2 comments so far.

1. Ryan Darmanie January 23, 2012 at 7:38pm

   Great recommendations Mr. Turton! Port of Spain is definitely a diamond in the rough. I particularly love the suggestions of a mass transit system in the city and mixed use development. Perhaps we could look into a street car system. We absolutely need to repopulate POS with residences, as we can only have so much auto-oriented low density sprawl! You are absolutely right about the need for tree-lined streets. The trees will definitely help with shade and in making the pedestrian more comfortable, but I wonder if we need more than that. Do we need to implement design codes that require buildings to overhang the sidewalks on the upper floors (not sure what the architectural term is), to give even more shade. There are great examples of this in downtown POS, particularly in the older buildings. Considering the unbearable heat that we are many times faced with, is this something that would be more suitable? The end goal is to make the city more appealing to pedestrians. I know that other established cities with similar climates have great examples of this as well. Would love to hear what you think. Again, great suggestions!

2. Gary Turton March 10, 2012 at 12:37pm

   Ryan,  thank you for reading the article and taking the time to comment. It is a subject that occupies a lot of my thoughts and all of us at acla:works are trying, either through our work, writing or speaking publicly to share our ideas and constantly improve Trinidad and Tobago. As architects we often use our imagination to convince people not of what all of us can imagine, i.e. “real possibilities,” but instead of “possible realities.”  Look out for my next article on “urban design.”

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