Iqaluit snowmobile trails inspire architecture class

One student’s plans for a snowmobile trail system in Iqaluit included using snow fences to mark trails on the outskirts of Iqaluit while also creating public spaces in the city. Fences farther out would twist into unusual shapes, creating semi-sheltered space for gatherings year-round, and jumps and ramps of snow during snowmobiling season.

Architecture students from the University of Toronto designed snowmobile trail systems for Iqaluit this fall, the only people to work on the project this year.

Throughout 2010, the City of Iqaluit twice received proposals to design a snowmobile trail system for the city, but city council voted against each of them during in camera sessions, which are closed to the public.

After the second vote this past July 20, the 2009 snowmobiling season was long past and Bertol she would have to shelve that file until winter returned.

So when Mason White, a professor from the John D. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the U. of T., called Iqaluit city planner Michele Bertol to suggest a project for his students, she jumped at the offer.

“I was full of enthusiasm at the time,” Bertol said shortly before leaving to see the students’ final presentations on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9. “I thought it was a blessing.”

Bertol said the students’ work is not the city’s official plan, just a “real problem” to present to them to see what their fresh eyes come up with.

White assigned the project to 14 third-year graduate students in a course called 63 Degrees North.

In it, they dedicated a three-month semester to studying Iqaluit’s needs and drawing up proposals.

Their first task, White said, was basically two weeks of immersion into Iqaluit and northern Canadian life.

“They did amazing research on everything from diet to ecology to climate change to transportation, White said.

Bertol gave White the city’s original request for proposals for the class to use as a guideline for what was expected.

As part of their project the class assembled a scale model of Iqaluit 1/4000th actual size, which now sits in the city’s planning office in Tundra Valley.

The class presented five such plans to city council on Oct. 7, using a projector to light up the model and demonstrate their early designs.

“To any planner in Canada it would probably look futuristic, but Iqaluit is a futuristic city,” White said. “It is a frontier of northern urbanism.”

White explained some of the ideas that students produced for a snowmobile trail system in Iqaluit.

Those ideas often went far beyond the scope of the original RFP, which mainly asked for a system of snowmobiles trails to allow easy access between the city and the land, and routes to important locations in the city that would avoid road traffic as much as possible.

Students looked at ways to use the project to address challenges such as nutrition, education, housing and so on, White said.

One project recommended multi-unit housing developments between established Iqaluit neighbourhoods on land too steep for single-family dwellings, so that the buildings would mark and protect snowmobile trails.

Another project established snowmobile “rest stops,” to serve as snowmobile storage space in summer and with cafes and charging stations for electric snowmobiles that are currently in development.

“If you want to build it’s for the near future, not just for now,” White explained.

Another project suggested greenhouses in Happy Valley and Lower Iqaluit, alongside snowmobile trails.

White said he could not say whether the students had received their grades yet or what they would be.

He said Bertol seemed disappointed at the projects, which moved a long way away from the original snowmobile trail concept.

Bertol was unavailable for comment later, having gone on vacation after attending the students’ presentations.