Advisory Group Review
The City of Vancouver commissioned four urban planning and architecture professionals with extensive skills in urban design, view protection and city-building to provide advice on directions for the view protection guidelines in Vancouver.
The Advisory Group participated in a two-day working group session with City staff to discuss how to optimize opportunities to support growth in the Downtown while respecting the goals of the original view protection guidelines.
The following professionals took part in the Peer Review Group:
Kairos Shen
Kairos Shen is the Director of Planning at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston’s economic development and planning agency. Mr. Shen manages the BRA’s planning division that include the basic functions of community planning, urban design, zoning, waterfront planning and infrastructure planning.
Mr. Shen is part of the leadership team that sets the BRA’s economic development and planning agenda to achieve citywide, neighborhood and economic sector growth and development in all of Boston’s communities.
Mr. Shen has been intimately involved in many of Boston’s most important planning efforts in the last ten years. They include the Interim Guidelines for the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, the plans for East and West Fenway neighborhoods, the implementation of Boston’s new $700 million convention center, the planning of the 1000 acre South Boston Waterfront, and plans for the future of Fenway Park. In addition to undertaking and supervising many of the planning and design studies, Mr. Shen regularly participates in community meetings that is essential to the success of any planning effort.
Mr. Shen is a graduate of Swarthmore College and has a Master of Architecture from MIT.
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Joe Hruda
Joe, a Harvard University Alumni, and a University of Manitoba Gold Medalist, has over 40 years of Award winning design in planning new communities, urban redevelopment and mixed-use projects. His residing and experience in various parts of our world, helped Joe shape CIVITAS into the sensitive and successful firm it is today.
Joe led much of the 'new' planning and visioning of the City of Vancouver's Downtown district. It was through much of this early effort, that helped earn Vancouver her 'World class' reputation. Some of Joe's early successes include, the integrated business and residential community of Coal Harbour, the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, the redevelopment of former Expo '86 lands located at False Creek (BC Place and Granville Slopes). In the Metro Vancouver region, the new residential community and golf course, Westwood Plateau, Coquitlam, Royal Oaks Estates, Burnaby, and currently, Pinnacle Place, Richmond, and Sea to Sky University, Squamish.
Internationally, Joe was responsible for the compact sustainable community of Galisteo Basin Village, Santa Fe, New Mexico; the masterplan design of the destination Cuban resorts of Cayo Largo and Jibacoa.
Joe is currently leading CIVITAS on the urban design and visioning of the new metropolitan centres for Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, of the United Arab Emerates; Charlestown Square regional Centre Masterplan redevelopment, Sydney, Australia; the 83 Hectare Liangzhu New Town and tourist precinct, Hangzhou, China; the urban design and masterplan of Rouse Hill Town Centre, a major transit oriented mixed-use town centre in Sydney, Australia; the new masterplan for HighPoint regional Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
Joe's community involvement includes a six year appointment to the City of Vancouver Urban Design Panel, serving one year as Chairman. He is currently a member of the Urban Design Review Panel for the state-owned real estate development corporation, Landcom in Sydney, Australia.
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Ken Greenberg
Architect and Urban Designer Ken Greenberg has played a leading role on a broad range of assignments in highly diverse urban settings in North America, and Europe. Much of his work focuses on the rejuvenation of downtowns, waterfronts, neighborhoods, and campus master planning. His projects include the award-winning Saint Paul on the Mississippi Development Framework, the Brooklyn Bridge Park on the East River in New York, the East River waterfront in Lower Manhattan, the Fan Pier in Boston, the Southwest and Southeast Waterfronts in Washington, D.C., the Vision Plan for the District of Columbia and the preparation of a Master Plan for the NoMA District (North of Massachusetts Avenue) in Washington D.C., Kendall Square and NorthPoint Master Plans in Cambridge, the Downtown Hartford Economic and Urban Design Action Strategy, the preparation of a Strategic Framework for Midtown Detroit surrounding the Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University, the implementation of the Harbourfront Master Plan and Plans for the new FilmPort (Toronto Film Studios complex) on the Toronto Waterfront and an interim role as Chief Planner at the BRA (Boston Redevelopment Authority) for the City of Boston including oversight of the Crossroads Initiative which builds on the 'Big Dig' and the Rose Kennedy Greenway. In each city, with each project, his strategic, consensus-building approach has led to coordinated planning and a renewed focus on urban design.
Current efforts include plans for the Lower Don Lands, a comprehensive plan for the mouth of the Don River where it enters Toronto Harbour, a Strategic Master Plan for Boston University, plans for the renewal of Grange Park, in association with the Art Gallery of Ontario, plans for the adaptive re-use of the Hearn, a decommissioned Power Plant in the Toronto Port Lands, the redevelopment of the former US Postal Service site on the Fort Point Channel in Boston, the renewal of the Inner Belt lands in Somerville, Mass., plans for the Calgary Riverwalk along the Bow and Oxbow Rivers and implementing the Master Plan for the renewal of Regent Park, a major public housing project in Toronto.
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Norman Hotson
Norman Hotson graduated from the University of Toronto in 1969 with a Bachelor of Architecture (Honours) and the Architectural Guild Gold Medal for Design. He started his own practice of architecture and urban design in November 1973, in Vancouver. Today, Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden architects + urbanistes employs forty people and carries out a diversity of project types in British Columbia, Alberta, the USA and China.
Since 1977, Norm has held the post of Coordinating Urban Design Architect for the Redevelopment of Granville Island on behalf of the Government of Canada. He has directed the planning and design of numerous waterfronts in Canada and the USA, Australia and New Zealand, several of which have included the design of a public fresh food market as the generator of public activity. His firm is known internationally for its expertise in the field of mixed-use waterfront development, resort planning, historic restoration, multi-family residential, municipal and university buildings.
In addition to serving the City of Vancouver through membership on various panels and boards, Norm sat on the Board of Advisors to The Waterfront Center in Washington, D.C. and chaired the Advisory Committee on Planning, Design and Realty of the National Capital Commission in Ottawa.
In all of the work undertaken by the firm, Norm has pursued his interest in the “street” and in the making of urban places that people truly enjoy.
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