[URBAN NOTE] "Ryerson University Wants Its Campus To Become a “Public Realm”"

[rfmcdonald]

Will Koblensky's Torontoist post highlights a Ryerson University plan that sounds entrancing. Why, indeed, isolate a campus already deeply embedded in Yonge Street from the city?

Typical university campuses are often themed. Take U of T’s Hogwarts-like architecture, or York University’s city-unto-itself feel.

Ryerson University has the distinction of being among downtown’s crowded corridors without imposing a uniform streetscape connecting its many buildings.

That’s already begun to change. Some of the urban campus’s roads have become ambient-lit walkways, and sidewalks have turned into pedestrian boulevards connecting Ryerson’s expanding array of learning centres.

The car-free section of Gould Street just east of Yonge is the genesis of what Ryerson and the City of Toronto plan as a foot traffic-favoured part of town.

The design’s aim is to invite students and anyone in the area off the main street into what Ryerson calls a public realm.

There is much more at Torontoist.