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Urban Design Panel
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Urban Design in Vancouver
What is urban design? Simply put, it is the design of the city
and all its experiential components and qualities. Focusing on the city's
visible parts, urban design considers how buildings and the spaces between
them — parks and open spaces, bridges and streets, sidewalks and
walkways, historical features, bodies of water, trees and landscaping,
lighting and signage, etc. — are integrated and shaped together
to create a functional, attractive, memorable, comfortable, animated and
safe city. All great cities display these qualities which are the result
of this important, but only recently recognized discipline. The challenge
for all those involved in the creation and shaping of this city's built
environment and neighbourhoods is to recognize the opportunities offered
by Vancouver's spectacular natural setting and unique characteristics,
while responding effectively to site specific demands. The City of Vancouver
fosters a culture of active participation with citizens, the development
community and the design professions to produce high quality urban design
in our setting for the benefit of residents, workers, shoppers and visitors
alike.
Vancouver's Urban Design: A Decade of Achievements
(December, 1999)
Some recent examples of successful urban design were chosen
for this City of Vancouver publication which illustrates the variety of
successful specific urban design responses to the city's setting, neighbourhood
characteristics, the owner/developer's programme, site constraints and
related city policy. The eleven projects profiled in this publication
are available as PDF files.
(Adobe Acrobat Reader
is required to view or print PDF files.)
Vancouver's New Neighbourhoods - Achievements
in Planning and Urban Design (December 2003)
This publication describes the planning, urban design, consultative
and implementation process by which a number of new high density neighbourhoods
have revitalized the downtown and energized other areas of the city by
offering a viable alternative to suburbia. Vancouver's approach to conceptualizing
complete, integrated, diverse yet adaptable neighbourhoods focuses on
providing the full array of infrastructure and services (schools, daycares,
parks, community centres, shopping, etc) within walkable distances, with
our streets being the focus of public life and socializing. All of this
is brought together in a distinctively Vancouver urban design that emphasizes
human scale in the public realm, integration with the surrounding city
and recognition of our unique physical setting. These successful initiatives
have become models for other North American cities as well as informing
our on-going work as we continually seek high quality urban planning and
design responses to the challenges of creating a highly livable, sustainable
city. Now substantially built out, the neighbourhoods highlighted are
available as pdf files:
Related Links
The
Changing City: See how Vancouver's downtown has changed since 1978
"Living First" an article looking
at Vancouver's planning for Downtown from Zoning News, April 2000
The Urban Design and Development Planning Centre
The City of Vancouver, in its recognition of the importance of successful
urban design, established the Urban Design and Development Planning Centre
within the Planning Department. The Centre, comprised of urban designers,
architects, landscape architects and researchers provides many services
to the city, design community and general public. These services include
consultations with a variety of stakeholders about specific development
sites leading to improved urban design concepts/solutions, presenting projects to the Urban Design Panel, providing advice
to development applicants in regard to site specific design responses
to the city's discretionary zoning and developing urban design policy.
Our Principles
The Urban Design and Development Planning Centre evaluates all development
and policy initiatives against six broad principles which are generally
contained in Council-approved policies and guidelines. Each principle
is considered in assessing proposal performance while acknowledging that
each site possesses unique qualities and possibilities. Our involvement
seeks to appropriately and equitably apply these principles in the application
of Vancouver's discretionary based Zoning Schedules, Official Development
Plans and Design Guidelines:
- A Sense of Place
- A Contextual Response
- A High Quality Public Realm
- Neighbourly Development
- Recognizing our History
- Architectural Distinction
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