TownShift: Suburb into City - Competition Shortlist

The international ideas competition “TownShift: Suburb into City” recently announced the list of finalists. The competition seeks innovative ideas for five established town centers of Surrey, Canada: Guildford, Fleetwood, Cloverdale, Newton and Semiahmoo. The aim of the competition is to “Shift” thinking and opportunities for each of these “Town” hubs towards more intense, public-minded and productive urban futures.

Surrey, British Columbia’s second most populous city, is located to the east of the largest, Vancouver, south of the Fraser River, and north of the United States border.

The TownShift competition finalists will be on display at SFU Surrey Central City from February 4 through 28. Surrey’s Mayor Watts will announce the competition-winning schemes and recipients of $75,000 in prizes on February 24.

Following is a selection of some of the shortlisted projects, sorted by the five town centers Cloverdale, Fleetwood, Guildford, Newton, and Semiahmoo. See the complete list of finalists here.

Cloverdale: Round Up
Building Affordability

Site Description: “At the very heart of downtown Cloverdale, there is a powerful opportunity to attract new residents and secure and expand this urban character and commercial vibrancy as The City of Surrey has assembled two large sites immediately adjacent to downtown. The real opportunity here is housing, at a scale large enough to spark a real community and further support business on 176 Street. Design in the service of affordable housing is the issue here.”

Fleetwood: Marker
Shaping Gateway Identity

Site Description: “Fleetwood’s identity problems are summed up in the two key signs at its north and south ends. “Welcome to Fleetwood” reads the low sign on a triangular piece of highway-side grass at a high profile intersection. Whether public art, a light tower, fountain or other urban icon beyond imagining, we are asking designers to use their imaginations to create a better marker for Fleetwood, one that will animate the streets, sidewalks and businesses that surround it.”

Guildford: Cornered
Place-Making at Mall’s Edge

Site Description: “The opportunity here is to temper and humanize a busy corner, in the process inducing place-making and a sense of arrival at Guildford, and in effect, all of Surrey. For this site, you are given almost complete freedom in terms of buildings or no-buildings, functional program for functionless visual symbolism, any palette of building or plant materials, size, height, artworks, or projected iconography. ‘Garden Plots’ or ‘Gargantuan Tower’—the design and program choices are yours alone.”

Newton: New Town
Connecting Density to Transit

Site Description: “Newton provides a wonderful opportunity to boldly re-shape the entire Town Centre, crafting massing for the many new blocks of housing, re-ordering civic elements, public spaces and connections arrayed between all of these. The criterion of success will be to make the New Town walkable, amenable for residents, and attractive to others, with reasons to stop by Newton, rather than just pass through. Be creative, and show how a bold and unprecedented community can emerge here.”

Semiahmoo: Up
Forming Plaza through Residential Towers

Site Description: “In Semiahmoo, the thesis to be tested is whether high-rise residential construction can be humanized through considered design, revenues from these discretionary increased densities funding a long-overdue public amenity–a Semiahmoo Town Centre Plaza. High-rise residential and a new public square will together form a desirable gateway into what will become a more pedestrian-oriented zone of South Surrey. Density together with amenity will make a sustainable lifestyle a reality here.”