ABANDON TIMMIES CUPS:
SOCIAL INTERACTIONS & CONTROL AND APPROPRIATION OF SPACE
ARCH4016 Cultural Sustainability
Casey Ouellette, Brook-Lynn Roy, Cat Daigle
EVALUATIONS AND FINDINGS
CONTROL AND APPROPRIATION OF SPACE
The Tim Hortons studied Downtown offers a unique set of parameters. Its users are present in a wide range of demographics, varying from business class to disadvantaged and this demonstrates the location as a prime example of a site appropriated by its users. The disadvantaged percentage of users utilize built elements to meet their needs due to the lack of implemented design elements; this can be seen through the use of the local garbage bins and window ledges as places to store and collect their personal items. Regardless of which Tim Hortons location is being reviewed, individuals can be seen utilizing the present buildings elements and adapting them for their own personal use. Similar behaviours can be spotted in the New Sudbury location, at this location individuals utilize the buildings’ overhang near the entrance to linger in a protected area, thus disrupting the immediate in and out mouvement gestured by the sites layout. The appropriation of a space of transition such as the elevated sidewalk portion running along the perimeter of the buildings, causes a disruption of the flow of foot traffic entering and exiting the building; in the studied Hanmer location, users chose to pause, sit, and collect themselves along this foot traffic highway, thus disrupting the natural flow of the site and forcing other users to deviate from the intended path highlighted by the site's present design elements. It can be noted that people have a tendency to gravitate towards design features that offer varying degrees of shelter and security. These moments found across the studied locations can be documented as extremely important when determining the social and physical well-being of its users in relation to control of their environment.
When given the opportunity, most users would take advantage of designed elements such as sitting and gathering areas to enjoy their experience, however with the lack of such, the users are thrusted into taking control and generating their own degree of social space. The downtown site presents itself as a resilient set of compromises between users and space, demonstrating many alternatives to the predetermined standards and uses of each set of or lack thereof designed elements. The users have been seen utilizing the surrounding edges of the site, flocking to any element resembling a form of shelter and security; such as that of the bollards in the sidewalk to culter around, surrounding buildings edges to congregate at, window ledges to hold items and discarded waste, as well as the use of temporary elements, such as that of parked cars in the lot as moments to circle around. In the case of the New Sudbury Tim Hortons parking lot, the space is adapted and shared by both pedestrians and vehicles. The space is often inhabited by people using the space for social gatherings and moments of pause, but is mainly dominated by the vehicular traffic flowing in and out of the drive thru. The parking lot has rather narrow spacing between the rows of parking spaces and the route in which traffic enters and exits onto the busy street of Lasalle Boulevard. thus making the space inconvenient, clustered and often dangerous to pedestrians. In the studied field at the Hanmer Tim Hortons parking lot, the vehicles using the drive thru have a dominance over the site. The site is laid out in such a way that if the line for the drive thru exceeds a couple cars, any users parked in the center of the site become trapped and are unable to leave. This not only inconveniences users hoping to quickly utilize the establishment's services, but also poses a threat to pedestrians and on foot users who have to cross a line of vehicles in order to access the establishment. The lack of bike parking on all studied sites accounted for a unique variation of opportunities for studied site appropriation. The atmosphere of comfort, trust and safety could be clearly evaluated through the treatment of bikes at each location. Through the time of study unfortunately no bike users were evaluated at the New Sudbury location, however the Hanmer and Downtown locations allowed for a clear contrast in the preconceived overall atmosphere of the sites. In the Downtown location, people seem to lack the feeling of safety and trust and bikes can thus be seen hidden behind garbage bins and chained to the neighbouring buildings, where as in Hanmer, people obviously feel more at ease since bikes can be spotted simply lining the buildings edge unsupervised and unchained up.
As read in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William H. Whyte, “People tend to sit most where there are places to sit,” which may not come off as a surprising fact, however does manifest itself of great importance in a positive and socially friendly environment. This concept of sitting where there are places to sit is valuable when designing a place, such as a commercial establishment in which people are needed for such a place to thrive. By proving mixed sitting opportunities it is likely that a positive experience for the user will exist. This is where an opportunity exists for each Tim Hortons location, for the lack of provided designed interaction space leads to the users appropriating the space to accommodate for their own needs. The downtown site as a whole can be viewed as poorly accessible for both car and pedestrian traffic, generating a complex system of interactions and customized experiences in order to inhabit it as a whole. The downtown site presents the unique condition of varying classes of user congestion, especially near the main entrance and exits of the store. An effort to eliminate these clusters has been attempted in a non-human friendly manner, through the use of hostile architectural implementations limiting areas of public seating, moments of pause, and safe paths of travel.The New Sudbury site of study demonstrates the domination of vehicular traffic through the majority of the site. It was noted that pedestrians tend to follow building boundaries when moving through the site, the path pedestrians are more likely to take reflects on the flow of elements in the site. The building offers shelter and a wall to follow when moving though the site, often seen as an element of comfort. As the cars clam their paths through the site, users tend to rest in safe spots, whether that would be beside the building and under the overhang of the roof, or between parked cars. The Hanmer site can be viewed as a poorly implemented establishment within the local context of its surroundings. This site chosen simply for its proximity to the local highway offers no comfort or proper areas for pedestrians and human inhabitants. The constant flow of traffic through the site limits the users capability to comfortably inhabit and appropriate the site.
Soft city by David Sim discusses the process of humans' ability and desire to cultivate, control, and manimulate their relationships within a given environment in order to maximize the best quality of experience. David goes on to explain that being in control of one's own environment is not the process of changing your position, but rather being able to respond accordingly to meet the needs of said given instance. This suggests that what is needed for a given Tim Hortons user is not the freedom to customize for the sake of change, but to be able to adapt accordingly to each circumstance presented. This can be explained as if one user at the Hamner location were in need of somewhere to rest their shopping bags on a chair while they adjusted, compared to that of a separate user at the New Sudbury location desiring somewhere to sit and wait for the bus. What changes is not the repetition of the given chair example, but the individual needs utilizing it as such. Providing the non-built in outdoor furniture and social gathering spaces could potentially provide the opportunity for comfortable and adaptable gatherings to take place, resulting in the decentralizing of clusters near the establishment's doors and allowing the users to hold control over how they wish to inhabit the space. In order for the Hanmer and New Sudbury spaces to be more welcoming to people, the vehicular traffic would have to be restricted to only exiting one way from the drive thru and the site would have to be designed for a better flow of vehicular traffic. An effort to alleviate some of the site congestion Downtown would be to design a separate foot traffic entrance and pathway access to the site itself; including room for moments to stop and stray from the immediate ‘highway’ in and out flow of the site. For future designs implementations the addition of designated social spaces would highly benefit the selected sites.The environment would have to be focused more towards the pedestrians and the creation of social spaces to accommodate the needs of these social people. Once the needs are met, there would be less vehicular traffic in a rush to move through the space. If an alternate approach to the current sites was to be taken, one that presents itself as people positive experience, it would be achieved through locating specific design features on site that would allow for individuals to comfortably sit, appropriate. This gesture could reduce the buildings dominate front presence and could be implemented either through utilizing specific window or curb edges to double as seating in an effort to direct some of the doorway congestion, or in an attempt to address a larger site context, potentially even supplying coverage or large patches of inhabitable greenspace surrounding the building where the individuals could migrate towards.
SOCIAL INTERACTIONS
The New Sudbury Tim Hortons demonstrated a variety of users throughout the site as well, although similar to that of the Hanmer site. In relation to the context of the surrounding environment, the users tend to gather in separate age groups. The older crowd follow their usual routine and gather in the morning, even if that means breaking the No Loitering Covid rules that have been put into effect, by bringing lawn chairs in order to complete their morning socialization. In the afternoon, younger crowds take over the space, usually in larger groups and tend to stand around the borders of the building or between cars in the parking lot. There is also a wide variety of users stopping in for short amounts of time, often work related breaks. These users are more likely to utilize the limited amount of elements in the built environment to sit on ledges and take moments of pause. On the other hand, the Downtown Tim Hortons location, multiple scenarios of design influenced social interactions took place resulting in the complex social dynamic of the site. Based on recorded demographics of the sites clientele there is a wide variety of users spanning from city workers, to business casual to the lower-income and less fortunate groups, the majority of which recorded having the strongest presence on site being that of the less fortunate. These groupings of people occurred in generally the same physical location regardless of which site was being analyzed, Downtown, New Sudbury or Hanmer, however, the changes occurred in the type of demographics and intention of such interactions / groupings. Where the Downtown location posed an opportunity for those who are in more of a dire need of somewhere to go during the day to interact with others as more of a necessity location, whereas the other two locations presented more of a desire to go out of benefit and not of need.
The Hanmer location, because of its open nature with no clear boundaries, would allow for a much higher capacity. That being said however, because of the availability of so much space, individuals have a much larger bubble of comfort and thus require more space between themselves; this limits the areas available for groups to gather and creates an interesting set of non-physical boundaries across the site. Responsive Environments, A Manual for Designers by Ian Bently, Alan Alcock, Paul Murrain, Sue McGlynn, Graham Smith present the argument that the public edge of any given building should house activities that could benefit from interaction with the social and public realm. These interactions along the live space edge of a building can promote and contribute to the life of the public space itself by providing moments of social interaction and gatherings to occur. As observed in the New Sudbury location’s parking lot, users tend to follow boundary points and will pause or rest along the edge of the building. The main social spaces of the site were created by the users alongside the wall of the building, bringing life to the edges of the space.
Jan Gehl discusses in Life Between Buildings, that a rare yet essential form of conversation in public space is that of conversation and interaction between strangers. These interactions are more likely to occur when individuals are at ease, and more specifically when they are both engaging in similar activities, such as the case of waiting in line to acquire one's coffee. As presented by the findings on the ideal ‘max capacity’ of a site, the users of the Downtown Tim Hortons have been noted as responding to this capacity issue by the response to the area in which they can disperse safely. As people tend to gather in clusters around the main entrance, it has been recorded that once maximum sidewalk coverage has been used, individuals will shift to standing in the parking lot in order to expand the social buble without having to move the gathering as whole. In response to physical comfort, it can be noted that solo individuals at the Downtown location are more likely to provide extra room between themselves and groups or clusters in an effort to keep distance and separation from certain demographics, whereas those within the groupings are more likely to approach and intrude on this max capacity unaware of the presence they hold.
Based on the data collected and observations made, in order to improve the conditions of the Hanmer Tim Hortons the users improved comfort would need to be considered. An area of pause with seating would need to be implemented in order to allow and invite individuals or groups to gather within a safe space. This area would need to take into consideration the protection of users from year round conditions such as cold winter winds, hot summer sun and rain. William H. Whyte discusses the emphasis on the importance of protection against negative climatic conditions in order to ensure the opportunities for engagement between individuals in specific scenarios. These conditions can be seen on site as the lack of coverage from climatic conditions resulting in individuals not wishing to venture out into the rain / snow / etc to enter into or linger on site, thus limiting the potential for social interaction to occur. Whereas the roof overhang and elevated curb elements surrounding the building provide for some degree of coverage, allowing for strangers to gather in close proximity to wait underhead before entering the store. A protected partially covered or enclosed exterior space would allow individuals to gather for longer periods of time and could help create more varied interaction opportunities.
The data collected from the New Sudbury Tim Hortons regarding the users interactions with the space shows that the parking lot is not very user friendly, however, people tend to find areas on the site and make themselves comfortable all the same. The first step to a better design for people would obviously be to allow them to use the site and to remove the No Loitering rule, although that would mean Covid would have to disappear. Despite this, design elements that would enhance the experience of the site would have to do with the incorporation or better seating in spaces people tend to hang out the most. During the research process, it was noted that people hang out close to the building or close to larger objects. In order to make people feel more comfortable and welcomed outside, actual seating elements should be put in place, such as benches or even wider edged along the windows.
In order to enhance the future design of such social service industry and social conditions through social and cultural sustainability, an effort towards the logistics of induced social interactions, especially at the Downtown Tim Hortons location could be extremely beneficial to both the user and the service themselves. The interactions between users generate an overall atmosphere of a site and congestion of users is counterproductive for experience and business, where if the implementation of proper seating and gathering areas external of the buildings were provided, more groupings could comfortably form and be directed away from the main entrance and exits of the site, improving the flow and comfort for all.