Urbanarium

Air, Water, Land -  A New Civic Space

SENIORS HOUSING - BUILDING ECOLOGY

Despite regulations, the pandemic has forced many of us into live-work situations. How could this influence planning and design for live-work in the future?

Challenge:

This session opened up the  Planners Institute of BC’s 2021 Annual Conference with a session on designing a live-work community at the block scale that could inspire planning decisions across the province.

Co-design Process:

Young Planners ideas come to life for the Vancouver Plan. 

Complete communities work well for everyone, which means people of ALL ages, backgrounds, needs and abilities can live, work, shop, learn, and play in close proximity to one another in their neighbourhood. When a community is just (equitable), green (sustainable) and fun, everyone can stay healthy and happy in the city. 

Public Washrooms Part I: 

What do public washroom facilities look like in just, green and thoughtful cities? How do they work? 

Access to public washrooms is a basic need. Yet, they haven't received the attention they deserve in our communities. Municipalities across Canada, including Vancouver, are developing washroom strategies and plans. In this session we envisioned what we can do in the future but also addressed the massive health impacts in communities such as the DTES right now.

Re-tooling = transforming the function of existing systems to fill new value-adding roles in supporting thriving, equitable futures 

Re-visioning = transforming our ideas of what a thriving, equitable future can be by re-imagining how it looks, feels and functions.

Regenerating = transforming our potential - as individuals, teams and communities - to collaboratively create and nurture thriving, equitable futures through seven generations.

Which public places, spaces or buildings need Redesign! ...which do you already Love!

Design Interventions for Public Spaces was a special Studio session to showcase this new program to our Board of Directors, Advisors and collaborators.

The challenge: As cities adapt to the next wave of Covid-19 and colder weather, what urban design interventions are needed for our public spaces like washrooms, food service, sheltering infrastructure and open markets? 

If we want to make the world a more inclusive place, we’ll need to redesign and reshape the places we live to build connections. ⁠The Connected City Spring Break Camp aimed to explore the networks that connect us all.

In Studio 1: Mapping Experiences we asked: How do you travel around the city? How do you feel when you’re traveling? What do you hear? How does transportation affect your sense of connection?

The core concept of this creative teen camp that used storytelling as a design technology was conceived by Jazz Groden-Gilchrist of Ethos Lab and led by the Black and Indigenous Design Collective.

Ethos Lab Spring Break Camp for young people who want to transform the world around them.