Ecole Pauline Johnson Playground plan

Earlier this year, we assisted Ecole Pauline Johnson by conducting a youth engagement program in collaboration with Landscape architects Beryl Allen and Cornelia Oberlander, OC. We are pleased that a plan of the playground is now available  and that the plan supports many of the ingredients provided by the children: Children made their own drawing and teachers contributed through a co-design dialogue.

examples of children's drawings

drawing made by a preschool group indicating a desire for water elements

Early work, 1970s

Some photos of early co-design work pioneered by Stanley King.  In this case, the site was a huge parking lot in downtown Vancouver.  Stanley organized a "City on the Wall" and also a "Design- in". During the site walk, teens analyzed the car lot for sight, smell, sound, movement and circulation.  The resulting drawings illustrated public desire for activities supported by abundant green space, a dome with a skating rink, outdoor eating, water features.  

People asked for car-free pedestrian spaces for relaxing, socializing, eating.   The ideas, drawn from ordinary citizens, demonstrate how co-design can sensitively tap into citizen's desires for how they wish to live.  Drawings were given to the design team led by Arthur Erickson who designed Robson Square.  Erickson asked Cornelia Oberlander to design the landscape:  the first roof garden in North America. 

These still shots are from Chairs for Lovers, a documentary film directed by Barrie Howells for the National Film Board of Canada.

Robson Square Before

Robson Square (after) designed by Arthur Erickson

children ask the artist to draw a dome with skating underneath

the parking lot that became Robson Square: view of the law courts, now the Vancouver Art Gallery

Stanley King starting the "city on the wall": "imagine you were here when the land was new...."

Stanley encourages kids to draw anything they want in a city

conversation with Cornelia Oberlander

Visited Cornelia Oberlander, the "Grande Dame" of Canadian landscape architecture. She'd been helping out at my school and wanted to catch up on a garden project. Cornelia has a reputation for being charming, gracious and immovably persistent. These traits are useful: she sometimes faced bureacratic hurdles as a pioneer of sustainable landscape architecture.  There is a bit of the rebel in Cornelia that helps her to connect with youth and we were very grateful to have her come and speak to youth at the Sustainable Design Ideas Fair.

Thinking about David Owen's Lecture,  I asked Cornelia about her thoughts on dense urban centres and biodiversity: "Is it possible to merge density with ecological design?"