The Regent Park Aquatic Centre (640 Dundas St. East)
The Regent Park Aquatic Centre is an important building because it's a place for civic recreation; becoming or staying healthy while forging new relationships and solidifying old ones. Physical and social health are both integral to a good city. But the pool offers visitors something else integral to a good city, though this often goes unnoticed.
To see what I mean, look at the grey and blue shadows that emanate from skylights (left image) and cast onto the white wall (right image). From sunrise to sunset, these shadows continually shift, stretching or contracting their trajectory across the wall. These changes are visible to swimmers, waiting parents, lifeguards and anyone else spending an hour by the pool. But one doesn't need a whole hour to experience the changes in lighting; from moment to moment, the strips of blue light saturate as clouds glide away from blocking the sun or desaturate as clouds glide in front of the sun.
Dynamic lighting affects us deeply, whether we notice it consciously or subconsciously. It activates our temporal perception, our sense of time. To be aware of time is not trivial; time is a basic fact of the human condition. We always exist in time. If architecture is meant to be a place for human beings, then it should acknowledge the temporal dimension of our existence.
Many buildings obstruct our experience of time's passage either intentionally because their architects want you to lose track of time (e.g. casinos) or unintentionally because their architects failed to see the importance of places that put us in touch with time's passage.
But the Aquatic Centre's designers, MJMA Architects, built time's passage literally into its framework. Shadows of the window frames inch slowly across the white wall like an hour-hand. Blue dimming or undimming light reminds us that time is passing even when the hour hand is still. This is a good building because it does not deny or neglect the facts of human existence; it acknowledges them, embraces them, and tries to communicate them to whoever enters. The Aquatic Centre is a place designed for human beings.
But why does temporal awareness matter? And, more importantly, why are temporally aware citizens integral to a good city (the claim I made in the first paragraph)? I have several answers to this question:
1) When we become aware of time (and I don't mean realizing that we're late for a meeting, I mean a meaningful awareness of time), we feel good. Perhaps we feel good because we are in communion with our existential parameters as human beings, which is a profound experience. Whatever explanation we want to give, I take it to be a basic fact ― one that needs no further justification ― that being in touch with time feels good. It's not a basic fact because I am too lazy to provide further justification, nor is it a basic fact because I'm trying to lay down some kind of abstract theoretical framework; it's a basic fact because I experienced it as such and you can experience it too by going for a dip in the pool.
2) Built places that engage our sense of time help us become aware of the present moment, which is the only moment when we can act. Awareness of the present moment is therefore a pre-requisite to actively engaging the world around us. Active citizens are a precondition for democracy and socially flourishing communities.
3) When we become aware of time, we have a moment to reflect on our past, present, and future. We can take pause and evaluate whether we have made good use of our time and what we will do with our future time. Offered these moments, citizens have an opportunity to recalibrate and try to become better people. People who try to be better people make for good communities.
4) The temporal awareness I'm speaking of is not an awareness of clock time; it's an awareness of a different kind of time. Noticing it's sunrise is different from noticing your clock reads '6am'. Noticing the shadows have stretched all the way across the white wall since your arrival is different from noticing you spent three hours at the pool. Non-clock time, perhaps we might call it "qualitative time", is valuable because it holds richer meaning than clock time (I take richness in meaning to be good in and of itself) and because it's a way of understanding the world that lies outside our conceptual framework. Democratic citizens must seek to understand the world not simply by the ways of understanding handed down to them; they must cultivate non-systematic ways of thinking to test and affirm or deny the status quo.
5) To be aware of time is to be aware that our reality is changing and unstable. To be aware that the shadows are a litter longer each day when you arrive for your swim class at 6pm (because our planet's seasonal tilt is always changing) is to be aware that reality is changing and unstable, even though our temporal conventions (i.e. clock-time) indicate otherwise. A great deal of suffering results from mistakenly believing that we have latched onto a stable reality. Citizens who suffer less are happier and make for better communities.
Toronto's buildings should have more dynamic lighting like we see at the Regent Park Aquatic Centre. You can find other great examples of dynamic lighting at: the Ryerson Student Learning Centre and the Aga Kahn Museum.
Dynamic lighting affects us deeply, whether we notice it consciously or subconsciously. It activates our temporal perception, our sense of time. To be aware of time is not trivial; time is a basic fact of the human condition. We always exist in time. If architecture is meant to be a place for human beings, then it should acknowledge the temporal dimension of our existence.
Many buildings obstruct our experience of time's passage either intentionally because their architects want you to lose track of time (e.g. casinos) or unintentionally because their architects failed to see the importance of places that put us in touch with time's passage.
But the Aquatic Centre's designers, MJMA Architects, built time's passage literally into its framework. Shadows of the window frames inch slowly across the white wall like an hour-hand. Blue dimming or undimming light reminds us that time is passing even when the hour hand is still. This is a good building because it does not deny or neglect the facts of human existence; it acknowledges them, embraces them, and tries to communicate them to whoever enters. The Aquatic Centre is a place designed for human beings.
But why does temporal awareness matter? And, more importantly, why are temporally aware citizens integral to a good city (the claim I made in the first paragraph)? I have several answers to this question:
1) When we become aware of time (and I don't mean realizing that we're late for a meeting, I mean a meaningful awareness of time), we feel good. Perhaps we feel good because we are in communion with our existential parameters as human beings, which is a profound experience. Whatever explanation we want to give, I take it to be a basic fact ― one that needs no further justification ― that being in touch with time feels good. It's not a basic fact because I am too lazy to provide further justification, nor is it a basic fact because I'm trying to lay down some kind of abstract theoretical framework; it's a basic fact because I experienced it as such and you can experience it too by going for a dip in the pool.
2) Built places that engage our sense of time help us become aware of the present moment, which is the only moment when we can act. Awareness of the present moment is therefore a pre-requisite to actively engaging the world around us. Active citizens are a precondition for democracy and socially flourishing communities.
3) When we become aware of time, we have a moment to reflect on our past, present, and future. We can take pause and evaluate whether we have made good use of our time and what we will do with our future time. Offered these moments, citizens have an opportunity to recalibrate and try to become better people. People who try to be better people make for good communities.
4) The temporal awareness I'm speaking of is not an awareness of clock time; it's an awareness of a different kind of time. Noticing it's sunrise is different from noticing your clock reads '6am'. Noticing the shadows have stretched all the way across the white wall since your arrival is different from noticing you spent three hours at the pool. Non-clock time, perhaps we might call it "qualitative time", is valuable because it holds richer meaning than clock time (I take richness in meaning to be good in and of itself) and because it's a way of understanding the world that lies outside our conceptual framework. Democratic citizens must seek to understand the world not simply by the ways of understanding handed down to them; they must cultivate non-systematic ways of thinking to test and affirm or deny the status quo.
5) To be aware of time is to be aware that our reality is changing and unstable. To be aware that the shadows are a litter longer each day when you arrive for your swim class at 6pm (because our planet's seasonal tilt is always changing) is to be aware that reality is changing and unstable, even though our temporal conventions (i.e. clock-time) indicate otherwise. A great deal of suffering results from mistakenly believing that we have latched onto a stable reality. Citizens who suffer less are happier and make for better communities.
Toronto's buildings should have more dynamic lighting like we see at the Regent Park Aquatic Centre. You can find other great examples of dynamic lighting at: the Ryerson Student Learning Centre and the Aga Kahn Museum.