Market Lane
London ON
The rejuvenation of a forgotten but crucial passageway, scripts a striking case on the importance of addressing the leftover spaces between buildings. As part of a larger City-led downtown renewal, this initiative aimed to transform a derelict linkage in the downtown pedestrian network with its impending success incentivizing deeper change across London’s core.
Market Lane had fallen into disrepair. It was attracting undesirable activity, leaving pedestrians with feelings of unease. The lane was fundamentally neglected and ascribed as a place to avoid – despite its role as a critical pathway between Dundas Street and Covent Garden Market. With the arrival of new neighbours – Fanshawe’s School of Digital Media – and the upcoming World Figure Skating Championships adopting the lane as a signature site, the City saw the opportunity for a reset.
Our competition-winning design Figure Ground draws inspiration from the local landscape of southwestern Ontario, including the Thames River valley that weaves through the city and the Carolinian forest within which the site lies. The meandering bench edge utilizes the language of a riverbank with seating systems and lighting to suggest a slower pace at which to enjoy the curved embankments. The luminescent ottoman forms dubbed the Otto-Bot provide night lighting, heating during cold months and a casual seat directing the route.
Vancouver’s EOS Light Media helped design and install a playful new lighting feature called The Light Sky, a web of 1,200 LED lights forming a canopy overhead, which are programmed by students from Fanshawe. The illuminated sky encourages users to look upwards with joy, a nod to the aspirational undercurrent of the project. The contrast between organic and hi-tech forms is a continuous theme of the lane, as indigenous stone paving is juxtaposed with a cast concrete bench, evoking the fluidity of the Thames as bordered by the Riverbank Garden. The Border Garden is a mix of grasses, native perennials, shrubs and bulbs commonly found in the shady river valleys in the Thames watershed.
Market Lane is now animated with activity, with Fanshawe students spilling life out onto their new school ‘porch’. The triumphant reprogramming now accommodates a venue for intimate summer concerts and events. Pedestrians no longer question if the corridor is meant for them, as intentional placemaking welcomes and encourages safe, comfortable movement or lingering. The successful transformation has proved the beacon of positive change that London’s downtown needed, with the lane reclaimed as a bright and accessible public refuge.
