Jackie Teed found a way to channel her creative instincts into a practical
field when she enrolled in Landscape Architecture, a program within the Faculty
of Agricultural Sciences.
Winner of the gold medal for top student in her class, Teed looked at how
the township of Langley can develop the Willoughby-Willowbrook area into a home
for 35,000 people while maintaining its rural character for her graduation project.
She was one of six students working with Prof. Moura Quayle and Prof. Douglas
Paterson on the project.
Teed’s contributions to the plans, which may influence future development,
include free-running streams and roads with the feel of country lanes.
As part of the rapidly growing Fraser Valley, Langley is under pressure to
increase density and build more housing. Residents, however, don’t want to lose
the rural character of their community, says Teed.
Environmental concerns, such as maintaining wildlife habitat, had to be addressed,
too, as she developed different models of how housing and roads might look in
this “rurban” community.
“Our job was to try to create a complete community with a design that could
accomplish all of these goals,” she says.
Teed proposed that the area’s streams, some of them still salmon-bearing,
should remain undisturbed. To do this, most roads had to avoid the streams,
curving around them instead.
Many of the roads were not what you would expect in a residential community,
either. Dubbed by Teed “country roads” the pavement is just five metres wide,
flanked by gravel shoulders and ditches.
Another environment-friendly proposal was the provision of greenways, non-vehicle
paths for walking and biking. It is no more than a five or 10-minute walk to
the nearest retail centre along these paths.
