An NHL hockey arena might only be the start for LeBreton Flats, if a group of Carleton University students has anything to say about it.
A student-designed concept for the high-profile site breaks all the moulds of traditional Ottawa city-building, and instructor and local architect Jay Lim says he hopes the project will spark “brave and bold ideas.”
Lim is the founder and lead designer of Ottawa-based 25:8 Architecture + Urban Design. He has been teaching at Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism for about 14 years. This year, he’s been teaching a fourth-year architecture design studio course called “25:8 City_Urban Trialities”
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This semester, Lim’s students produced a concept so “groundbreaking” that it could inform and inspire current discussions around LeBreton Flats as a site for entertainment, including a potential NHL hockey arena, along with many other activities.
As a six-week exercise in vision and research, Lim challenged his students to design a space that “could be active 25 hours a day, 8 days a week,” drawing on his firm’s ethos that a city can operate beyond the norm.
“For most cities, things have to be separate. Your house is separate from your work, which is separate from play,” explained Lim. “We wanted to combine it all, serving three elements in one building. This class was meant to stimulate that conversation.
“But we needed a site.”
The 16-student class selected LeBreton Flats as the master site for their project, Lim said, recognizing the opportunity that the land offered.
“That site has been through so much and we saw that there’s an opportunity here to change the conversation.”
The result is the 25:8 City, also dubbed #LoopBreton, a “radical conceptual shift” that allows multiple services and amenities to occupy the same space while creating an iconic and eye-catching city hub.
The masterplan features university campuses, movie theatres, housing, recreational space, entertainment, retail and commercial space, and a landmark 45-metre observation wheel and museum. And, of course, a hockey arena.
25:8 City plans also include dedicated space for Bluesfest and an eye-catching pedestrian loop that creates a walkable, 15-minute-neighbourhood. There is waterfront access, a parking garage, a youth hostel, a retirement home and a hotel. The options are nearly endless, with revitalized aqueduct infrastructure and design inspired by Canada’s landscape.
“What’s so iconic and different with the concept of the 25:8 City is that it shows Ottawa can be more than a conservative, safe city building-wise,” explained Lim. “It combines multiple programs that we know will go on the site, but with a different way of thinking.”
Instead of assuming “one building, one use,” Lim said his students asked, “How many uses can we get out of one building?”
LeBreton Flats as the future home of the Ottawa Senators, which has dominated city-building discussions for some years, is featured in the masterplan, but with a twist. Rather than building a stadium that might only be in use for concerts and sporting events, the 25:8 City proposes a building that can be repurposed as a movie theatre.
“The students were talking about the concessions at the arena, but what do they all do when the Sens aren’t playing?” said Lim.
“We already have stadium seating, concessions and amenities. Why not?”
Indeed, “why not” was the key question that inspired the project, Lim said. The grocery store transforms into a roller rink at nighttime — “nobody does groceries at 11 p.m.” — and the satellite university campuses for Carleton University and University of Ottawa feature student cafeterias that become full-service restaurants after-hours.
Lim likened the project’s ideas to those introduced on a Paris Fashion Week runway — consumers don’t wear fashions straight from a runway, but the concepts trickle down into everyday life.
While Lim recognizes that the masterplan is far from traditional, he said he hopes it sparks new conversations around city-building — especially as Ottawa looks to revitalize its downtown core and increase tourism.
The site’s most eye-catching feature is a spokeless observation wheel, which is tilted at the same axis as Earth, and offers views of Gatineau and Parliament Hill that are not currently accessible in Ottawa.
“The wheel is architecturally and physically buildable and therefore buildable in real life. We wanted to propose something dynamic and iconic for the city that would make people want to come here, give them an opportunity to see the city in a new way, and become that iconic thing people would want to go to,” said Lim. “The city doesn’t have something like that.”
Given LeBreton’s unique geographical position, Lim said the class wanted to capitalize on it as a “nexus point” between provinces.
“We really wanted to try something new and encourage conversation about something that could be even greater and make this the greatest capital city in the world,” explained Lim. “This was an opportunity to take a blank piece of land to create something to put Ottawa on the map. It solves problems and it stimulates conversations.”
One of the more important conversation-starters is the project’s attention to Indigenous heritage and culture, said Lim. The masterplan is anchored by a gathering space inspired by an Indigenous medicine wheel and buildings are named to acknowledge the site’s Indigenous history.
“We really tried to figure out the history of the site and while we didn’t have time to engage fully with all those stakeholders, it was really top of mind for us,” said Lim. “With more time, we would be engaging local communities to verify, make it better and get that feedback, because there’s a lot of history there that we’d want to celebrate and showcase.”
Lim said the class met with the City of Ottawa and the National Capital Commission to share ideas, which allowed the students to have “real-world” conversations about their project.
The students also took a unique approach to the masterplan itself. Instead of blueprints and posters pinned to a wall, the class created a documentary and book to chronicle the project. The documentary has since been submitted to a film festival, which Lim said is just another step toward having important conversations about Ottawa city-building.
Although Lim said he and his students don’t expect the NCC to adopt the entire proposal for LeBreton Flats, he said the project has offered innovative solutions and ideas that he hopes will inform conversations about the site’s future.
Most of those innovative solutions, he said, can be credited to the imagination and creativity of his students.
“Academia allows us the opportunity to imagine and dream big. This was a hypothetical anchored in a real problem. So many solutions in our world were started hypothetically,” Lim said. “Instead of using the same infrastructure over and over again, we can use academia as a vehicle for research and solutions.
“They were really a fresh set of eyes. Their lack of knowledge didn’t restrain them, they just said, ‘Why not?’” he continued. “I gave them a hard challenge. I asked them to rethink city-building. But they’ve started the conversation and they get an A+ for that.”
As the project gains attention on social media with the hashtag #LoopBreton, garners views at an upcoming film festival, and attracts interest from city councillors, Lim said he considers the 25:8 City to be a job well done.
“There is interest in doing this, or at least doing part of it,” he explained. “Now, who’s going to be the brave one who wants to say, ‘Let’s try it, let’s go for it?’”
The fourth-year 25:8 City_Urban Trialities students behind the project:
- Aidan Sosa
- Alyssa Pangilinan
- Amy Lefebvre
- Aram Payroveolia
- Anna Emond
- Ava Cannizzaro
- Conor Nicell
- Danielle Pallo
- Dharshini Mahesh Babu
- Fedaa Mahmoud
- Jessica Villarasa
- Max Godfrey
- Morwarid Safa
- Nadine Khatib
- Vanessa Jackson
- Yuriko Itasaka
- Shayan Haghighi
