Honor Award

Northern Capital: A potential future for the Mackenzie River Delta

Alessandro Colavecchio, Student ASLA, University of Toronto
Faculty Advisor: Peter North

This thesis project tests the use of landscape architecture as an agent to combine resource-extraction infrastructure with a community’s social and economic development. The strategies developed in this project imagine Inuvik in 2091. When assembled, they are a strategy for growth that changes the Southern-Canadian urban form into one based on fixed nodes and flexible connections. Inuvik’s function as a hub city translates into a coast-based fabric of barge ports, clustered development, and a connective infrastructural tissue.

Introduction

The Mackenzie River Delta, geographically a place of divergence and dispersal, now sits at the confluence of many varied interests. Its rich and soon-to-be accessible resources grab attention from both public and private enterprise. Its location and the character of its communities make it critical to solidifying sovereignty. Its potential creates attention and hope among those who depend on it for their livelihoods. This project recognizes that the delta area has a unique opportunity to take advantage of these parallel circumstances. Its dynamic landscape and its eager communities will be the staging area for the vigorous overlapping and combining exercise to come. The first to act on the new potential have been oil and gas companies seeking to develop the rich deposits previously buried under ice. This is the first opportunity for the Canadian Government to see a convergence and overlap of private and public investment interest; the aim of this project is to examine the opportunities that will emerge.

Goals

1. To develop an alternative to the imposition of Southern-Canadian urban form; an alternative based on the preferable modes of transportation and the unique characteristics of the geography. This not only develops an alternative that exists in concert with the natural environment but one that is derived from the operations of the community.
2. To identify instances where resource-extraction infrastructure can be adapted to benefit city conditions when economic engines change.
3. To test the progression of these adapted resource-extraction infrastructures into an alternative urban form; the case being a design for the main transportation hub of Inuvik that incorporates a new urban form, places for habitat building, and future transportation modes.

Analysis

The initial analysis was focused on addressing some key questions for the project. How can Northern Canada capitalize on a changing climate that enhances nautical connectivity but diminishes the already unfavourable stability of the soil? and How do we capitalize on the resources and investments in the North in a way that maintains and enhances the strength of the northern economy and society?

The first step was to examine the existing mobility network and divide it into route-based mobility (road, rail, pipeline) and node-based mobility (air, water). Node-based modes allow concentrated investment in strategic areas while maintaining a broad area of connectivity. Later analysis developed an understanding of Inuvik’s future needs, providing rough targets for growth. Growth in Inuvik is stunted by a reliance on the South for almost all aspects of daily life. Increased connectivity is a benefit of climate change but it is more important for the region to develop its own systems of self-sufficiency.

Site

Inuvik is an extremely important site in the context of northern development. It is the political and economic hub of the delta and has the highest connectivity of any settlement outside of the zone of regular flooding. It is a large community in relative terms but because it is still small in absolute terms it is easy to evaluate. Other communities of the Arctic shore are similar in size, form, and climatic future. This combination makes the Inuvik case easy to emulate in the Arctic. Inuvik’s current form, however, is an ad-hoc application of Southern-Canadian planning principles and housing forms. Its high potential for growth would continue the cycle of devaluing investments by building maintenance-intensive forms. Moving toward 2091, Inuvik will need to abandon its current practices in favour of a form that exists in concert with the landscape.

Design

I began by breaking apart the landscape into key systems of topography, water and snow, wind exposure and sun exposure. Through a combination of topography and watershed analysis, I divided the town of Inuvik and its surrounding context into 15 valley systems that drain into the delta. The wind analysis categorized the valleys into those that would blow snow and rain through the valley (clearing), those that are perpendicular to prevailing winds (collecting) and those that are aligned with storm winds. The sun analysis categorized the valleys by biological productivity, a ratio of land oriented to face the sun versus land oriented away. The combination of these analyses provided program possibilities, notably a production node, community development areas and waste treatment areas.

The next task was to examine possible adaptations for the resource-extraction infrastructure. The major pieces of this infrastructure are the pipeline right-of-way and the gas processing facility. The design calls for a massive change up front; move the locations of the pipeline and facility from their proposed locations 20 km away to sites in the city. This allows the operations to occur at the present, when adjacent development is minimal, but maintains the buildings and pipelines at locations that can be reused in the future. The pipeline right-of-way is extremely large, requiring large offsets from the actual pipe for construction purposes. Reusing this disturbed land for road and rail connections provides a route to connect through Inuvik to Yellowknife and beyond. Further, the topographic considerations in my design allow the right-of-way to collect drifting snow, keeping it from the communities at lower elevations. The next phase is to buttress the initial adaptations. The majority of the planned land building and dredging operations occur here to allow for the repurposing of gas infrastructure into a connected food production node. Processing facilities with their original orientation are converted to greenhouses, connecting the productive node to the rising water level. Dredging of a canal enhances connectivity while enclosing an area to contain any industrial accidents. This has a secondary benefit; the slow development of this area allows sediment to accumulate, simultaneously creating habitat according to the new ecosystems that have moved north with climate change.

Environmentally, the key aspect of the design is that there is minimal land disturbance. Minimizing land disturbance by reusing land reduces the overall impacted area in a landscape that recovers very slowly. Socially, the design redefines the urban form from a centralized city to clustered development, connected by an infrastructure corridor and a fluid port network, building an identity that is not transplanted from the south. Economically, the Delta region moves from taker to giver in terms of southern Canada. Timed to exploit the capital investment from stimulus spending, the transition after the boom is eased, removing the bust.

American Society of Landscape Architects