SFU City

Preparing for the Third Wave of Cyclists-  Cycling facilities designed for the future cyclists

March 28, 7-9 pm
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

Admission is free: reservations are required. Email cs_hc@sfu.ca or call 604.291.5100.

In Copenhagen, 70 percent of cyclists continue to bike in winter.

Within Vancouver, cycling for transportation has grown slowly over the past 20 years to a respectable level within North America. To create a step change and cause a new wave of major cycling growth there will need to be changes in thinking towards cycling infrastructure design with trends towards the European approach.

Hear more on techniques from other cities within North America and Europe which should be brought to this region to help spur that next stage of growth. Speakers include: Jack Becker, Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition; Dr. Hans Groen, Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, and Gordon Price, The SFU City Program.

Co-sponsored by the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition and the Simon Fraser University City Program with financial support from Translink - The Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Special to the Sun

Michael Geller is a Vancouver architect, planner and property developer. Most recently manager of the introduction of the UniverCity neighbourhood for Simon Fraser University Community Trust, he now is travelling the world and will share his discoveries with Westcoast Homes readers from time to time.

I first heard about Australia’s Gold Coast in the early 1980s, from an Aussie visiting Vancouver to get ideas for a resort community he was planning near the northern, or Brisbane, terminus of the 70 kilometres of beaches on the country’s east coast, the Gold Coast.

Mike Gore was the man’s name and he returned to Australia with visions of False Creek, Granville Island and Whistler — and the people who had helped create these special places.

Norm Hotson, lead architect for Granville Island, designed the village centre and marina.

Rick Hulbert was commissioned to design the flagship Hyatt Regency Hotel. Gore’s friend and fellow Aussie, Ian Thomas, provided the market advice. Neil Griggs, who had been involved with the south shore of False Creek and Whistler, worked as Gore’s project manager.

Together, they spent five years in Australia successfully overseeing the transformation of thousands of hectares of swamp into Sanctuary Cove, today one of Australia’s best-known resort communities.

 [For more on the Vancouver connection to Sanctuary Cove, click here for Price Tags 50. ]

In the last 20 years, Sanctuary Cove has gone through many changes. Unfortunately, Gore’s heart could not keep up with his fast-paced lifestyle and he died shortly after the first phase was completed.

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For lovers of heritage and the fabric of the city, here’s a chance to see an interpretation of that fabric - in fabric.

Architexture
An Exploration of the nature of texture and substance with fabric techniques

Amanda JS Jones
Mar.1st/2007 ~ Apr.8th/2007

ARCHITEXTURE is a series of textile fragments that combines Amanda Jones’ fascination with False Creek’s decayed and rusted warehouses and factories with pyrotextile techniques to create a re-birth of these structures. ARCHITEXTURE is inspired by the heritage buildings along First and Sixth Avenues including the Domtar Salt, Vancouver Mill & Machinery, and Opsal Steel buildings. The rusted handles, broken windows, exposed wooden beams, and riveted patchwork of corrugated steel sheeting provides a visual feast of decay. Amanda uses pyrotextile techniques including burning, soldering, rusting, waxing, and stitch distressing to decreate the fibre structure. Together, they impose a new rich surface texture on both paper and silk fibres. This installation is a homage to the subtle beauty and complexity of urban structural decay.

The fibreEssence showroom is at 3210 Dunbar Street, Vancouver - www.fibreessence.ca

SF writer and design professor Bruce Sterling has produced a wonderful 8-minute short film about the future of cities, in which he wanders around Belgrade, the city he’s made his home, and talks about the way that his city is interacting with the present, past and future.

Thanks for the link from Gladys We.

Julie Schueck MacDonald, in evaluating our February 16th conference on “The Challenge of Sustainability for Heritage Conservation,” said she would have appreciated a list of the books and articles that speakers Alastair Kerr and Marc Denhez find most useful.

And she came up with a list of her own:

These are topics that I gleaned from listening to the speakers and the audience:

“The Green Roof Movement”. (Cornelia Hahn Oberlander would be a terrific speaker.)

Densification and Infill: The Counter Effect of Urban Sprawl”. How does it challenge Heritage Conservation?

“The Culture of Repair: from Jewel Boxes to Rehabilitation”

“Sell the Steak and Sell the Sizzle: Rehabilitation is Development”

“The Two Conservation Movements: Fostering Heritage and Environmental Partnerships”

The GVRD and the City Program hosted U.S. urban theorist Anthony Downs (Stuck in Traffic) last week. Sun writer Doug Ward went on a tour with the Brookings scholar, and here’s his story from Saturday, March 10, 2007:

Even with the best transit plans, a U.S. traffic expert says, the GVRD will continue to be plagued by road congestion because that’s part of what makes a city.

Barring an economic implosion, future population growth means the Lower Mainland will become even more car-dominated than it is today, urban guru Anthony Downs says

One of the most influential traffic experts in the world says gridlock-weary residents of Greater Vancouver shouldn’t be deluded by ambitious plans for gleaming new rapid transit lines and bigger fleets of new buses.

Barring an economic implosion, says Anthony Downs, future population growth means our region will become even more car-dominated than it is today.

The most a revamped TransLink can do is slow the rate at which our highways and arterial roads become more clogged.

But Downs, who visited Vancouver this week, says we still have to make an effort to fight back against the lure of the automobile.

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