You will be redirected to our new website in a few seconds...

Fall Course and Summer Internship Opportunty

Studio Course Fall 2012 – 6 credits Tuesday, 9:30am – 4:20pm - Application Deadline: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

For our Fall 2012 course, we are looking for 20 students who are passionate about sustainability and ready to immerse themselves in a new, challenging and collaborative learning environment based in dialogue and design. This demanding course focuses on real world, high-impact projects for the City of Vancouver.

For information on how to apply download the .pdf here

CityStudio Summer Internship Opportunity – Application Deadline: Friday, May 11th, 2012

Are you interested in using your skills to help Vancouver become the Greenest City in the World? CityStudio is looking for a creative, highly-skilled and hard-working Web-based Communications Intern for Summer 2012 (May-July, 2012).

For information on how to apply download the .pdf here

Open House + Dialogue

Students have been busy preparing for the big event - an Open House and Dialogue!

CityStudio invites you to an Open House and Dialogue:
UNDER ONE ROOF

How do the Greenest City Goals hit the ground?
When? Saturday, March 31st, 2012 from 11am-4pm. [Open Dialogue from 1pm-3pm].
Where? Salt Building (85 West 1st Avenue), in Olympic Village.
Cost? Free!

Join us for a grand exhibition and showcase of this work and participate in a dialogue with students, faculty, city staff, and community leaders on how to make Vancouver the Greenest City in the world.
Be sure not to miss the one chance to see what happens when students are granted the opportunity to get creative with a momentous city-wide initiative.
Over 200 students from Vancouver’s six post-secondary institutions have been working on projects related to Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 Goals.

RSVP here

What a great Nerd Jam!

After a great night of jamming, collaboration and brainstorming here are the amazing ideas from each of the groups.

A big thank you to City of Vancouver Staff members for coming out and participating in our jam!

Here's the low-down from each group:

GROUP 1
Community perch (BIRDS!)
THEME
Hammocks Everywhere!
JINGLE
Look up in the sky!
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's the Community Perch!
GOAL
Educate about birds
Provide bird habitat
Make space flexible
Collect rain water and reuse
Compost materials underground and use methane for cooking and heat for buildings
BUSINESS PLAN/INCENTIVES
Sponsorship for building materials and hammocks
Reuse materials as much as possible
Partner with local businesses (bookstores and cafes)
Global and local tourism
Make it for all ages
GREENEST CITY GOALS
1) Access to Nature
2) Green Jobs
3) Clean Air
4) Local Food
5) Clean Water

GROUP 2
A Bee City
THEME
Bees + Trees + Urban Education + tourism
GOAL
Turn Vancouver’s abandoned spaces into a network of bee education hubs as well as the world’s finest honey tasting tour!
Unique native vegetation at each hub will produce unique tasting honey
10 education hubs focusing on the 10 Greenest City goals through a “bee lens”.
Learn to grown and harvest native plants, as well as be a bee keeper and how urban pedagogy contributes to the Greenest City Goals.
BUSINESS PLAN/INCENTIVES
Partnerships with School Board for experiential learning opportunities as they relate to the Greenest City Goals
Audio tours at each hub to describe the natural processes at work
Spaces serve as learning environments and urban parks
GREENEST CITY GOALS
1. Local Food
2. Access to Nature

GROUP 3
Sound Garden
THEME
Combining a public space with the sanctuary of a private space
A public park designed as a pathway that slowly winds into the ground and provides users with an auditory experience rich in textures of sound, sight, and smell. Some textures amplify sound; some will cancel the sound out to create a rich experience of being. The pathway with vary in width to force single file, as well as allow for spaces to converse, converging into a centric space that can be completely silent, or adapt as a meeting place for conversation as need requires.
GOAL
An acoustic journey through space
GREENEST CITY GOALS
1. Access to Nature
2. Clean Air
3. Clean Water

GROUP 4
Greentops
THEME
Interactive parks in greenhouses
GOAL
Greenhouse feeds the building and community
BUSINESS PLAN/INCENTIVES
Grow food, sell food, market food, feed community
GREENEST CITY GOALS
1. Local Food
2. Access to Nature

GROUP 5
Gatheround
THEME
Long tables, bike repair stations, and traffic circles
GOAL
Unload the streets, turn underutilized spaces into a social gathering space and repair pit stop for bikes. Includes an oven, long tables, tables around the traffic circles, encourage citizens to use active transportation.
BUSINESS PLAN/INCENTIVES
1. Educational components
2. Stores in the area could benefit if people choose to utilize the oven
3. Increase in sales of bikes
GREENEST CITY GOALS
1. Meets the access to nature goals
2. Reduces ecological footprint + transportation
3. Increase community engagement and encourages a sense of ownership amongst those who utilize the space.

GROUP 6
Urabanplay
THEME
Grown-up playgrounds, rideable art & Musical art
GOAL
Obstacle course, everything makes a sound, bike paths & routes (that have bridges & fun paths), slack lines, multi level dangerous playground (steep slides, climbing wall), life sized chess, ping pong tables, rideable art- made of recycled materials, dance square- for dance parties, diversity- fun for everyone (music, fitness, sitting, dancing, etc)
BUSINESS PLAN/INCENTIVES
Corporate sponsorship for each park
GREENEST CITY GOALS
1. Access to Nature

Be sure to check out the rest of the wonderful photos taken by Langara photo student Shawna Wajzer here

Project Proposal Freeze

On Thursday starting at 9:30am, project groups will deliver a 5 minute .ppt presentation addressing issues below. Please remember to take into account the key learning to date regarding oral and visual presentations.

This project "freeze" marks the point when a project's core definition, purpose, activities and measures of success are solidified so that specific project work can begin. Heading towards this point, the following items need to be established and communicated:

Project Title, specific to your work.

Executive Summary, including project objective with specific reference to the Greenest City goals

Why should we care about your project within the goals, and generally?

What has the City of Vancouver asked for? Who is your main contact?

What are the main questions driving your project?

What specific services is your project providing that add value? To whom?

Team members and current activities, specifically who is doing what by when?

The purpose and outcomes each activity

Describe the specific impact or change that will occur as a result of each activity

What are your metrics for success for the project?

How will you visualize your project research and outcomes in images, infographics and maps?

What are you planning to hand off the City as a result of this project? To whom?

What do you KNOW for certain about your project right now?

What do you not know, that you need to know in order to move forward?

What are your next immediate steps?

CityStudio jams with the City of Vancouver on what can be done with unused public spaces

The City is the Classroom: University and College Students jam with the City of Vancouver on what can be done with unused public spaces

Vancouver, BC – February 7th, 2012 – On Thursday, February 9th 150 university and college students will gather with faculty and City staff at the SALT Building in Olympic Village for an evening of co-creative idea generation on what can be done with Vancouver’s unused public spaces. CityStudio is collaborating with the Vancouver Design Nerds to host the first CityStudio-Partner Course Nerd Jam with the theme of “Transforming Vancouver’s Unused Spaces”.

“There is so much creative potential and talent in our student network and we are excited to see what happens when we put all of these minds together with City staff, faculty and designers.”, says Lena Soots, Project Coordinator at CityStudio.

In addition to the Core student cohort, CityStudio has 8 Partner Courses this semester from UBC, SFU, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and BCIT. The disciplines represented in this network include Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Business, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Animation Design.

“The Jam really gives us the space and context we need to collaboratively problem solve - it gives us the opportunity to put our energy and enthusiasm to work on the projects that really matter, with the right people in the room.”, explains CityStudio student, Taryn Cheremkora, “It’s a Jam to not only to familiarize ourselves with city spaces, but more importantly to see what we can do and how we can transform them.”

The event is part of a series of events hosted by CityStudio designed to engage students in projects related to Vancouver’s Greenest City Goals.

For more information about CityStudio and CityStudio events, visit www.citystudiovancouver.com, or contact Lena Soots at citystudiocoordinator@gmail.com.

CityStudio Vancouver is an energetic hub and center for sustainability education. CityStudio aims to be the world’s most innovative inter-institutional campus-city collaboration for learning and implementation of urban sustainability strategies. The City is the Classroom where students work on long-term, real world projects. The goal of CityStudio Vancouver is to directly involve students, professors and universities in the implementation of Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 goals.

CityStudio is co-led by Duane Elverum (Emily Carr University of Art and Design) and Dr. Janet Moore (Simon Fraser University – Centre for Dialogue). The project is a collaboration of the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC), British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Langara College, Simon Fraser University (SFU), University of British Columbia (UBC) and Vancouver Community College (VCC). The project is supported by Vancouver's Campus City Collaborative (C3).

Welcome to the 2012 Metro Vancouver Urban Futures Survey

The 2012 Urban Futures Survey is a longitudinal data survey, used to gauge how the opinions of Metro Vancouverites change over time. It will allow communities across the region to forecast and anticipate the needs and desires of the Lower Mainland’s 2.1 million residents. The survey will be instrumental in meeting the long-term social and economic goals of the region.

Take the survey here: