False Creek North 2007
Vancouver consistently ranks high (or highest) in international rankings of liveability. For the fifth straight year, Vancouver was named the most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2011.
Having been raised in Vancouver, I’ve always been fascinated by its popularity. Growing up in a low-income family, I guess I missed some of the features the planners and evaluators value. And I often wondered if they counted the yearly quotient of 265 days of rain in their evaluations.
So it was with great excitement that I found myself in 2007 evaluating housing in Vancouver from the residents’ perspective. After 44 years, I was coming back to my hoem city — and studying it.
January 2007 saw the beginning of an intensive project that fulfilled many of my dreams as an educator and researcher.
With Larry Beasley CM, formerly Co-Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver, I taught and co-managed a three-term intensive subject and collaborative research project as Adjunct Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia (see www.scarp.ubc.ca).
The topic of the research is “Understanding Vancouver’s Inner City Housing: An Adventure in Multifaceted Post-Occupancy Evaluation.” In the first term, fifteen students developed methods to be used to evaluate housing in Vancouver’s inner city False Creek North neighbourhoods.
My participation in this project was generously funded by two Vancouver developers: Concord Pacific Developments (see www.concordpacific.com) and the “communitarian capitalist” and now great friend, Steve Hynes of Hillside Developments (see www.hillside.ca).
The project is now complete and all findings have been published.
For the short report, please go to Gordon Price’s, “Price Tags”, Issue 104, June 2008: pricetags.false-creek-north
For more details and copies of other reports related to this larger study, please go to:
kitchentablesustainability.com/housing-density-and-sustainability-what-works-and-what-doesnt-work
For a copy of the full evaluation report, please contact me: wendy@sarkissian.com.au
Dogs are an issue in False Creek North
Summer intensive on the public realm
A highly successful summer intensive in Vancouver in June focused on the parks, plazas, playgrounds and other public spaces in False Creek North, as well as lessons learned from the earlier development of False Creek South.
Co-author of "Creative Community Planning" Dianna Hurford in class, 2007
In this work I was assisted by several generous colleagues, including planner and criminologist, Gregory Saville, of Alternation Consulting (www.alternation.ca).
Other lecturers included post-occupancy evaluation specialist, Professor Jacqueline Vischer, Professeure titulaire, Groupe de recherche sur les environnements de travail at the University of Montréal (see www.gret.umontreal.ca),
Vancouver-based architect-planner David Ellis
and Pieter Rutgers of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (see www.vancouver.ca/parks).
In the third term, which began in September 2007, my students began conducting detailed observations and questionnare-based evaluations of components of the housing developments.
Some students undertook major projects and theses in a subsequent term.
This research continued throughout 2008.
To discuss any aspect of the research, please contact me: wendy@sarkissian.com.au
or ring me on 0402 966 284.
Evaluating Vancouver’s High-Rise Housing
False Creek North 2007
Vancouver consistently ranks high (or highest) in international rankings of liveability. For the fifth straight year, Vancouver was named the most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2011.
Having been raised in Vancouver, I’ve always been fascinated by its popularity. Growing up in a low-income family, I guess I missed some of the features the planners and evaluators value. And I often wondered if they counted the yearly quotient of 265 days of rain in their evaluations.
So it was with great excitement that I found myself in 2007 evaluating housing in Vancouver from the residents’ perspective. After 44 years, I was coming back to my hoem city — and studying it.
January 2007 saw the beginning of an intensive project that fulfilled many of my dreams as an educator and researcher.
With Larry Beasley CM, formerly Co-Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver, I taught and co-managed a three-term intensive subject and collaborative research project as Adjunct Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia (see www.scarp.ubc.ca).
The topic of the research is “Understanding Vancouver’s Inner City Housing: An Adventure in Multifaceted Post-Occupancy Evaluation.” In the first term, fifteen students developed methods to be used to evaluate housing in Vancouver’s inner city False Creek North neighbourhoods.
My participation in this project was generously funded by two Vancouver developers: Concord Pacific Developments (see www.concordpacific.com) and the “communitarian capitalist” and now great friend, Steve Hynes of Hillside Developments (see www.hillside.ca).
The project is now complete and all findings have been published.
For the short report, please go to Gordon Price’s, “Price Tags”, Issue 104, June 2008: pricetags.false-creek-north
For more details and copies of other reports related to this larger study, please go to:
kitchentablesustainability.com/housing-density-and-sustainability-what-works-and-what-doesnt-work
For a copy of the full evaluation report, please contact me: wendy@sarkissian.com.au
Dogs are an issue in False Creek North
Summer intensive on the public realm
A highly successful summer intensive in Vancouver in June focused on the parks, plazas, playgrounds and other public spaces in False Creek North, as well as lessons learned from the earlier development of False Creek South.
Co-author of "Creative Community Planning" Dianna Hurford in class, 2007
In this work I was assisted by several generous colleagues, including planner and criminologist, Gregory Saville, of Alternation Consulting (www.alternation.ca).
Other lecturers included post-occupancy evaluation specialist, Professor Jacqueline Vischer, Professeure titulaire, Groupe de recherche sur les environnements de travail at the University of Montréal (see www.gret.umontreal.ca),
Vancouver-based architect-planner David Ellis
and Pieter Rutgers of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (see www.vancouver.ca/parks).
In the third term, which began in September 2007, my students began conducting detailed observations and questionnare-based evaluations of components of the housing developments.
Some students undertook major projects and theses in a subsequent term.
This research continued throughout 2008.
To discuss any aspect of the research, please contact me: wendy@sarkissian.com.au
or ring me on 0402 966 284.