Urban Design Guidelines - Employment Areas - Town of Ajax

3.3.3 Public Identity ElementsA significant component of achieving a unique andidentifiable image of employment areas in the Townof Ajax and the GTA is through the establishment ofpublic identity elements. These are built orlandscape elements that are highly visible, bold andartistic, and create landmarks in the community.Their purpose is to express civic pride or history, orcorporate identity, or both.Public identity elements may include publiclycommissioned art, or they may be composed ofbuilding, streetscape, or landscaping items that arelocated and designed to be memorable, such as,landform, colour, lighting, signage, plant material,walls, or building components, among others. Theintent is to create simple, low-maintenance andinexpensive gestures that are recognizable andunique. It is intended that their character anddetailing reinforce the built form image, using asimple, complementary design. The Town of Ajax isworking towards establishing elements of built form,street furniture and/or landscaping that will establisha unique identity for Ajax.These elements shall be located consistently withthe street hierarchy, where they will have thegreatest impact by defining important corridors orplaces. There are three types of elements:• town-scale elements, that include an expressionof civic identity celebrating Ajax within the GTAand have the highest-impact;• employment-area-scale elements, that celebratethe employment areas within the Town, act aslocal landmarks, have a moderate-impact, andare consistent with, but do not necessarilycelebrate, Ajax’s identity; and,• local-scale elements, that are modest landmarksthat may include only corporate identity.Refer to the map “Street Hierarchy and PublicIdentity Features” (Figure 6, Page 25) for locationsof these elements. Local-scale elements are shownfor demonstration – they occur in a variety oflocations that are along major travel routes, arepublicly visible, or are locations of important featuressuch as open spaces or amenity areas.24