Esplanade Street as downtown Truro’s backyard:
With Truro’s downtown continuing to urbanize and more people moving into apartments and condos, Truro needs to work to preserve its small-town feel into the future. A core piece of the archetypal small-town lifestyle is the backyard: a place for family and friends to gather, for passive recreation, and for community members to take pride and ownership of. By encouraging interaction, both with the design, and among neighbors, these spaces can provide the community with the functions of a classic backyard, cultivating local identity.
This redevelopment concept considers the site of Truro Centre, a strip mall which also serves as the VIA rail station. By replacing the shopping center with apartments, a dedicated train station, and restaurant, the space can be utilized by the community, opening up green space and continuing to connect the Cobequid trail network.
Embracing principles of transit-oriented development optimizes the experience of train and public transit users, a drastic shift from the car dominated existing site. By also connecting active transport routes, the design encourages users to walk, jog, or cycle, further reducing car dependency in downtown Truro. This gives space for human scale spatial relationships, informing the division of spaces and functions through the long and narrow site.
