This month we’ll be meeting on Sunday, February 12th from 3-5pm, at the Mill Bistro on the Coal Harbour waterfront (at Bute).

Come re-connect with your fellow urban fanatics and get up to speed on all that’s been going on over the past month; including the big news at City Hall and last week’s Cities and Canadian Association of Planning Students (CAPS) conferences.

As always, feel free to drop in when you can and stay as long as you want.  We’ll be there from 3 pm until at least 5pm.  Give me a call or text at 604-992-4197 if you have any questions or are running late.

You can RSVP on Eventbrite or Facebook.

Yurbanism

Carolyn Ali photo. [Straight.com

This month, we’ll be exploring the reinvention of a Kitsilano classic: The Bimini (2010 W 4th Ave., V6J 1M9 map). The pub recently reopened after a 2007 fire gutted the main room. It has a long community history, with highlights including being BC’s first licensed neighborhood pub and a former meeting place for Greenpeace.

We’ll be there from 3 pm until at least 5pm.  Feel free to drop in when you can.  Give me a call or text at 604-992-4197 if you have any questions or are running late.

You can RSVP on Eventbrite, Facebook, or by leaving a comment letting me know you’re be coming.

Yurbanism

 
You can follow along with the slides below (or download them for future reference):

Brent Toderian’s Presentation UDI Final

Yurbanism

As a Canadian and a community advocate, I found this video especially cool, because it showcases a Canadian community — a highrise on Kipling Avenue in suburban Toronto, Canada. The project is a concrete result of a community collaboration between residents, architects, documentarians and animators to re-imagine the particular spaces around these particular highrises.

This is a timely video for all cities, particularly Vancouver.  There has been a noticeable push back in recent years against new condo developments in the city.  One of reasons given for the opposition to more high-rise towers is that they lack community and lead to neighborhood decay.

For Vancouver tocontinue to be livable (and hopefully become more lovable), we need to find ways to accommodate more people while enhancing our local community ties. Hopefully this project will given tower advocates and opponents alike some ideas to begin a dialogue.  I know it gave me some food for thought!

Long time readers of this site may recall a post on Arcade Fire’s Wilderness Downtown, another immersive video experience.   Videos like these are revolutionizing film as we know it by making the viewer a participant in the action. For their cutting edge efforts, both videos were selected by Google as Chrome Experiments.

For more information or to interact with the full experience, including viewing the full 6 minute documentary, visit the One Millionth Tower site.

[HT to Urban Times for the find]

Yurbanism

Location: Trail, Rossland, and Nelson, BC.
Music: Dance Yrself Clean, by LCD Soundsystem.

Related articles

• Sherpas Cinema – JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) (sixand5.com)
• Video: Watch the Amazing JP Auclair Street Skiing Scene From All.I.Can. (ngadventure.typepad.com)
• Beyond ‘ski porn’ to a green theme (theglobeandmail.com)

Yurbanism

Join me for the final urbanists meetup of 2011 and connect with your fellow urban geeks one last time before the holidays!

We’ll be meeting this coming Sunday (December 11th) from 3-5pm for a few pints and a lively discussion about urbanism in Vancouver, focusing on Chinatown and Strathcona.

This month we’re heading to the historic London Pub in Chinatown on the edge of Strathcona. (700 Main St - map)

Feel free to drop in when you can.  We’ll be there from 3 pm until at least 5.  Give me a call or text at 604-992-4197 if you have any questions or are running late.

You can RSVP on Eventbrite, Facebook, or by leaving a comment letting me know if you’ll be coming.

Yurbanism

Links in bold are new posts written during November.  All others are from my archives.

One of the re:CONNECT winning entries

1. 6 TEDx Talks on Cities
2. Urban Fabric: The Form of Cities
3. 5 of the Best Urban Infographics
4. Friday 5: TED Talks for Urbanists
5. Is Downtown Phoenix a Recession Ghost Town?
6. What is Genius Loci?
7. How to Date an Urban Planner
8. A Brief History of Urbanism in North America: 1800s
9. Vote for re:Visualized Versions of Vancouver’s Viaducts
10. Bike Lanes, Vancouver Style [Weekend Watch]

Yurbanism

londonsquared.net

Yurbanism

After the dust settled, only one thing was clear, however: there is not a clear consensus on what Vancouverites want to do with the viaducts.  A total of 14 proposals received mention at the awards presentation, with only one proposal catching the eye of both the expert panel and the public.

After the providence of this proposal was announced, it wasn’t hard to see why this one rose to the top of a crowded filed and caught they eye of both the professional and the public.  Indeed, the team behind the proposal represents a who’s who of Vancouver planners and architects, led by Norm Hotson, Larry Beasley, Jim Green, and Margot Long.

Their submission proposes the total removal of the viaducts and a redesign of Pacific and Expo Boulevards with enhances park space.  However, the judges could only give it an honourable mention as the proposal included “a large built form with an orientation that creates a barrier to the historic precinct.”

Here’s what the City of Vancouver had to say about the contest:

December 2, 2011

Viaducts competition winners announced

Vancouver’s viaducts were the centre of attention last night as 15 concepts, ranging from the practical to the highly imaginative, were recognized at the finale to the re:CONNECT ideas competition. Designs were as diverse as creating wide boulevards, monuments and museums to building recreational canals and adding new parks.<

More than 100 entries were received in the competition offering creative possibilities for the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts and the Eastern Core, an area that stretches from Northeast False Creek to Clark Drive.

A design jury, made up of renowned international and local urban experts, selected winners in three categories for the two competition entry streams – free and fee: Connecting the Core, Visualizing the Viaducts, and Wild Card.

The free stream (no cash prize) was a low- barrier stream directed toward people from any background who could enter without a fee. The fee stream, which required an entry fee and awarded cash prizes, was directed more at design professionals such as architects, engineers, as well as urban planners and their skill sets.

The jury was made up of five industry professionals: Allan Jacobs, globally-renowned urbanist and planning consultant (Berkeley, California); Rob Bennett, Executive Director, Portland Sustainability Initiative (Portland, Oregon); Joe Hruda, Member of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia (MAIBC), architect and founding partner at CIVITAS (Vancouver, BC); Tom Hutton, professor at the Centre for Human Settlements and School of Community and Regional Planning, UBC (Vancouver, B.C.); and Patricia Patkau, MAIBC, architect and founding partner of Patkau Architects (Vancouver, B.C.).

The People’s Choice award winners were also announced last night, chosen by the public who were invited to pick their favourites in each category by voting online. The competition attracted entries from across Canada and 13 other countries. More than 15,000 votes were received online, along with over 1,500 comments.

For details on the winning entries, visit vancouver.ca/reconnect

While no decisions on the viaducts are being made through re:CONNECT, the ideas the competition generated are intended to spark dialogue and help inform and inspire planning for this part of Vancouver.

The viaducts options will feed into the public consultation for the Transportation Plan update in spring 2012. Planning work to develop policy directions for the Eastern Core will continue in the New Year, with a report to Council anticipated in summer 2012.

Yurbanism

To be sure a lot of work has already been along these lines in both cities (notably Calle 16 in Phoenix), but it is always good to be pushed forward by outside examples.

HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD is a Short-Form Docu-series exploring the power of Public Art and innovation to uplift and revitalize urban communities. The Pilot Season revolves around the Arts District of Wynwood Miami, featuring an array of internationally acclaimed and locally respected Street Artists, Graffiti Writers and Muralists.

In 2009, Urban Visionary and Placemaker Tony Goldman partnered with Jeffrey Deitch (Deitch Projects Soho and now director of MoCa Los Angeles) to create the Wynwood Walls.What began with a series of parking lots, loading docks, and drab rundown factory buildings, became a curation of high caliber murals from Futura, Shepard Fairey, OS Gemeos, Kenny Scharf and others. The Walls opened for Art Basel 2009, and now two years later the collection has expanded to include over thirty artists from around the world, becoming a “Town Center” in a district that has grown into one of the largest concentrations of commissioned murals in the World.

This year Artists, many of whom have not shown work in the United States before, were selected by Tony Goldman, Goldman Projects Arts Manager Meghan Coleman and Art Consultant Medvin Sobio of the Visual Arts Collective Viejas Del Mercado. 33third Los Angeles, Mid City Arts, and Montana Cans worked together to provide paint for the project’s ambitious expansion.

HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD explores a unique juncture in history as a new community emerges and evolves. A progressive urban revitalization campaign is examined in the first person, using this year’s new Artists and their commissions as a lens to explore a neighborhood in transition. The Series is framed by colorful overview and concluding episodes, providing the scope of past, present and future. Each episode is accented by images from legendary Documentary Photographer Martha Cooper, who has been capturing The Walls since they began in 2009. Her Photographs will also appear in a Special Edition Art Book “The Wynwood Walls and Doors” set to be released at Art
Basel 2011.

For more information on the artists and history of the Wynwood Walls visit thewynwoodwalls.com

Episodes of HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD will digitally premiere for free in the weeks leading up to Art Basel. You are invited and encouraged to share, blog, “like” tweet and tumble this content freely and enthusiastically. Your interest and support is deeply appreciated. To learn more and to view the episodes as they are released, please visit the official site HCTN.tv and the VIMEO PAGE, or contact us directly at INFO@hctn.tv

HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Directed By: Jenner Furst
Produced By: Ben Solomon
Supervising Producers: Julia Willoughby Nason & Daniel B. Levin

Created By: Jenner Furst & Tony Goldman
Executive Producer: Tony Goldman

A CINEMART Production
In Association With Goldman Projects
Coordinating Producer: Meghan Coleman
Consulting Producer: Medvin Sobio

Related articles

• Graffiti-Infused Neighborhoods – The ‘Wynwood Walls’ in Miami Revitalizes a Deteriorating Community (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• Wynwood Walls Permanent Exhibition Expands for Art Basel Miami 2010 (prweb.com)
• The Place | Florida, Part One (tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com)

Yurbanism