Vancouver 101: Urban Design Bike Tour Edition

Introducing the Metro Core… by Bike!

When appreciating the feeling of a bustling public plaza, the Seawall or a busy Vancouver street, do you ever think about how these elements of our city were intentionally designed, and at one point were just an idea that someone had? What makes for good urban design and who gets to decide? If you are a youth aged 18-35 years old, and want answers to these questions and more, please join CityHive on a bike tour led by urban design expert Scot Hein as we explore the elements of good public space design by cycling through various neighbourhoods in the city.

Neighbourhoods and areas that we will explore include the False Creek waterfront, Chinatown, the Woodwards complex, Gastown, Coal Harbour waterfront, the West End and Yaletown. We will meet at 12:00PM at the Olympic Village Plaza, ride until 4PM and end in Yaletown for drinks, refreshments and conversation about all things urban and how to make our city a more livable place to live, work and play.

Don’t have your own bike? Please email veronika@cityhive.ca if that’s stopping you from participating and we will arrange a bike for you.

We have a limited number of spots on the tour to keep the group size appropriate, so please RSVP so we can keep track of numbers, and do so only if you are able to attend. Thanks!

Scot Hein is the University of British Columbia’s Urban Designer, and an Adjunct Professor of Urban Design in UBC’s Masters of Urban Design Programme launched in 2014. Prior to this work he was the Senior Urban Designer for the City of Vancouver and led the city’s high profile Urban Design Studio for 10 years of his 20 year career. His work included the urban design and implementation of new plans for the city’s West End, Downtown East Side, Cambie Corridor and Mount Pleasant. He was responsible for the urban design and development planning of recent large metro core initiatives including Woodward’s, Southeast False Creek/Olympic Village, Mole Hill, Chinatown, the revitalization of Gastown/Victory Square/Hastings Corridor and related public realm projects such as the Granville Mall, Carrall Street Greenway, Pigeon Park, Downtown
Historic Trail, CPR ROW and the Silk Road.
He has been a tireless advocate for neighbourhoods towards specific strategies for sustainable urbanism. Scot was honored with the 2015 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Advocacy Award. He has lived in Vancouver for 36 years with his wife Julia, also an architect.

We would like to respectfully acknowledge that the land this event takes place on is the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

This event would not be possible with support of:

The Government of Canada
TakingITGlobal
Youth Service Corps

About Vancouver 101:

CityHive’s “Vancouver 101” is a series of non-partisan educational and social events taking place ahead of the 2018 Municipal Elections, to learn more about what the heck the city is, how decisions are made, and how to engage beyond voting Along the way, CityHive will explore the history, root causes, people, neighbourhoods, institutions and processes that make up our city today. Events will include beer and bike tours to explore good and bad examples of public spaces, public space activations, City Council meetups, walking neighbourhood history tours, city trivia nights, city roast comedy nights and more! Follow CityHive on social media on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date on Vancouver 101 events.

About CityHive:

CityHive is an organization on a mission to transform the way that young people are engaged in shaping their cities: in city planning, decision-making processes and urban sustainability issues. As a youth-led and youth-run non-profit, we harness the energy, experiences, and perspectives of youth to create projects and solutions to make our cities more sustainable and resilient; we work with civic institutions to transform the way that they engage youth to be more meaningful and inclusive.