Temporary urban park installed overnight in front of Hamilton Farmers’ Market

Part of its Fall Harvest Festival and a new vision for the downtown market, the project by Hamilton’s Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds is intended to draw more people to spend time on York Boulevard.

It took just eight hours of overnight labour to install 85 tons of rock, tree trunks, sand, and trees that has transformed a simple downtown sidewalk into a natural park outside the Hamilton Farmers’ Market. 

The project by Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds is a temporary pop-up that coincides with the market’s Fall Harvest Festival, a five-week celebration running Wednesdays through Saturdays from Sept. 9 to Oct. 10.

The 35-foot-long natural space features trees, green space, naturalized seating on logs, and other elements of nature. All the plantings are native Carolinian species, including spruce, cedar, birch, service berry, and witch hazel. When the pop-up is dismantled, they will be planted in downtown city parks. 

“This is what the streets can look like when you design spaces for people," says Adam Bienenstock, the founder of the Hamilton company that has installed more than 4,500 projects around the world over more than 40 years.

“This parkscape shows how a city can weave nature into everyday life on a downtown block, and it gives other municipalities a working example to point at.”

The market is a critical and historical city meeting place, says Adam Watson, City of Hamilton’s senior program manager for the Hamilton Farmers’ Market. 

“This installation is a celebration of the city and of community. It allows our residents to engage with York Boulevard and makes the market a place where people want to come back to again and again.”

The outdoor green space brings shady places to sit, a buffer from the noise of the traffic, and natural entry points to the market, says Watson.

“We have sliding glass doors on the front of the market. 
They'll open up on the good weather days and you can come in there, grab some food, grab a drink, come and sit back out in the seating, spending some time. Really what we're trying to do is put the market on the map for people as a great place to come.”

And large crowds will lay eyes on the installation this weekend when Supercrawl brings more than 100,000 people to the downtown. 

Adding green space and big natural elements along critical corridors makes them less car centric and more people centric, says Bienenstock. When people can slow down, linger, and spend time outside, that benefits businesses, residents, and visitors. 

York Boulevard is an ideal candidate for that, says Bienenstock, with the market, Hamilton Public Library, TD Coliseum, nearby retail and restaurants, and a growing number of residential developments in the area. 

Bienenstock is a big believer in the city’s downtown. His design office is on James Street near Cannon. He wants to see something more permanent along York Boulevard in the future and hopes this pop-up will demonstrate the benefit. 

“I love this town. I really do.
I mean, we have really cool stuff here and really smart people here,” he says. “We have this endless potential in Hamilton.”

Bienenstock says the new installation features “hero pieces” from his company’s Flamborough production facility. All of it comes from within a 10-mile radius of downtown.

“People don't know that Ontario has these unbelievably beautiful giant oaks and silver maples and willows and just our Carolinian forest here, and many urban trees have been kept alive way past their prime,” says Bienenstock.

The company works with about 50 arborists who call when they have huge, twisted trucks and limbs of old trees that won’t work to produce lumber and won’t easily go into splitters or mulchers.  

The trees go on to be places where kids can climb, play, and touch nature. It’s something too many children don’t spend enough time doing anymore, says Bienenstock. Outside the market, the hope is that kids, adults and families will just spend time there, interacting with the street and the neighbourhood in a new way. 

The space also pays homage to Indigenous learnings, with an example of the traditional Haudenosaunee Three Sisters Planting method inside the market entrance. It includes the three main agricultural crops of winter squash, maize, and climbing beans that are grown together by various Indigenous peoples in North and Central America.

In August, another Bienenstock-designed urban playground opened on the city’s port lands in a place without a single tree. The space outside CityKidz on Burlington Street is now home to 101 mature trees and a natural playground where kids can climb, dig or simply be outside.

CityKidz serves Hamilton children from low-income communities through free programming. 

The Fall Harvest Festival and the pop-up park are part of initiatives that come out of the approval of a new vision in 2023. The 189-year-old market has focused on changing its governance model, getting back on people’s radar, and becoming a stronger force downtown, says Watson.

“A lot of the market is inside and a lot of it's downstairs. And so our presence up on the street isn't very strong. 
So really we took a look at the idea that the market should spill out onto York Boulevard,” he says.

“We want to do something that celebrates all the great vendors and the things that we have happening at the market. And, of course, when's the best time to do this? Well, it's harvest time. That's a time when people are back in the city after the summer and the produce is such high quality.”

The market’s large room on the ground level facing York Boulevard has been used for modular stalls, pop-up food and family events, and, during the five-week Fall Harvest Festival, there will be five different vendors featured each week, both market mainstays and outside local businesses serving coffee, hot food, and artisanal products.  

Another change at the market is that it will stay open later, until 8 p.m., on nights when there are events at TD Coliseum. That approach will begin this weekend for Supercrawl. 

“So people coming downtown will be able to stop in with us if they want to grab a bite to eat. before going up into the Coliseum.”

After the Fall Harvest Festival, city staff will evaluate foot traffic and revenue to determine whether there is a business case to continue with staying open for downtown events, including upcoming hockey games at TD Coliseum. 

“I think that would be a great success for the market so that people know they can always stop in. There is a nice window of opportunity where people have enough time to come and spend some time with us and make it up there for the game or concert in time.”

Watson says there are potential opportunities to do installations along both sides of York Boulevard that last throughout the warm weather months that benefit the market, library, and future residents, hotel guests, and office tenants in Core Urban's redevelopment of the historic Coppy building across the street.

“We can make York Boulevard inviting and interesting and not just something that frankly gets negative news.”