'Quirky Streets': New Pathways in Tactical Urbanism for Physical Distancing

Drishya Nair is a recent University of Toronto graduate with a Masters in Cities Engineering and Management. Her project, entitled Quirky Streets, reimagines the streets of a familiar Toronto neighbourhood: Kensington Market.

"Murals at Kensington Market, Toronto; September 2019" by Bernard Spragg.

Drishya's work emerged from a desire to add colour to the streets of this neighbourhood in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown, and also, to provide creative and visually-arresting tools to aid physical distancing in public space. Spurred by the principles of tactical urbanism, this project proposes a temporary solution to an urban dilemma - that of adequate sidewalk space for pedestrians - that, if successful, could become permanent.

Quirky Streets was also inspired by international artistic experimentations in public space, such as those in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Below is Drishya's proposal for Kensington Market, at the intersection of Nassau and Augusta Avenue. She explains her artistic choices under the images below:

"Animated sidewalks as a solution to increase the walking space for pedestrians: I believe that adding such bright extensions on sidewalks creates a visible boundary for the pedestrians to use it rather than moving towards a fence wall while crossing each other. Also, such quirky designs would attract the users to access these spaces when needed."

"This is an animated intersection. The idea behind making a paved intersection was inspired by street designs from European cities like Paris and Amsterdam. The presence of such roads gives more importance to pedestrians and cyclists than compared to other modes of transit. By making such changes, people can access these streets safely by maintaining the required distance during Covid-19 and also use it as a ‘social space’ after the pandemic ends (hopefully) :)."