Design exhibit an invitation to imagine an urban Surrey BC

[M II A II R II K]

Design exhibit an invitation to imagine an urban Surrey


February 27, 2010

By Mary Frances Hill

Read More: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Des...067/story.html

Surrey, to mis-coin a phrase, lies in the eyes of the beholder. And the visions of the future of Surrey, as it grows into perhaps B.C.'s most populous city, are as diverse and promising as the designers who imagine them. Their designs are displayed in the TownShift: suburb into city exhibit, an international design competition sponsored by the City of Surrey. The competition generated 138 submissions, 27 of which have been selected as finalists (shown at Simon Fraser University Surrey Central City and at townshift.ca).

- Townshift aims to inspire debate and discussion around British Columbia's biggest suburban community as it evolves into an urban community. In the most recent census, the 2006 census, Surrey's population was 395,000 and Vancouver's was 578,000. By 2031, Vancouver's population will be 705,000 and Surrey's will be 668,000. By 2041, their populations will be equal at 740,000.

- Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, thinks that both cities will do well by their convergence.

- "Surrey can learn from Vancouver on how to do really good 'urbanism' -in fact, better than Vancouver -and there are examples of that already," he says, citing architect Bing Thom's Central City project, which incorporates the Surrey campus of Simon Fraser University. "It sets a high bar, which Surrey is building on with plans for the new library, city hall and other facilities to anchor the redevelopment of Whalley."

- Still, the city is faced with challenges. "Its biggest challenge is finding transportation solutions that give people more choices and move them away from 'motor-dom' -auto-dependence -in the face of the Gateway Project, which only reinforces the unfortunate dependence on the vehicle."

- "Population growth creates a need for more development, and Surrey is doing it responsibly," he says, citing last year's housing starts of 2,439 for single-family detached homes. Vancouver came in a distant runner-up, with 1,576.

- Surrey contains one of Canada's largest urban land masses. But urban sprawl remained unchecked until the 1970s, when the provincial government passed the Agricultural Land Reserve Act.

[cabotp]

Surrey can learn from Vancouver and try and do things better. But it needs to get away from constantly building detached homes. There is always talk of building towers in the surrey central region (its downtown core). But to me talk is cheap. It just needs to build the towers and be done with it. In fact I'm hoping it becomes the second downtown in the region. As it would help commute patterns to be bigger in reverse directions. Also it would to alleviate people from crossing the Fraser river if their job was on the Surrey side where they happen to live as well.

[M II A II R II K]

Visions of Surrey: urban berry patches and helium towers


February 26, 2010

Read More: http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/85591482.html

The entries for Townshift, Surrey's International Urban Design Competition, were certainly thought provoking. Unfortunately, there were no local entries, an oddity that was quite evident when examining all the proposals.

Despite the excitement of having Russians and Australians dream up urban interventions in our city's landscape, nearly all submissions lacked an understanding of Surrey's unique circumstances and were most certainly not grounded in the reality of municipal land development. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing. 
Townshift was a labour of love for architect Allen Aubert, the originator of the idea and head of the committee behind the project. With help from all departments within the City, the concept came to fruition in record time to ensure the competition would be realized for the Olympics.

Although Vancouver had embarked on similar initiatives in the past, the idea was completely new for Surrey and required jumping through many bureaucratic hoops. And yet, with 138 submissions from 20 countries around the world, Townshift has proven a remarkable success, at least in terms of interest garnered by planners and architects.