Ottawacurious
Active Member
I like the drive-on roof. Trying to push things a little further - would be cool if they could do the green roof like the image below. Probably wouldn't survive in the climate? An idea regardless.
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New Ottawa Civic Hospital | The Ottawa Hospital | HDR
- Thread starter urbottawa
- Start date
Agreed. This type of green roof wouldn't add that much weight or cost I don't think. In any case, putting some parking up there is a good use of space.
Ottawacurious
Active Member
View from maple? lane at the backside of the future hospital.
NCC had a presentation on the Civic's design. I'll post more later, but for now, the revised design.
The Ottawa Hospital New Campus Development – Phase 4 Main Hospital Building - 66% Developed Design
- Presentation (PDF)
- Submission (PDF)
A few more images from the presentation.
The entry plaza and healing park look amazing, but I'm really disappointed by the barcode facades. I think it's a bad look that will age poorly. It's also super weird to access the hospital from mass transit by crossing a road into a parking garage, taking an elevator, and walking down an endless +15 skybridge. I am curious how long the walk will be. 15 minutes maybe? This is a classic example of poor planning in Ottawa. Too many hands in the cookie jar.
The current plan to connect the hospital from Dow's Lake Station is really quite terrible. No reason why the skywalk can't connect directly from the garage to the station. Having to go up and down, up and down is really quite frustrating.
We knew about this hospital location in 2017, a full two years before Stage 2 construction. The timeline was perfect for the City/Province to build up a completely new double track, centre platform station with a direct connection to the hospital, and double track everything north of the Dow's Lake tunnel. Unfortunately, the City and Province were too cheap and visionless to get this done right from day 1. We'll now build this complicated pedestrian overpass, and then have to rebuild the station for capacity issues and be limited by an existing (by that time) overpass.
I wouldn't mind the 15 or whatever minute walk, as long as it was fully climate controlled (or at least protected from the elements) and direct.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Not sure where you're getting this from. I don't see anything at all to indicate that they have shifted from the initial concept of a link that moves steadily up in three stages from the platform to the "highline" level. It's not shown in the renderings because the hospital and the NCC aren't building it. The report text says "TOH and the City of Ottawa are engaged in ongoing planning work to ensures strong seamless connectivity is provided between Dows Lake Station (O-Train Line 2) and the Hospital at its opening in 2030." It also notes that the internal streets are bus-compatible and "coordination with OC Transpo is on-going." A bus route could run or loop through the site.
To recall, the 2024 preliminary design showed this:
Where is the up and down, up and down?
The newest diagram still shows the a direct, diagonal route from the front door to Dow's Lake Station.
15 or whatever minute walk? The distance is 360 metres, which by itself is just over 4 minutes. Add in some grade changes and you might get to 5 or even 6 if you need to take the elevators. A lot depends on how well the connections are designed: in a straight line, with turnbacks, etc. Ottawa has a pretty mixed track record in that respect. If it's laid out like the Rideau Centre, we're doomed. But look, our airport station is possibly one of the best airport-to-train links there is. If only the actual train service matched it.
Attachments
Seems my memory of what was proposed was a bit fuzzy. Still, that's three elevation changes. If they at least had the bridge at the same height as the parking garage rooftop park, that would eliminate one. At this point, it might be better to wait for the station rebuild to better intergrade the whole thing. Anything we do before the station rebuild design will limit what we can do in the future.
Best case would be a centre platform that goes under Carling with the stairs/elevators just south of Carling. Put the fare gates on the platform after the vertical circulation so the tower is not fare paid. Elevator has three levels; platform, Carling, bridge to the parking garage. That would be the simplest, user friendly design.
Best case would be a centre platform that goes under Carling with the stairs/elevators just south of Carling. Put the fare gates on the platform after the vertical circulation so the tower is not fare paid. Elevator has three levels; platform, Carling, bridge to the parking garage. That would be the simplest, user friendly design.