Posted Sep 29, 2017, 11:22 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2017
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Interesting NP article by the Pres./VC of Emily Carr
Vancouver's urban conundrum: Let's design better cities
http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/vancouvers-urban-conundrum-lets-design-better-cities
Quote:
Over the last 16 years, I have been working on the development of a new campus for Emily Carr University of Art and Design. As a consequence, I have learned more than I ever could have imagined about the challenges of creatively engaging with the built environment in urban centres and with the ways in which cities like Vancouver are organized to both facilitate and impede the development of new areas of the city and the buildings we put into them.
The new campus is situated on what was the former site of the Finning Corp. Finning gifted 18 acres to four post-secondary institutions in the Vancouver area in 2001: University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia Institute of Technology and Emily Carr.
The gift was generous and was given with the understanding that the lands would be used for collaborative purposes by the four institutions. The initial vision was to build and then share facilities in a cross-disciplinary environment for the benefit of students coming from many different parts of the city.
An unrealized vision
This vision was never realized because the institutions never found the measure of each other’s strengths and never negotiated long enough to make something happen.
But Emily Carr decided to go ahead and build a new campus because of the four institutions, it owned no land and had leased its facilities over its 92-year history.
Among all the challenges, three stand out: Raising $122.5 million to build the campus; developing the architectural plan for the facility and, finally, the City of Vancouver itself.
A summary of just some of the challenges: From permitting through to planning and engineering, differing interests, different personalities, sometimes ambiguous rules and regulations, conflict among people working at City Hall that led to many slowdowns, lack of clarity as to how to achieve the goals of the project, arbitrary interpretations of land use, conflict-laden discussions of transportation, parking and amenities.
Sometimes we were told something had to happen because “rules are rules.” Alternately we were told that time did not permit the depth of research required to make changes to existing site and district plans, some of which had been formulated years and decades earlier.
Inevitably, this led to compromises, some good and some bad.
Perhaps the most challenging compromise was the grade upon which the building was erected. The costs of following the city plan were not only financial but also affected the design and look and feel of the building. Part of the interior of the building is now underground as a result of a decision that still today feels awkward and unnecessary.
The location of the campus means that it could link the western and eastern parts of the city through large open plazas and a permeable campus closely linked to the immediate communities in which it is situated.
My ideal scenario would see the area turn into a connector, allowing people to walk from the east side of the city to the downtown core through a series of connected walkways. None of this will be possible because at some point or other plans were developed that now, from all accounts, cannot and will not change.
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