Category Archive: Cities

It's a transport nightmare, it's an energy nightmare. It is absolutely bloody terrifying.

Posted by Mike Klassen on October 11, 2008

"It's is not going to work on many levels, from social to infrastructure and ecological" - Thom Mayne

The nightmare referred to in my entry title is not Canada's federal party election platforms. The nightmare is Dubai, which a leading architect says is heading toward an "ecological disaster."

In a speech at the World Architecture Congress's Cityscape Dubai conference, award-winning American architect Thom Mayne "compared Dubai's public transport plans with the development of Los Angeles in the 1960s."

Continue reading "It's a transport nightmare, it's an energy nightmare. It is absolutely bloody terrifying. " »

Tagged: architecture, dubai, sustainability, transportation, vancouverism

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Cambie decaffeinated

Posted by Mike Klassen on October 4, 2008

The Vancouver Sun reports that parent company Kraft is closing the Dickson's Coffee near Cambie & 8th Avenue. Thirty employees will lose their jobs, and the neighbourhood loses the aroma of fresh roasted coffee beans. I even noted the coffee scent in a story I wrote 18 years ago.

The intersection of Cambie and West Broadway, just a block or so from the Dickson's plant is undergoing perhaps the most radical re-development of any urban space in Canada. Hundreds of new condominiums are being built above the most dense shopping area in the city. Home Depot, American Whole Foods, Best Buy, Canadian Tire, a BC Liquor Store and a Save-On-Foods all exist within a 3-block radius, just steps from the front doors of thousands of new and existing residents.

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Tagged: cities, ecodensity, urban design

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Drink the cool, cool water (but from a tap)

Posted by Mike Klassen on September 17, 2008

I attended the Metro Vancouver sustainability breakfast for the first time this morning. The topic was bottled water, why we should ban it, how to wean schools off it and what constitutes "pure" drinking water. I learned a bunch of facts which I can hardly sum up in this post, but here are a few highlights:

Vancouver water is some of the cleanest in the world, and most affordable thanks to the use of gravity to pump it from North Shore reservoirs to the faucets of Metro Vancouver.
Occasional turbidity is a PR headache but has never really caused any health effects for people.
Schools count on tens of thousands in funds from drink suppliers like Coca-Cola, whose vending machines line school hallways. The greatest challenge is to wean kids off of bottles and get them to use drinking fountains.
Drinking fountains and rusty tasting water is a problem, and it will be costly to fix it.
Nitrates are often found in hazardous quantities in bottled water around the world, especially in Asia.
Canada does not require bottlers to label the amounts of chemicals in bottles, but European and US regulators require it.
Only 65% of plastic bottles are recycled. 35% wind up in landfills. 10,000 empty plastic water bottles equals one barrel of oil.

Leaders in Metro Vancouver are working on solutions to the challenges created by these products. For now you can make a conscious choice to pledge to drink only tap water whenever possible.

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Adapting Vancouver's buildings and public spaces for future uses

Posted by Mike Klassen on September 16, 2008

The work of the Vancouver City Planning Commission has reached a feverish pace as we come to the end of our 2007-2008 program we've labeled, A City Built for Change. Tomorrow night a lecture takes place at the Vancouver Museum (aka The Planetarium) featuring Professor Robert Kronenburg, Head of the Dept. of Architecture, University of Liverpool. See the release on the VCPC website.

I did an interview in support of promoting this event, featured in today's Vancouver Courier.

If you're interested how Vancouver is being built, now and in the future, please join us at tomorrow night's lecture. Space is limited, RSVP at jeannie_bates -at- telus.net.

Tagged: adaptable cities, urban design

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Vancouver's East Side suffers from The Mohawk

Posted by Mike Klassen on August 10, 2008

The Peek-A-Boo extension

Writer Erick Villagomez beat me to a topic that I've been a little obsessed about for the last year or so. I began to document the matter in photos last January. I tagged new homes with small, one-room top floor extensions as having "peek-a-boo" rooms. Erick came up with a better label: The Mohawk.

Erick argues that as a result of Vancouver's rules around "floor space ratio" home builders are squeezing an extra, ugly story to new homes to provide a view over surrounding homes (and trees). He nails it by calling it what it is: junk food architecture.

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Tagged: andres duany, cities, ecodensity, vancouver east

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Anatomy of a Block Party

Posted by Mike Klassen on April 3, 2008

Last weekend we held a small outdoor community event in recognition of Earth Hour that I'm proud to have been a part of.

How Mountain View's Earth Hour Hot Chocolate Party came about is a combination of chance and modern technology. First, a little background on the community.

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Tagged: earth hour, mountain view neighbourhood

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Could better park design have prevented a tragedy?

Posted by Mike Klassen on February 4, 2008

Grays Park behind police tape

Less than 24 hours before 15-year-old Deward Ponte was stabbed to death at the edge of Grays Park it was a bitterly cold Saturday morning – about as cold as Vancouver gets in winter. A temperature of minus 2 degrees Celcius and the forecast calling for snow. I stood beside Grays Park Hall on St. Catherine's street waiting for someone with the key to unlock the door of the meeting space we'd booked. The local community centre board had kindly loaned us the hall for 2 hours to conduct our annual general meeting of the neighbourhood association.

Although I've lived in the Vancouver's Mountain View Neighbourhood for 5 years this month, I had never stepped into Grays Park Hall before 2 months ago. My first occasion was when our school PAC had booked the empty space for a family portrait photo shoot to raise funds for neighbouring McBride Annex Elementary. The exterior of the building was a dour grey colour which probably hadn't been painted in over 10 years. The surrounding bushes had barely been groomed and a rusty chair was left outside the entrance doorway.

As I waited outside that morning I pondered Grays Park for a moment. As a public space it had so much potential to be one of the East side's great gathering places, I thought. It's a small park but it's not cramped, and it has a zillion dollar view of downtown Vancouver and the North Shore mountains. Some attention to the landscaping would help, and why do we need this parking lot (chained up after attracting regular drug dealing) that no one uses? An old lawn mower had been dumped in the juniper bushes beside it as if to emphasize the futility of this empty, chained off patch of asphalt.

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Tagged: public realm, public safety, vancouver parks

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Congratulations, Sunset Community!

Posted by Mike Klassen on December 17, 2007

A tip of the hat to my friend Walter Schultz. Walter dreamed that his community of Sunset, on Vancouver's often overlooked south side, would have a new community centre. Everywhere he went he was told his brainchild wouldn't happen, but he believed otherwise.

Walter worked his extensive network gained through business, politics and community activism and made the new Sunset Community Centre happen.

Just look at this photo -- it's beautiful!! The building was designed by the maverick architect Bing Thom. This is another coup by Walter, bringing in top talent to make this one of Vancouver's most remarkable structures.

The new Sunset Community Centre just opened this past weekend. What a great Christmas gift to everyone who lives near Main & 52nd.

Check out this link for all the photos Walter has posted.

Tagged: community spaces, parks, south vancouver

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