Tactical urbanism: 100in1Day Hamilton

NRU
May 18, 2016
By Peter Pantalone

With Hamilton’s second 100in1Day coming up June 4, organizers are hoping to replicate the success of last year’s inaugural event in activating local communities through dozens of small-scale urban interventions, known as tactical urbanism.

A growing global movement that originated in Bogota, Columbia in 2012, 100in1Day is held in cities around the world once a year and calls for residents to catalyze change by staging 100 different urban interventions in a single day.

In preparation for this year’s 100in1Day, several workshops are being held by the organizers to help people plan and implement their proposed interventions. At a May 13 workshop Perkins + Will principal Paul Kulig gave a keynote presentation focusing on how to leverage the tactile urbanism to facilitate long-term change.

Kulig told NRU that Hamilton staff has been proactive in finding ways to accommodate proposed urban interventions. One example is a new city permitting process to facilitate the use of parking spaces for short-term events.

“100in1Day is about translating interventions into lasting changes that can slowly start to improve the urban fabric in Hamilton,” Kulig said.

Evergreen project manager Jay Carter told NRU that several of the interventions staged at Hamilton’s June 6, 2015 event have led to permanent installations.

In Fireflies in the Night, a group called Surprise! Hamilton sought to encourage night cycling by lining the Escarpment Rail Trail with tea light candles. The intervention drew over 1,000 cyclists and resulted in the city installing new lighting to illuminate the formerly unlit pathway at night.

The city’s Crown Point neighbourhood was host to several interventions in 2015 including a pollinator garden and a street piano for impromptu serenading of people travelling Kenilworth Avenue. These resulted in the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board creating a partnership with community groups to install permanent community art along planter boxes on Kenilworth.

Not limited to the downtown core, Carter said there is at least one intervention planned this year in each of Hamilton’s 15 wards and a few Flamborough farmers are hosting tours of their farms.