False Creek South: It's near perfect, and it's mine - Vancouver Sun article by Daphne Bramham

Forty years ago, Stanley facilitated the community engagement for many neighbourhoods in Vancouver.  Two of these places were formerly devoted to cars:  Robson Square used to be a huge parking lot, and False Creek was a "car graveyard".  His data revealed that ordinary citizens preferred to turn these areas into car-free spaces.   Daphne Bramham interviews Stanley in the Vancouver Sun:


"It’s hard to believe that not that long ago serious consideration was given to filling in False Creek and paving it over with homes and roads.  Architect Stanley King was among the first to challenge that idea and to imagine a residential community with a public market as its centrepiece built along the creek’s south shore on derelict industrial land..."Read more: False Creek South: It's near perfect, and it's mine - Vancouver Sun article by Daphne Branham

Co-design Demo at the Viva Vancouver Street Party

There will be Brazilian martial arts, dance food and... co-design! Click on the image below to get the schedule.  photos of event here.

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

Jan Gehl Lecture

Stanley attended the Jan Gehl lecture and found a great connection to co-design. 

His theme was the long lack of human scale and life in the architectural and planning design processes, how architects since the 60’s have been anti-people (as a newly graduated architect he had to change because his girl friend, later his wife, was a psychologist and asked him, “Why do architects hate people?”) Planners, he said, have for years been sweet on the car and now must be sweet on people, and particularly, sweet on cyclists.

He said they now have a problem of bicycle congestion in Copenhagen and must push bike-lanes into more car-lanes. Research shows that for every kilometre bicycled the city gains 25c, and for every kilometre car travelled the city loses 10c. And when New York Times Square went pedestrian the merchants around increased turn-over by 71%. Great stuff.
 - Stan


See a video of Jan Gehl here: select the photo below:

    

Why include youth in sustainable design?

If youth designed a city, what would it look like?  More importantly, what would it be like to live there?  Would they create places very different from our cities today? Our work with Vancouver youth reveals that a youth designed city would be green, full of light and life.  Skateboarding, cycling and blading would be the wheels that rule the roads.  Places for dancing, art, music, gathering, sports, napping would dot the urban landscape.  School would take place outdoors.  Youth have fresh eyes, new perspectives that are unencumbered by thoughts of mortgages and economics and politics (King, 1995).  Paul Goodman said "No city is governable unless it grows citizens who feel it to be theirs".