Faced with burgeoning populations, car-oriented communities, and
a growing demand for greenspace, thousands of North American communities
stand to benefit from an urban design exercise about to get underway
in Burnaby.
The Brentwood Town Centre will come under close scrutiny Aug. 20
as North American leaders in urban design, architecture and landscape
architecture team up to create innovative urban designs as part
of the week-long Burnaby Design Charrette for Sustainable Urban
Landscapes.
The charrette teams top professionals with selected students from
the University of British Columbia’s schools of Architecture and
Landscape Architecture to show what high-density urban landscapes
would be like if designed and built to conform with emerging policies
for sustainable development.
Four teams, led by 16 experts, will complete illustrated proposals
for a new community of 20,000 people in the Brentwood area.
“This area, at the junction of Willingdon St. and Lougheed Highway,
will soon be the focus for billions of dollars of new investment,”
says Patrick Condon, an associate professor in UBC’s Landscape Architecture
program.
“This new investment should be made in a way that will alleviate,
not exacerbate the environmental problems of Still Creek, Burnaby
Lake, and Brunette River; and in a way that will enhance, not diminish,
community pride.”
The teams’ designs may greatly improve the overall quality of the
town centre, and may also provide new design prototypes applicable
to hundreds of similar districts throughout North America.
Condon says Burnaby Mayor Doug Drummond views the project as a
timely opportunity to explore creative design alternatives which
would help transform the town centre from a car-oriented environment
to a redeveloped core with greenspaces, a system of facilities for
pedestrians and cyclists, and other features to improve livability
and environmental sustainability.
The charrette is a project of the the City of Burnaby Planning
Dept. and the James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments
at the UBC School of Landscape Architecture.
The public is invited to review the results of the charrette on
Monday, Aug. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the Michael J. Fox Theatre, 7373
MacPherson St., Burnaby. Admission is free.
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