Newton is a true 21st century suburb, a far cry from the supposed simplicity and conformity of the 1950s, and much more interesting because of it. To begin, Canadian suburbs have become multi-cultural, and Surrey is, for its size, one of the most popular destinations for immigrants. Nearly one quarter of the population of Surrey have South Asian origins (principally, Sikhs from Punjab), the second largest such community in any Canadian municipality. Both recent immigrants and long established residents of South Asian origin enliven its public spaces and, with restaurants and markets along its arterial streets filled with the scents of the Punjab, saris in the strip malls. Newton is as complex socially as it is ethnically, with pockets of disadvantaged citizens alternating with middle class and upper middle class enclaves. This is one of Surrey's largest component “Towns,” but it is one that many have trouble identifying. More bluntly, and more important for the cause of this design competition, Newton is a failed Town Centre, with no logic or pattern to the location of its public institutions, its shortage of public space, and its serious problems with drug dealing and public intoxication/drug use, problems intensified because of Newton's core urban and street structure and lack of housing.

There are some good intentions and one outstanding example of contemporary architecture at Newton Town Centre, but it has never adhered as a hub for the community. North of 72nd along King George Highway is a fairly successful retail aggregation, with a range of strip malls, big box stores, and strip-oriented businesses. South of 72nd is the Lower Mainland's first wave pool aquatic recreation centre (waterslide, etc.) adjacent to an ice arena and a small community centre. Quite separate from these is the Newton Public Library and Senior's Centre, breakthrough designs for the City of Surrey by John and Patricia Patkau, and arguably Canada's most lauded suburban public building of the 1990s. Their design is a complete contrast with the large numbers of variations on Postmodernism in the commercial hub to the north, the largest concentration of PoMo in the Lower Mainland.

Set between the Patkau-designed buildings and the recreation centre is Newton's re-located Cenotaph, forlornly surrounded by the backs of strip malls and parking lots, a civic monument pushed to the most marginal of locations (save for drug pushers and dealers, who haunt the area day and night.) There is some good news coming; the current bus exchange on 72nd is to be replaced by an intermodal transit centre several blocks south along King George Highway. The transit-oriented-development there-bringing many more people will make this a whole New Town, safer, more vital, and much more like a city. The challenge for designers is how to bind together into a coherent whole those elements of Newton worth saving.

Newton provides a wonderful opportunity for designers to craft a more transit-oriented urban future, and to heal a split and troubled Town Centre. In large part because of a lack of nearby housing (“eyes on the street” in Jane Jacobs' apt phrase) the current transit exchange on 72 Avenue has long been troubled by drug dealing and use. As mentioned above, Translink has committed to planning a new intermodal transit exchange three blocks to the southwest. Working with the community and the City of Surrey, it is hoped that transit-oriented re-development of Newton Town Centre will transform it. This is the core assumption in your charge–a large transit hub and a large number of day and night residents will make Newton's core a safer and more urbane location, a New Town, in other words.

Your task as a designer is to boldly re-shape the entire Town Centre, your skills applied to crafting massing for the many new blocks of housing, the re-ordering of civic elements like the Cenotaph and ice arena, and the re-design of public spaces and connections arrayed between all of these. The criterion of success will be to make the New Town walkable and amenable for residents, and attractive to other Surrey residents, with reasons to stop by Newton, rather than just pass through. You are not bound by present City of Surrey zoning, density, height restrictions or other current land use controls–be creative, and show how a bold and unprecedented community can emerge here.

Your central task as designers is to find a humane and amenable way to bring one thousand new units of housing to Newton, re-making it as a New Town. This scale of new development will help pay for the parks, public realm improvements, and a new arena and community centre, and provide a key new ridership for transit improvements–it is intended this area become a showpiece of transit-oriented development. As Newton has no public gathering place (save for the current bus exchange plaza, which is going), you are also asked to craft a new square and home for the cenotaph, and to link all areas with a pedestrian-oriented esplanade, and other public spaces. The emphasis on this site is solely urban design and the crafting of public spaces–interior layouts of the buildings are not required, but more detailed information on the public realm is requested.

* Distributed over any or all of the areas indicated in tone on your base maps, propose locations and building forms only (no interior housing plans required or permitted) for one thousand units of new housing. On your rendered site plan should indicate with shadow their relative heights, and for each new building indicate its total number of units, and their breakdown (studio, one, two-bedroom etc.)

* Grade-oriented housing (doors on streets) are required of new construction along 70th Avenue and 136B Street. These two streets must be retained on their current alignments and with continued access for 2-way traffic. Otherwise, the remaining current streets and access lanes may have changes to their alignment or conversion in whole or part to public realm uses (square, esplanade, piazzeta, etc.), as long as sufficient vehicular/delivery access is provided for public functions, existing and new businesses, and the up to 2500 new residents of the New Town. New housing blocks and public spaces must be designed to permit continued access by fire-trucks and other public safety vehicles.

* For any location on the toned buildable areas on the base maps, design a New Town Square, showing the location of the relocated Cenotaph. The space is to be largely pedestrian and accommodate summer concerts, farmer's and crafts markets, temporary and permanent public art, ethno-cultural and religious celebrations, and annual civic gatherings such as Remembrance and Canada Days. The use of plantings large and small, water elements, rain roofs, cafe pavilions and other embellishments are all permissible.

* As plans are still in process, please “black box” the internal layout and other uses for Translink's new transit centre block. New roadways and the key entrance and exit points for the transit centre are indicated on the competition base maps, but remember designs are not required or permitted for this block.

* A number of elements for the multi-block area are to stay in their current location and functions: the aquatic centre, the Canada Safeway (supermarket); cinema multiplex; grove of evergreen trees on 72nd Avenue; the Patkau-designed Newton Library and Senior's Centre.

* Presume the current ice arena and attached community centre will be demolished, but these functions should be accommodated anywhere else on site within the toned buildable zone. The new double arena (two ice surfaces, building of 5000 square metres) should have a green roof (used by the public if practical) and may be ringed with housing, commercial functions around its perimeter. The community centre of 3000 square metres may be located anywhere that enhances its day and night usage, but must adjoin one of the other civic buildings (arena, pool, library, senior's centre)

* For the park block on the south end of the site, presume there will be a storm water management pond (shoreline changing with seasons) with a naturalistic swale edge surrounded by a nature reserve park with paths and bikeways-do not design this park, but presume its existence.

* Taking advantage of the upslope of the site towards the north by locating the main parking structure entrance on 70th avenue, provide a main underground parking for 500 cars that will both replace the 250 spaces of at-grade existing parking for civic centre recreation centre uses, but also provide for the new housing and civic uses. Locate 500 more parking spaces under your other housing structures. Limited street parking is permitted where warranted.

1. By inserting your proposals into the Sketchup model provided, craft a rendered bird's eye view of all of Newton's New Town;
2. a rendered perspective view of your New Town Square looking towards some of the new housing in your proposal;
3. a rendered plan of the key network of public spaces, showing their features and qualities, shadows indicating the relative height of new buildings.
4. Other sectional, plan or perspective studies are optional as needed to visually explain your proposal.

1. one paragraph of no more than 200 words describing the character, textures and intentions of your re-shaped public spaces and streetscapes.
2. A second paragraph of no more than 200 words should describe your approach to housing the one thousand units, where they are to be allocated, and why–what building forms have you chosen, and how will they shape the public realm?..

Newton started with a single general store in the 1900's, the town's name coming from Mr. E.J Newton who settled here circa 1886. The Newton general store was located where the Newton Fire Hall stands west of the competition site on 72nd Avenue, a building which will soon be converted into the Newton Community Theatre. The original Newton school opened in 1914 at 72nd Avenue and 136th Street. Newton was first connected to the coast by the Semiahmoo Road in the 1890s, which gave access to its significant evergreen forests to loggers, who had exhausted this resource in less than 30 years. The first industrial buildings were small saw and shingle mills established to process local lumber, but none of these remain. More intensive settlement in the Newton area commenced after 1945, in part because of the postwar availability of surplus bulldozers, making the clearing of stumps and brush much easier and rapid. The development of the BC Electric Railway in 1910 was significant to the growth of Newton. The railway was used for both passenger and freight service and connected Newton with the Fraser Valley with services to Chilliwack to the East and the city of Vancouver to the west. The opening of the King George Highway in 1940 and the Patullo Bridge over the Fraser River in 1937 fostered growth along this highway connecting Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and Washington State.

Newton History
Fraser Valley Heritage Railway

Dominated by traffic on King George Highway, Newton has grown from a regional commercial centre to a collection of strip malls on the roads to somewhere else. Traffic splits around the town centre along the “Newton bypass” - the 68th Ave to 138th St and 76th Ave loop - which helps to maintain King George Highway as the prime travel route connecting Surrey City Centre to Semiahmoo, the USA border, Cloverdale and Highway 10. Increasing transit services, with the development of a major inter-modal transit exchange starting soon by Translink, will soon spark transit-related development and position Newton Town Centre for a move away from its past as a crossroad of arterial streets. For most motorists on the King George Highway, Newton is currently thought of as the large interchange (at 72nd) holding up traffic in all directions.

Once a stop on the historic BCER, Newton is regaining passenger rail connections with the likely revitalization of the interurban corridor for a Heritage Tourism service. The inter-modal transit hub development will move the existing ‘Newton Loop’ from the current site next to the wave pool on 72nd Street to the larger site between 70th Ave, King George Highway and 136B Street. Interchange between the local bus routes, future town centre expanded service with B-line and light-rail and interurban corridor rail use will occur with new connections on King George Highway. Current bike lanes exist on the Newton loop with future bike and walking trails planned within new greenways along 70th, the railway corridor and 138th that will extend north through Bear Creek park to City Centre and south to the Semiahmoo trial and town centre.