Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
This pioneering structure was an innovative trend in northern development but
many of the houses in other parts of the town do have similar designs to those found
in many southern Canadian centres, so together with a recent mobile home area it
shows that not all of the area is as adequately winter-proofed as its initial phase.
The wind-break design was inspired by similar, although much smaller buildings
created in Kiruna and Svappavaara, also iron mine towns in northern Sweden that
lie just over the Arctic Circle. In many ways the new iron ore town of Kiruna in
Northern Sweden developed after the rail line to the port of Narvik in Norway was
completed in 1902 contained many of the ideas that were revived a century later
by Winter City advocates. The Swedish architect Per Hallman, inspired by Camillo
Sitte's views that town plans should reflect existing topography, built the town on a
hill, knowing that cold air drains into valleys. He also created a winding main road,
thereby preventing
wind funnel effects
through the town, and ensuring other roads
had similar curves. Today, developers in winter cities now use wind tunnel simula-
tions to calculate the wind-breaking effect of buildings before they are constructed,
instead of the trial and error of the past. At a smaller scale the technique also al-
lows working out the best places to erect snow fences to prevent drifting snow, or
the placement of vanes on roof to reduce snow accumulation.
Covered areas,
such
as walkways between buildings, like the traditional 'roji' in northern Japan, have
also proved influential in cutting out snow accumulation on paths, thereby helping
to maintain local mobility, as well as being useful in connecting buildings in rainy
areas. However this traditional idea has been expanded in all Japanese cities in new
ways, such as connecting shopping areas to transit terminals, while local shopkeep-
ers' associations have often financed the covering of shopping streets to provide
sheltered areas with more interior retail and service outlets to make shopping easy
and comfortable. These are similar to the covered arcades in European cities, al-
though these run through building blocks from one street to another, adding to retail
space and with the intent of providing shelter from rain as much as snow. In the
central business districts of larger cities exposure to winter conditions has also been
drastically reduced by providing
covers over some main streets
to provide protec-
tion in shopping areas against winter. For example, overhangs or canopy cover for
pedestrians, were developed in the main shopping streets in Sherbrooke in Quebec
in the mid 1970s. They revitalised Wellington Street in particular and enabled it to
compete with suburban malls. A similar successful design change result took place
in 1974 when a five block, 700 m stretch of a major shopping street, rue St. Roch
in Quebec city, became the first in North America to be pedestrianized, roofed over,
and provided with a climate-controlled system. The success of these ventures has
led to the addition of many downtown shopping malls in cities that experience long
winters. The Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto was opened in 1977 and is now
one of the world's biggest, with 230 stores and 160,000 m
2
. of floor space on five
levels, all set around a large interior galleria illuminated with natural light. This
helped revitalise the deterioration in Yonge Street, the original main shopping street
in Toronto, that had started to decline due to competition for shoppers from the
competing climate-controlled new suburban shopping malls.
In some cities interior gardens have also been developed, such as the Devonian
Gardens located on the fourth story of a building complex in downtown Calgary
