being sheltered from the wind, by the surrounding tall buildings, and being of black granite, heats up like a solar oven. Later in the fall, however (e.g. by October), when the sun is lower, the sparkle of the fountains in the sunlight is only at its best at certain times of day, such as 12:00 noon when all 20 fountains glisten in the sun, and then again around 3pm, when the sun comes out from behind the tall building to the south, which casts a shadow approximately 54 tiles wide. By 4pm, the westmost fountain starts to fall into shade again.

Other projects in the immediate area include the redevelopment of the Eaton Centre, and the construction of a new cinema complex to the north. A so-called "Media Tower" - essentially a scaffold for billboards, operated by Clear Channel Communications - has been constructed on the northwest corner. Dundas Square is part of a Business Improvement Area (BIA), which city councillor Kyle Rae has pointed to Times Square in New York City as a model to emulate, with its canyon of billboards and animated advertising screens.

Under Dundas Square

The surface of Dundas Square is not level, because it is sloped upward as the surface goes away from Yonge Street. This is to allow sufficient height to provide clearance for the underground parking garage entrance. The architects planned the surface's slope to make it interesting and to accommodate the necessary clearances for what lies under the Square. Additionally, level P1 houses the washrooms/changerooms, green room (for stage performers), and various utilities rooms, custodial and supply closets, as well as the water treatment plant and pump rooms for the fountains.

Controversy

Dundas Square is controversial in some circles. Criticism ranges from suggestions that the city has missed an opportunity for sorely needed green space within the downtown area (or at least more interesting architectural elements) to questions of what the true intent behind the ostensibly public square is. Numerous groups, from the influential non-profit Toronto Public Space Committee, to organizers of Toronto iterations of the Reclaim The Streets phenomenon, often point to the Square as exemplifying some negative trend in urban planning.

The square is surrounded on all sides by gigantic commercial billboards; with city funds going towards what appears to be a large advertising experiment, many have pointed to the square as a prime example of the creeping privatization of public space. Those making this point have been bolstered by the fact that the square's board is populated by local businesses (including most notably Cadillac-Fairview, owners of the Eaton's Centre shopping mall across the street, initiators of the project, and long-time proponents of "cleaning up" the downtown Yonge area), and that the square, while advertised as something akin to a concrete park, is actually a privately run venture with many restrictive regulations.

On an aesthetic note, some detractors have said that when the fountains are not running (e.g. to mask out the sounds of traffic), the square feels like a GO transit commuter bus station or an abandoned parking lot. Some suggest it should have monuments or other items (such as greenery) to break up the open space. However, the main problem is often said to be the simple lack of people.

Fountains

A jogger cools off in the "urban beach" that forms the main central part of Dundas Square (multiple exposure picture).

The width of the water spray is always 6 inches narrowide (the three rows of ten are each 3 inches apart), and 18 inches broadside, because the nozzles in each row are spaced 2 inches apart. This 18 inch width was selected to match the width of the widest of adult human users. The height of the spray is time-varying, and under program control. There are various programs for the fountains, the two most common being sinusoidal unison, and westward wave packets. During most of the summer and fall of 2004, all 600 nozzles rose and fell in unison, in a sinusoidally time-varying fashion, with a period of approximately 10 seconds, to create an urban beach effect, as the "waves" or "surf" pounds against the hard rock surface. The water goes from approximately 1 foot high, to 8 feet high, giving rise to a peak-to-peak sinusoidal amplitude of 7 feet. Starting on Thursday, 27 October 2004, the program was changed to one that sends wave packets westward, with a period of approximately 8 seconds across all 10 fountains (but only the middle channel of each one, with the westward channels forming a background pedestal). This period gives rise to a phase velocity of approximately 5.6 meters per second. Running westward at a moderate speed (i.e. approximately 20km/hour), one can stay inside the peak of the wave packet, to get a very enjoyable waterplay experience, when the wave packet program is running in the fountains.

The fountains are intended to appeal to children and adults alike, and there is evidence that this intention has been realized:

Meanwhile, nearer Yonge street, by the splash pad (a series of fountains designed to allow people to cool off in their spray), a group of men in their early 20's laughing and speaking Portuguese tried to wrestle each other into the spray. [1] (http://www.quirkynomads.com/nuke/html/article-1218--0-0.html)

Some locals have raised concenrs about overzealous security guards chasing people out of the fountains or telling them not to "loiter,", when in fact, architects Brown and Storey, the creator of the fountains (Dan Euser), the firm that initiated the bidding, as well as Councillor Kyle Rae, and the management of Dundas Square have all confirmed that waterplay was one of the intended uses of the space.

The entire rock surface is of a very dark (almost black) color, and effectively absorbs sunlight, thus creating a warm surface to rest on. The water runs under the dark rock slabs, and is thus heated by them, so that the fountain water is solar heated.

Three curved lighting masts along the south edge of the urbeach, made of hollow structural steel have a high gloss white finish that contrasts with the rough nonslip texture of the black granite, and each support six mercury vapour arc lamps that create evening light that comes from approximately the same directions as natural sunlight does during the day (i.e. from varous southerly directions).

Water quality

Because many people drink from the ground spray nozzles (some people even fill up water bottles from the ground sprays), and since of course waterplay is one of the intended uses, the water is tested every morning, between 9am and 10am, by the health department. The water is treated with bromine, which many bathers prefer to chlorine. There are three separate water treatment facilities, one for each group of ten westmost nozzles in each grille (200 nozzles total), another for the middle row of ten in each grille, and a third for all of the eastmost nozzles. There are three switches, one for each of the three channels (east, center, and west). Each channel is fitted with a pipe that is 8 inches inches in diameter (according to BOMBEN Plumbing and Heating which holds the contract for system repairs). Each set of ten nozzles is supplied with a 2 inch pipe (i.e. each fountain has three 2 inch pipes supplying it). Thus each fountain provides the approximate equivalent of three large firehoses. The water that runs into the grilles travels west, under the raised floor of the Dundas Square slabs, to the treatment facility under the west end of the waterplay area. Sometimes the water runs only partially, e.g. from 2004 24 September, through 2004 27 September, the middle channel was down, so only 400 of the 600 nozzles were operational. In this case, the waterplay experience feels a little "thin" (notably less splash factor when running through broadside). If one of the three channels goes down over the weekend, it usually won't be repaired until the next weekday. When all 600 nozzles are running, crashing through the wall of water feels about equivalent to entry off a 3m springboard into a pool (in terms of approximate equivalent splash factor). The wall of water in each fountain is spaced so as not to be so dense as to cause bruising when crashing through it, but dense enough to create a high thrill factor.

Animation

Due to cost limitations, only the middle channel (i.e. middle ten nozzles of each fountain) can be animated, but the outside two channels can still be globally controlled. The outside two channels are often used to set a background (pedestal) level, while the middle channel animates, typically with a period of 8 seconds.

Each fountain shoots water straight up out of the ground, to a height, <math>h(t)<math> that varies as a periodic function of time, <math>t<math>. Therefore, there are ten time-varying waveforms, <math>h_0<math>, <math>h_1<math>, <math>h_2<math>, ... <math>h_{9}<math>, one waveform from each of the ten fountains.

The first fountain, (numbered <math>0<math>) squirts, then the second one (numbered 1), and so on, up to the last one (9), and then the sequence repeats, continuously. This program sends wave packets (spatially sampled, i.e. <math>h_x(t)<math> is discrete in <math>x<math>) westward at a speed of approximately 20 km/hour, so that a jogger can run west, through the fountains at this phase velocity of the wave packet, as shown below:

Fountain <math>x<math> produces a periodic signal, <math>h_x(t)<math> with a period of eight seconds. However, each fountain's height is 36 degrees out of phase with an ajacent fountain, as shown in the figure below:

The directionality imposed by the sequencer encourages bathers to run west rather than east. It therefore reduces the probability that joggers will bump into each other, since they most likely run through the fountains in the same direction. Moreover, the sequencer makes the bathing experience optimal for joggers who run west at exactly 20km/hour. Thus the tendency toward the same speed AND direction sets forth a recipe for minimizing contact or obstruction, in much the same way as synchronized stoplights make traffic move at a constant speed.

In the above figure <math>h_1(t)=h_0(t-0.8s)<math>, <math>h_2(t)=h_1(t-0.8s)<math>, ... <math>h_9(t)=h_8(t-0.8s)<math>, and finally, <math>h_9(t)=h_8(t-0.8s)<math>, so that <math>h_9(t)=h_0(t-7.2s)<math>, and so on.

Since the sequence exists on a half-open interval, it may be modeled as if it were periodic (replicated) in space, <math>x<math>, along a row of infinitely many fountains. Thus the DFT (Discrete Fourier Transform) may be properly applied to an analysis of the spatial wave characteristics. Temporally, a Fourier series is more appropriate since the waveform is periodic and continuous in time.

Awards

1999 - Canadian Architect magazine, Award of Excellence for significant building in the design stage. ...recognized as an outstanding example of contemporary architecture.

2000 Architecture magazine, Progressive Architecture citation. ...commended as a new form of urban space with great presence... pushes the limits of invention and originality.

See also

• List of city squares

External links

• Official site with event listings (http://www.ydsquare.ca/)
• Architect's Site (http://brownandstorey.com/projects/DundasSquare/DS.htm)
• Public must push limits, make Dundas Square theirs (http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_06.12.03/news/dundassquare.html)
• ... WHO WINS THE HEART OF THE CITY (http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2003-10-02/news_feature.php)
• A night at Dundas Square (http://www.stefanospantagis.net/DustingDundasSquare.17.9.04/)
• By permit only (http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2003-05-15/news_story3.php)
• "Dundas Squared" on the hypotenuse, etc. (http://wearcam.org/dundas-square/)