“Emerald Web” Sudbury 2050 urban center masterplan (Sudbury, Canada, 2020)

Greater Sudbury’s rich social and cultural life takes place at the confluence of geology, landscape, and infrastructure. The city’s modern history is linked to its geological past. Sudbury is located within the second largest known impact crater on Earth. This cosmic event is responsible for the region’s mineral wealth which was discovered as the country built its railway infrastructure. Sudbury’s founding is inextricably intertwined with the commercial interests to exploit its vast mineral reserves. Human activities have since completely altered the nature of its landscapes now defined by the tell-tale signs of extractive economies.

Since the eighties, Sudbury has made great strides to diversify its economy and remediate its surrounding environment–earning international recognition for its efforts. By 2050 the reclamation of Vale’s mining site could be well underway. Our proposal is a stepping stone between the newly recovered lands to the east and the Minnow lake conservation area to the west. We propose the recovery of Junction creek connecting the former extraction sites to the southwest to New Sudbury’s conservation area in the northeast through a riparian corridor.

The regional metabolism includes soil (tailings and biosolids), water (sewage, mineral polluted streams, watershed runoffs), vegetation (managed timber production and reforestation efforts), mineral (nickel and copper, but also platinum and palladium) and atmospheric exchanges (acid rain, noxious gasses, and mining emissions). In space, Sudbury can’t be understood without a cross section of the entire biosphere from the crust to the stratosphere, and, in time, from the Paleoproterozoic era 1.8 billion years ago and well into the Anthropocene, tens of thousands of years from now.

In this greater temporal and spatial scheme, our proposal fills the void at the center of an archipelago of green islands--like a spider perched on an emerald web. Sudbury’s new heart pumps a new transfusion of blue-green blood into this system, weaving together visual, historic, and cultural threads.

Inspired by the Living Building Challenge, our proposal aspires to exemplify “a city as beautiful as a forest.” The basic concept of the proposal is to merge the vacant and underutilized lands surrounding the train yards and Brady street. A star shaped structure with a minimal footprint bridges these gaps. The result is a continuous synthetic surface of 60 hectares extending from Lorne street to the west to Paris street to the east, and from Elm street to the north to Riverside drive and the train yards to the south. This surface contains three green “petals” or parks, each one leaning toward a specific program informed by its urban surroundings.

The project consists of a new central park for Sudbury (painted plaster model)

Model close up of landform building

Orthophoto of Sudbury’s downtown area as of 2020

The proposal reclaims the freight yards abd caps over the intersection with a landform building

Southeast bird’s eye view

Sections through landform building’s main axes in summer and winter

Regional section

Northwest bird’s eye view

Spring / morning

Summer / midday

Autumn / afternoon

Winter / night

Layered isometric view of objects and syste

Project team: Daniel Daou, Priscila Gonzaga, Abraham Zarazúa, Víctor Pineda, Alejandra Ramos, Jaime Palacios

DANIEL DAOU DESIGN

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