SCARP + SALA: design presentations

As I wrote in my last post, SCARP and SALA are currently choosing an integrated design team for our new building, an addition to the existing Lasserre building at UBC. Two teams presented last week, and two this week. The winning team will be announced October 20th. Since we were encouraged to send along our comments on the presentations to the committee who will be choosing the best of the four teams, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss them here.

The four short-listed teams were follows:

Here are the videos for these presentations online: Week 1 (Patkau and Teeple) and Week 2 (Shape and OMA).

I’m sure that Patkau did think about how classroom space, lecture spaces, and offices would be designed compared to studio spaces, because they had diagrams showing the breakdown of program space in the new building. However, it was not clear from their presentation how they planned to differentiate these types of spaces and functions. I was alarmed by their use of the Harvard Graduate School of Design as an example of “good” studio design. Having visited the GSD, I felt that the student spaces were cold and mechanistic, and sound control in this space is not great. The other examples Patkau showed (like the Winnipeg Public Library) were all basically glass boxes. Obviously, in Vancouver it would be great to use as much natural light as possible, but sound controls are going to be an issue. Likewise, they did use students’ quotes and work in their presentation, but it was not clear how they might involve students in the design process. Moreover, the landscape design was still too embryonic to figure out at this point, and do we really want to bring the focus of the building inward, like every other modernist building on campus? Why not address the street (either one) and create a space that can actually be used during the (rainy) school year?

Teeple went a little further in their approach. They did show some specific examples of small-scale student spaces (at Langara, SFU, MacMillan, the Stephen Hawking Institute), perhaps because Proscenium focuses on interiors. While Patkau talked about the need for social spaces, Teeple actually showed examples of comfortable smaller student lounges and work spaces. As a landscape architect I will add that since the proposed SCARP/SALA building aspires to be a green building, it is a huge coup having Cornelia Oberlander as the landscape architect on their team. She was designing sustainable landscapes way before they were trendy, and has decades of experience understanding site, microclimate, and people’s use of space, which will be crucial in the design of the open spaces and axes that will anchor the new building. Although the team didn’t let her speak much, Cornelia is very careful about working with architects who will allow her to play a major role in the overall building design.

I definitely felt that Shape and FieldenCleggBradley have the necessary experience, collaboration with each other, and the most interesting proposal. In particular, I felt that their presentation style was indicative of the close working partnership the team has: each spoke for an equal amount of time, each spoke highly of the other team members, and each fielded questions in their areas of expertise. I felt that the landscape architects, with their local UBC experience in participatory process, was also a major strength. They seemed to “get” the idea of collaboration, combining these three different areas of study in both the building itself and the building process. I also liked the projects highlighting their use of artificial light made to look natural, as this will likely be needed in the rainy, dark Vancouver climate. FCB’s experiences in the UK, a very similar climate to ours, will be very useful in terms of the building’s design, lighting, and materials. Teeple was the only other team that convinced me that they would design interesting, functional, and well-designed smaller spaces within the SCARP/SALA building. These two teams were the strongest in terms of their commitment to the overall design: landscape, relationship to existing buildings on the site, the building itself, and its interior spaces.

As expected, OMA’s approach to “iconic” architecture was troublesome and problematic for our site and building, since it is a small addition, rather than a brand-new structure. Ultimately, we don’t want form over function. In terms of function, although they were the only ones to offer a glimpse of how the interior space might be broken down, the hierarchies emerge: the majority of the space was designated as studios, and the highest floors and best views as private offices. Even though the firm supposedly does landscape architecture as well as architecture, their proposal was particularly weak in the interaction of the building with the site: the weakest of all the groups. I don’t even remember OMA mentioning the name of the landscape architecture firm they would be working with, which I think says a lot about their attitude towards their collaborators. I feel that they are still working in the modernist-brutalist tradition, and frankly UBC has enough giant, bland glass and concrete buildings and vast empty open plazas already.

In general, I felt that Patkau, Teeple and OMA were overwhelmed by the concept of designing a design school, and spent way too much time claiming they were going to build something that would put Vancouver on the map. We need well-designed, functional spaces for students and faculty. It would be nice if the building was also innovative, but I would leave that to the sustainability features rather than the mere design characteristics. Star-chitecture is not always great design, and in most cases the interaction of these buildings with their surroundings is jarring, not to mention their impact on the pedestrian realm. I still think that all three of these teams think they’re designing an architecture building, and while several have designed research-based buildings before, they don’t consider this to be a research facility, since SALA students don’t do the type of social science research we do at SCARP. I think this is problematic since about 80% of SCARP students are in streams other than urban design, and will not be working in studio-type settings. This is partly why the Shape team is the strongest: they had a more developed design process and seemed to anticipate the difficulties of designing a building that would house three different programs with different needs. OMA emerges as the weakest not only because their previous work highlights their modernist attitude towards design and collaboration, but also a lack of interest in participatory processes; all three of the other teams mentioned specific steps they would take to involve students and faculty at all three programs (particularly Shape, who had very specific events planned to involve the public in the design process).

Of course, we see only the public presentations. The committee responsible for choosing the winning team (made up of faculty and students in all three programs) started by interviewing 23 teams and shortlisting these four, who were also interviewed in depth after their presentations. It will be interesting to see which emerges as the winner come October 20th.

September 30, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

SCARP + SALA: our new building

UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) is finally getting what it deserves: a new building. As I wrote in a popular post last year, there is considerable inequity among the faculties in terms of building facilities. Recently, SCARP joined forces with the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture to expand Lasserre and create a joint building for all three programs. Currently, the four short-listed firms are working on their design proposals, which will be presented this month.

The Lasserre building

West Mall Annex

The MacMillan building

The Landscape Architecture Anne

SALA building presentations

As you can see, all three programs are in desperate need of new facilities. The architects are all within Lasserre, but the landscape architects are split between the MacMillan building and the Landscape Architecture Annex. SCARP has been housed in two buildings, Lasserre (administrative and some faculty offices) and West Mall Annex (classrooms, computer labs, student and faculty offices), for many years now. Architecture and landscape architecture are now within the same faculty; a few years ago landscape architecture was housed in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems. SCARP remains independent of this union: our parent department is the College for Interdisciplinary Studies.

These needless silos have undoubtedly contributed to what many see as deep rifts between the three professions: while there are many students who traverse the divide and take courses in these related programs, the isolation remains. Students in all three programs seem very excited about the prospect of having more interaction with each other, more joint classes, and possibly more interaction between faculty. There is a lot of logic in this aspiration: architects, landscape architects and planners will be working closely together in practice once they graduate, and it is a sad fact that we don’t know how to work together, resolve conflicts and appreciate each others’ expertise. The students (and to some extent, faculty) hope is that a joint building will help in creating mutual understanding.

I remain cynical on the subject, and for good reason: my own experience at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at University of Toronto taught me that a joint building is not necessarily utopia. Acculturation is defined an exchange of cultural habits that results when groups come into continuous contact: both cultures change, but each group remains distinct. Acculturation allows acceptance or rejection of aspects of both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ cultures, while assimilation implies total enculturation to the new, dominant culture. I would argue that architects tend to assimilate other closely-aligned fields. In our case, the architecture program was much larger (300 students compared to 125 in the landscape architecture program) and had considerably more faculty members. In the entire 119-year history of the school, it has always been headed by an architect. Consequently, the Borg-like architects dominated decision-making processes, from faculty hiring to program offerings to facilities, leaving the landscape architecture program to scramble for courses and instructors. By the time the school was revamped and rebranded and urban design program was added, the landscape architecture program had been largely consumed by the larger entity: it is now the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design and 24 of its 32 faculty are architects. Resistance was, indeed, futile.

Outside of this administrative approach, there is something about the architecture profession that encourages a superiority complex. I’m sure this statement offends, so let me back it up with some concrete examples. In first year, our two studios were right next to each other on the same floor, so there was more room for social interaction (this was back when U of T had Bachelors degrees in both programs). But after that, landscape architects remained on the second floor (being a smaller program, there was enough space for us) while the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th year architects moved up to the third and fourth floors. The architecture students rarely condescended to socialize with the landscape architects, even they were only separated by one floor. As for joint classes, the accreditation boards of each profession require so many courses that in five years, we could only choose three classes ourselves, the rest being required. We did have history and theory together in first year, and site engineering (a class which the architecture students considered a waste of time) in second and third years. We also had a joint computer lab and library. But that was the extent of our co-mingling. I started out in architecture, but switched to landscape architecture in my second year. From the moment I made the switch, it was clear I was crossing the void: classmates no longer spoke to me, or asked condescendingly how I liked the easier workload in landscape architecture.

More than a decade later, I still run into acquaintances for whom the hierarchy is firmly entrenched: architecture is at the top, then landscape architecture, and then planning. At UBC, I ran into someone who had previously studied math and statistics, and had just finished his Masters in Architecture. When I mentioned I was studying planning, he replied, “Oh yeah? You must find that a lot easier.” (A common survival technique for architects, who work ridiculous overtime hours and rarely take time off, is to redefine the “normal” work week to have 80 or more hours; by this definition everyone else is a slacker). Many of my former classmates in both architecture and landscape architecture are still practicing in the field, and consider my pursuit of a planning PhD mildly amusing (and yet, surely they must consider this an achievement for someone who obviously has such a puny brain that she couldn’t hack it in architecture?) “Planners don’t actually DO anything,” they smirk. There is also the fact that architecture and landscape architecture are practical fields, and not research-based, so a PhD is not necessarily a requirement for teaching in these professions; consequently, it is viewed as a useless degree. “I’d rather do something real than something that’s just going to sit on a shelf,” is the common refrain. Having worked in the US, the UK and Canada, I can confirm that the hierarchy is firmly in place; I have friends working in Bombay, Shanghai, and Hong Kong who assure me things are the same where they live and work.

I think the opportunity for the new building and the opportunity for shared learning are exciting, but my own experiences at U of T have forever changed the way I think about collaboration. SCARP faculty and students, and planners in general, are big believers in participatory processes and collaborative decision-making. While we discuss the impact of power dynamics and imbalances in these processes and have some strategies in dealing with them, the fact remains that decisions tend to go in the most politically expedient direction, whether this means siding with the most vocal group, the group that is present at the most meetings, or the group with the most powerful friends. Collaboration and participation only work when each player is considered equal and is given equal opportunity to express views and impact the final decision. My limited experience with the current SCARP/SALA building suggest that this is not the case here, and I fear that again, resistance is futile: there have already been serious discussions about how much space each program would get, and if there will even be enough room for all of SCARP’s computer labs, classrooms and student offices. There seems to be little understanding of how planning students work and what types of spaces they might need (although we do have an urban design stream at SCARP, the majority of us don’t work in studios and most of us are not studying subjects that are related to urban design issues). Although urban design is a very popular stream at SCARP, in other years the community development/social planning stream has had the most students, or ecological and natural resource planning. Each year the admissions committee is very careful about admitting a balance of students to all the streams (currently there are six) in order to balance the number of students each faculty member supervises and the number that will enroll in each course. Most of the streams are thinly staffed (we have only one urban design professor) so this balance is important. A joint building with SALA might outwardly seem like we are heading towards the McGill model where planning is a studio-based degree, but actually this is unlikely.

I would love to be proven wrong on the new building and its design process, because nothing could be better for SCARP or SALA than to achieve a truly interdisciplinary melding of the three programs. It is a sad fact that in a city like Vancouver, which is held up as an example of urban planning and urban design, we don’t have a very strong urban design program. A joint building could give Vancouver designers and planners the chance to continue some interesting conversations on urban thinking in the city, the type of debate that happens at SFU’s lecture series; a laboratory for innovative design and planning. But we also need to preserve SCARP’s unique strengths: community development and social planning, ecological and natural resource planning, transportation planning, participatory planning and international development, many of which do not have a design component and are not usually offered at other planning schools. If you’re in Vancouver, come out to the architects’ presentations on September 23rd and 29th and get your chance to comment on them. The winner will be announced on October 20th.

September 17, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Toronto’s “class divide”

Many researchers in Toronto have become experts at mapping the city’s spatial, cultural, ethnic, and political trends. A few years ago, the Globe and Mail even published a language map of Toronto based on the 2001 Census data for mother tongue. Richard Florida is now one of the latest to use the excellent mapping and research resources available at the Centre for Urban and Community Studies (CUCS).

Florida’s map shows the same differentiation that David Hulchanski did three years ago in his excellent report Toronto divided: A tale of three cities. This report received a lot of media attention, in part because its complexity and rigor left little doubt in its findings: Hulchanski, Associate Director (Research) of CUCS, carefully mapped many different characteristics using Census data spanning a thirty-year period, including income, housing tenure, transit use, ethnicity, immigration status, household size, and employment. The carefully-worded report raised some red flags: the decline of the middle class, the decrease in housing choices for low-income households, the shift of poor neighbourhoods from the inner city to the outer suburbs.

It’s common to say that people “choose” their neighbourhoods, but it’s money that buys choice. Many people in Toronto have little money and thus few choices…When most of the city is in a middle-income range, city residents can generally afford what the market has to offer…It is only when the percentage of those in the middle declined that we began to hear about “housing affordability” problems. If the incomes of a significant share of people in a city fall relative to the middle, the gap between rich and poor widens. Those closer to the bottom are more numerous and find it increasingly difficult to afford the largest single item in their budget–housing (either in mortgage payments or rent).   J. David Hulchanski, Associate Director (Research), CUCS

Hulchanski, who has written volumes about affordable housing policy in Canada, wrote persuasively of the policy options that can help reverse these trends, and many writers echoed his concerns. Florida himself wrote an article in response in the Globe and Mail.

Florida, on the less thorough end of the spectrum, mapped “creative class”, “service class”, and “working class” occupations in the Toronto CMA. The Geography of Toronto’s Service Class, published by the Martin Prosperity Institute at U of T, shows how the “classes” were defined. Artists, doctors, teachers, managers, architects and computer programmers were all considered “creative class”. Cashiers, salespeople, police officers, food preparers, medical assistants, and administrative assistants were “service class”. And miners, welders, carpenters, truck drivers, production workers, and construction workers were in the “working class.” If you know Florida’s work, you know that he is preoccupied with class and that he tends to use loaded terms; “class” is not a casually-used word in the Canadian research arena.

The kind of work people do is the hallmark of social-economic class and the map shows a city where the dominant classes occupy, literally, two different social, economic, and geographic spaces.  Richard Florida, www.creativeclass.com

Map from www.creativeclass.com

It is true that Toronto’s postindustrial shift has led to a decrease in manufacturing jobs, suburbanization of workplaces, concentration of high-paying service-sector work in the inner city, and gentrification around subway lines (all of which Hulchanski pointed out earlier, not to mention Tom Hutton and David Ley). But Florida’s definitions are directly responsible for his findings: how is a doctor in the “creative class”? A manager or computer programmer? And how do police offers and medical assistants get grouped in with cashiers and administrative assistants? It seems as though he has just mapped by salary level, not occupational category…in which case his results aren’t surprising.

Research involving income, occupation, ethnicity, and polarization need to be carefully articulated and worded to avoid clichés like “upper class people live in desirable areas while lower class people do not.” There is much more depth to the story than Florida lets on, although he is fairly well-versed in housing issues. The recently-released report on Canada’s Housing Bubble, produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, outlines how housing prices have risen faster than inflation, household incomes, and economic growth. Echoing Edward Jones’ report earlier this year (see my previous post), CCPA says that the housing market is “more unstable than it has been in over a generation.” All major cities in Canada are now experiencing housing price increases above their historical range, meaning the time is ripe for a crash. For Florida, who advocates the creative class and advises cities on how to bring these types to their cities, real estate is crucial: he has written about the need for more rental housing, which in his opinion keeps people mobile and able to search for employment in a wider range of locations. His recent publication on Toronto’s class divide has more to do with the city’s political landscape than housing, of course, and it has served its purpose of being provocative.

September 8, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »