The new Bay Parkade, Calgary, Alberta. Published as the middle part of a three part panorama in The Albertan, March 28, 1956, page 3. The view from the sky walk over 7th Avenue, linking the new Bay parkade with the Hudson’s Bay Company store in downtown Calgary. The sky walk became part of the Plus 15 (+15) walkway system.
PLAN 616 | Spring 2023 | Plus 15 | University of Calgary | School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape
Join us for an interdisciplinary urban design studio that examines the dynamics between Baukultur and the built environment in Downtown Calgary’s Plus 15. Collaborate with project stakeholders, explore spatial justice and EDI, and experiment with new tools guiding urban development. Learn from planning process experts and Indigenous Elders, and go beyond competition, culturally, and in practice to develop new paradigms of decolonizing and making. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to shape the future of urban design in Calgary and beyond.
The urban design studio will examining the dynamics between processes that are generally described as Baukultur [building culture]. Constructing the built environment means also building social spaces, building economic spaces, building spaces for living and learning. In turn, these spaces define our daily experiences and influence ideas of transformation or future projects. In this studio, we want to work with this notion of a dialectic process where the creation of the artifact is influenced by its existence.
The project site is Downtown Calgary, specifically the urban interior that is also known as the Plus 15. This downtown Calgary mobility labyrinth represents one of the largest intricate and ongoing publicprivate collaborative partnerships. It is controversially rooted in modernist planning ideas about the separation of functions but also embraced as a boom town response to local environmental conditions. It is an unmissable icon of the urban landscape shaping the experience and perception in peculiar ways. As a continuously growing and changing system we are looking at expanding its reach but specifically at the role and relationship of public and private spaces, access, exclusion and spatial justice.
In interdisciplinary teams you will be working on collaborative design practices and workshops with:
* Project stakeholders including businesses, communities, interest groups, politicians, and professionals
* Spatial justice and EDI conceptualized, applied, and experienced
* Public-private partnership exploration of policy, process, and strategy
* Urban design and landscape design as interior and exterior
* In the studio at the CBDLab and on-site in the +15
* Tactical urbanism interventions as physical projects built on site
* International experts and practitioners providing input
* Indigenous Elders on reflection, and decolonizing spaces and practice
Together with planning process experts from MVRDV, Gehl Architects, West 8, Assemble, and more, we will experiment in groups with the new and emerging tools guiding urban development in urban areas worldwide. Elders from the Treaty 7 and Metis Nations will share knowledge about culture, protocol, and ceremony related to self, sustainability, and living together.
You will learn to apply a range of processes:
* Beyond competition: from Hackaton to Test Planning and Forum - New International Models.
* Culturally we will be exploring beyond the norm of Western concept of land use planning and landscape design and seek to develop an understanding beyond Indigenous planning: from IIDC to Stories and Collaboration - New Paradigms of decolonizing.
* In practice we will go beyond vision: from tactical urbanism, to build, to manufacture and Experience - New Making.
This studio is run interconnected with the ARCH 675 L02 course that provides the theoretical and practical input.
A generational housing crisis, exacerbated by a mismatch between supply and demand, rising borrowing and land costs, supply chain constraints, and policy gaps;
The decline of downtown visits and activity — from residents, workers, and tourists — extending the shuttering of retail spaces, the erosion of amenities, and community safety;
A critical need for coordinated urban mental health and addictions strategies, especially for vulnerable populations lacking housing options and supports;
The resurgence of encampments in parks, streets and public space, sparking conflicts between people and businesses, communities, service providers, and government jurisdictions;
The implications of ongoing work-from-home patterns for public transit, urban vitality, and the financial sustainability of municipal services;
The unpredictability of climate events – flooding, fires, and the looming risks of aging infrastructure; And the disproportionate impact of the pandemic and containment efforts on equity-deserving people and communities.
Declaration 2018
1) The existing construction, including cultural heritage assets, and contemporary creation must be understood as a single entity. The existing construction provides an important Baukultur reference for the future design of our built environment.
2) All activities with an impact on the built environment, from detailed craftsmanship to the planning and execution of infrastructure projects that have an impact on the landscape, are expressions of Baukultur.
3) Baukultur not only refers to the built environment but also to the processes involved in its creation.
Built environment
Architectural quality
Heritage conservation
Urban development
Equity Diversity and Inclusion
The "coordinated system of knowledge, rules, procedures, and habit that surrounds the building process in a given place and time"
Davis 2006, p. 5
3
9 am, CBDLab (h), course introduction PLAN 616 and ARCH 675. Kick-off analysis phase with a site visit in the afternoon, 2 pm. 5 9 am (o) desk crit.
8 9 am (h) CBDLab, studio crit ANALYSIS. 2pm (o) ANALYSIS submission on D2L, use the dropbox folder.
9 2 pm, CBDLab (ip) Input Elder Casey Eaglespeaker, Kainai Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy.
10 9:15 am (o) Practice input, Leku Studio, Jokin Santiago co-founder.
2 pm (ip) CBDLab desk crit. 11 4pm (ip) CBDLab, movie screening of Way Downtown by Garry Burns in 2000. A dark comedy set in the +15 starring Fab Filippo, Don McKellar, Marya Delver and Michelle Beaudoin.
9 am (o) desk crit.
(o)
16 2 pm, CBDLab (ip) Input Elder Rod Hunter, Bearspaw, Stoney First Nation.
17 9:15 am (o) JKA London, Jan Kattein director. Followed by group discussion and reference project research.
2 pm (ip) CBDLab stakeholder workshop with Cllr Wong Ward 7, Mark Garner CDA, Richard Parker former director of planning, Eliot Tretter Professor of Geography at the University of Calgary.
(o) - online
(h) - hybrid format
(ip) - in-person
9 am (o) desk crit. 22 Victory Day - university closed.
23 9 am, CBDLab (h) Studio crit TEST PLANNING with guest David Downs planner and lead urban design at the City of Calgary. 2pm (o) TEST PLANNING submission on D2L, use the dropbox folder.
2 pm, CBDLab (ip) Input Elder Pablo Russel, Kainai Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy.
24 9:15 am (o) Practice input, Pez Estudio Madrid 26 9 am (h) studio crit SYNTHESIS. 2pm (o) SYNTHESIS submission on D2L, use the dropbox folder. 29 9 am (o) desk crit.
30 2 pm, CBDLab (ip) Input Elder Gilbert Crowchild, Tsuut’ina First Nation.
31 9:15 am (o) MVRDV New York, Vanessa Kassabian on.
2 pm (ip) CBDLab desk crit.
1 9 am (o) desk crit.
5 9 am (ip) studio crit PLACE MAKING on site in the +15 system. We’ll be touring from installation to installation. 2pm (o) PLACE MAKING submission on D2L, use the dropbox folder.
7 9:15 am (o) Gehl Architects, Leon Legeland on.
2 pm (ip) CBDLab stakeholder workshop with Eau Claire CA Douglas Hay, Brookfield Properties, Quadreal Property Group, Matco Developments, Aspen Properties, Cadillac Fairview. Oxford Properties, Richard White writer.
9 am (ip) desk crit.
9 am (ip) desk crit.
2 pm, CBDLab (ip) Input Elder Doreen Bergum, Métis Alberta.
2 pm (ip) Tsuut’ina Reserve, sweat lodge lead by Hal Eagletail.
16 9 am (ip) CBDLab, studio crit PROJECT with guests Angat Desai landscape architect with Hapa Collaborative in Vancouver and David Downs planner and lead urban design at the City of Calgary. 2pm (o) PROJECT submission on D2L, use the dropbox folder.
21 2pm (o) REFLECTION submission on D2L, use the dropbox folder.
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
Crit Practice Expert Input
Discussion and Example Research
Inherent in this commitment to the people is the understanding of the reciprocity of life and accountability to one another (Hart, 2010, pp. 9). p l e s n o u s
R E L A T I O N A L I T Y :
I A M B E C A U S E Y O U A R E
Relationships do not merely shape reality, they are reality (Wilson, 2008, p 7)
R E C I P R O C I T Y : R O L E S W E S E R V E
R E S P E C T : N O T H I N G A B O U T U S W I T H O U T U S .
Indigenous knowledge extends beyond the environment, however; it has values and principles about human behaviour an ethics, about relationships, about wellness and leading a good life. Knowledge has beauty and can make the world beautiful if used in a good way (Smith, 2012, p 161)
K. 2020. Indigenous Academic Integrity. University of Calgary, Taylor Institute of Teaching and Learning.
U n d e r s t a n d i n g
V i s u a l
S t o r y t e l l i n g
I c o n s
Relationality is an ontological approach in which relationships serve as the connective tissue of reality. Each of us serve as threads in this universal blanket, braided and woven together through our relationships with one and other, with non-human relatives, creation, and the cosmos. These intertwined threads, braids of experience and knowledge, form Indigenous perspectives in which we construct our reality through the lens of relationship
We each serve as an unique link in a chain of knowledge that reaches back into the past through the millennia and pushes forward into future. Each person is responsible to their community for the knowledge that they receive as learners and eventually pass on as knowledge keepers. The survival of our communities is predicated on the integrity of this interconnected knowledge cycle Reciprocity is how we acknowledge, value, and honour the work of sharing knowledge as well as those who strive to share that knowledge with us
R A I D I N G R E C I P R O C I T Y L I N K S I N T H E C H A I N R E S P E C T
Respect is how we bring together different communities, ways of knowing, doing, learning, and connecting to create new knowledge It is through respect that we are able to connect and create new designs in the weave of relationality. Without respect, or through disrespect, we break the ties that bind us, leaving holes in the blanket of the universe.
Calgary’s Greater Downtown Plan
Rowe,
The design studio is organized in a sequence of phases each of which has its own assignment. The individual stages align with specific content and input but also support the development of the project by scaffolding the process. Each phase contributes to the overall aim of the design studio not just linear, but by looping back and forth between them. For the assignments, this means even though they are graded, they are mere stepping stones and not only product in themselves. Primarily they can be viewed as progress assessment [Standortbestimmung].
Each group analyzes one of the following aspects of the +15:
. Origin and variations of the idea with plans and visions for the system in Calgary.
. Style (variation of implementation, material, colour, changes over time e.g. 50ies - 00s)
Signage and navigation (signs, features, ...) together with flow and movement inside and outside the Plus 15.
Collaboration (stakeholder arrangements and co-creation, PPP)
Atmosphere (dimension, furniture...)
. Talking points (voices pro and con, public debate etc.)
. Program, usage distribution
Transition (public-private, inside-outside)
. Elements catalogue (sections, types and pieces, spaces, rooms, ...)
. Policy documents
This is to be prepared and presented as a video. The clip is to be 2 to max. 5 minutes long and include narration or subtitles. The video is accompanied by a storyboard (flip book) with about 12 key frames (aspects) documenting the narrative and story telling idea. You can use photos or videos from the site visit, statistics, own graphics with explanation (observations, interactions, encounters, recorded short statements or interviews etc. - Anything that illustrates you analysis in the best way and is understandable for everyone). Each video has to feature your own footage of the Plus 15 in parts.
Equipment needed: Phone camera and microphone of your phone or computer, any application for video-editing. It can also be a presentation recorded by loom or any similar tool
Objectives: Researching a specific aspect of the Plus 15 that can then beshared with the class.
Deliverables: a 2 to max. 5 minute video plus story board with narrative.
Start: May 03
Deadline: May 08
Evaluation: 10% (group)
Deliverables Test Planning: THINKING BEYOND THE CURRENT SYSTEM to update current status and design opportunities to be presented in a 12 page, legal format booklet presenting the below elements. Follow the template provided:
Title / overall strategy
Design of +15 elements: idea of bridge, hallway, plaza, connector, entrance, public space, winter garden, ...
Identify missing component and design at least 2 more functional components (e.g. rooftop connection, climate adaptation feature, cycling bridge, ...) which can be introduced to expand the functionality of the system.
Physical model to exemplify one bridge with surrounding buildings, scale 1:500, cardboard and extruded polystyrene.
Redefine the existing network and develop a diagram of opportunities, e.g. where should new connections be considered?
Identify four key themes relevant for your design specifically of all the topics covered during the analysis phase, e.g. origin and vision, style, navigation and flow, collaboration, atmosphere, flow and movement, talking points, program, transition, elements, and policy.
Quality and design criteria/principles.
Plan drawings including section and elevation
Surrounding/context map + in&out transitions and connection to surrounding spaces in the downtown.
Process design, stakeholder mapping, phasing.
Objectives: Overall system concept and redesign of basic elements in regards to Baukultur, spatial justice, public-private partnership and policy framework.
Deliverables: booklet documenting the proposed design solutions. Use the template provided.
Start: May 08
Deadline: May 23
Evaluation: 20% (group)
A matrix is provided to evaluate the various aspects of your TEST PLANNING project. Complete your own evaluation matrix providing a rational with example. Each group is providing feedback on the matrix for two other groups.
Objectives: Evaluation of the various aspects of the TEST PLANNING project.
Deliverables: Completed sythesis matrix (group). Reflective statement evaluating the BAUKULTUR and URBAN CHALLENGES addressed with the TEST PLANNING project, 300 words on each.
Start: May 23
Deadline: May 26
Evaluation: 10% (group), 10% (individual)
For the PLACE MAKING each team builds a physical and temporary installation on site. The aim is to translate the TEST PLANNING ideas to a selected location downtown, bringing them to live temporarily. This kind of tactical intervention acts as a proof of concept where temporary change might lead to permanent transformation. The key aspects are:
. The manifested connections to your TEST PLANNING ideas,
. How it transforms and creates “place”
. How the installation engages the public.
You have to further more addresses one of the BAUKULTUR themes and one of the identified URBAN CHALLENGES.
The work is presented by the group on site during a walking tour of the downtown area. Each group creates a documentation of the installation with photos, videos and shares on social media.
If no individual arrangement with site owners are established, the installation has to be removed immediately. The groups retain the material and integrate it as part of the final presentation.
Objectives: Transform a selected place in the downtown connected with the Plus 15 creating an experience of how future transformations of the system look and feel.
Deliverables: on site installation and presentation
Start: May 26
Deadline: June 5
Evaluation: 20% (group)
Title / overall strategy
Network expansion: overall map identifying the added connections to the network beyond the downtown core +15. This is presented at a scale 1:10’000
Urban design of the environment both public and private including buildings, landscape, public spaces, streets, amenities ...
Quality and design criteria/principles
Conceptual modules, e.g. detailed landscape design, program/uses, mobility & accessibility, way finding signage and others
Two spots detailing the implementation of the design criteria and overall concept in a landscape design for 2 bridges and connecting spaces inside and outside of the +15.
Collages illustrating your proposal together with isometric views, diagrams, sections, ...
Phasing with proposed growth
Diagrams and description of necessary policy changes as a result of/or in benefit of your proposal.
BAUKULTUR statement together with a narrative addressing a selection of the URBAN CHALLENGES.
Any additional information concept description (max. 3 DIN A4, font size 11 Arial - additional to the poster)
Two poster (Arch D portrait)
Objectives: Final proposal presenting a project with a clear narrative about the future of the +15 system, its design and its growth.
Deliverables: Poster presentation
Start: June 5
Deadline: June 16
Evaluation: 20% (group)
Objectives: Looking back over the completed term, revisiting the process and reflecting on the decisions and resulting outcomes.
Consider the
Deliverables: Vlog statement two minutes in length
Start: June 16
Deadline: June 21
Evaluation: 10% (individual)
