CityStudio aims to create social innovators and change makers who will contribute on the ground in Vancouver and around the world. Projects are co-created, designed and implemented by teams of students, city staff and community members.
Our project is to understand residents' attitudes towards the green rainwater infrastructure (GRI) project in the Sunset Community through surveys and interviews. It further seeks to establish a relationship between biophilic elements of the project and wellbeing, including feelings of belongingness and connectedness to nature. We hope that results will highlight the importance of GRI practices for the future of Vancouver.
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A youth-led biking community that reduces barriers to bike resources and information through a school BikeHub program while also increasing connectivity of schools to protected bike lanes. This initiative will engage with and create a welcoming biking community through incentives and workshops, with the goal of increasing youth and adult bike ridership as a primary transportation method within the city.
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Need to pee in public? Urine trouble. A methodology for accessible and inclusive washrooms in the Commercial-Broadway area. The methodology centres the expansion of Vancouver's public washroom network and advances recommendations for future washrooms, including higher standards of maintenance, harm-reduction principles, hygiene products/disposal, enhanced safety mechanisms, adequate floor space, and a web app.
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The Laneway Menu invites communities to create better laneways in Vancouver by streamlining the activation processes in an accessible, step-by-step toolkit. By offering adaptable development templates to address the local needs of any activation, this toolkit hopes to eliminate information barriers to encourage equity amongst Vancouver neighbourhoods, and inspire a sense of civil agency within our City.
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We developed a framework/toolkit to integrate accessibility and inclusion into the internal culture and functions of the City of Vancouver. The framework/toolkit is intended to serve as a reflection tool that encourages different departments to evaluate and improve upon their current policies and approaches to accessibility.
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This project was based on changing The City of Vancouver’s page for the School Active Travel Program to an alternative webpage that would further encourage and promote active travel to school for the students, parents, and/or schools. The way we built this alternative website was designed to attract more attention and engagement from students that visit the website, allowing participating students to better understand the program offerings.
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Pop-IN Assessment is a site assessment tool created with the intent to render more inclusive public spaces, specifically that of the pop-up plazas implemented by Viva Vancouver. We hope this evaluation tool that we have created will push city planners and officials alike to consider more inclusive designs for future public spaces.
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Our project was an Integrated marketing communications campaign that aims to communicate the responsibility young pedestrians have for their own safety. Our main goal is to make teenagers feel responsible for their own safety
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We created a campaign to promote the implementation of new priority bus lanes, congruent with Vancouver’s climate emergency plan. This campaign is centred around all the benefits that this initiative could provide, namely, a more efficient and convenient transit system, as well as the incentive to shift toward sustainable modes of transportation.
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GI Grow addresses the question of integrating closed-loop recycling options into green infrastructure by suggesting recycled materials that can be incorporated during construction. GI Grow discusses ecological and economic benefits of the proposed materials, promotes community engagement, and has created a bioswale model and physical prototype of a recycled tree watering bag to demonstrate parts of the closed-loop supply chain.
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Burning gas for cooking is not only a threat to climate action but also to human health, as these appliances are sources of indoor air pollution. Clean Cooking with Electricity encompasses a public census, marketing campaign, and infographic recommendations to provide an evaluation based on equity, diversity, and inclusion to encourage Vancouverites to make the switch to induction stoves.
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Better Benches is an initiative to increase transit user’s knowledge of the local, Indigenous land. Bus stops will be recreated by Indigenous artists that feature a QR code that users can scan to increase place making and user engagement. Once scanned, users will be directed to a website filled with educational resources.
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A series of recommendations that addresses preparing for and responding to extreme heat events. This project aims to help protect seniors from heat-related illness and death by improving health communication from the government to the public, raising awareness on extreme heat events, and inspiring community mobilization.
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Working with the Vancouver Parks Board, we were tasked with finding a solution for their lack of electrical charging infrastructure for current battery powered landscaping equipment at their parks and service centres. Our aim is to design a framework, universal to all locations, that will allow for the implementation of the electric charging infrastructure.
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529 Garage facilitates a community watch service for bike owners. 529 Garage is striving to double its current monthly registration numbers in Vancouver. To achieve this goal, we have recommended a comprehensive, multi-channel marketing strategy to help bolster brand awareness. Our plan focuses on an engaging app, a stronger social media presence, and deeper community and bike shop engagement.
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Stop Look and Listen & Wear Yellow is a two part collaboration with BCIT D3, CityStudio Vancouver and the VPD that focuses on teaching young schoolchildren how to walk safely as a pedestrian. Through storytelling and visuals, schoolchildren will learn how to tread carefully on their way to school, home and anywhere else.
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The RFiD Project for City of Vancouver was designed to implement new technology to automate inventory tracking processes. RFiD tags were chosen as the assessed technological option to apply for a streamlined process at Landfill.
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A software recommendation to track and measure park operations, maintenance and assets
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An interactive and self-guided iOS app that delivers the first ever digital art gallery experience providing NFT art, cultural storytelling, and a location-based travel guide to small but mighty local business patronage. We work to connect local businesses in search of engagement with local artists in need of amplification and community members yearning for a virtual adventure in their own neighbourhoods.
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An app that helps cyclists navigate, plan and discover bike routes around Vancouver. The app will use GPS to locate and guide the cyclist. The cyclist can also search for routes that meet certain criteria (ie. off-street pathways only, comfortable for all ages, flat incline). Furthermore, the app will send feedback and data back to the City of Vancouver for analysis.
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Research that aims to provide recommendations for overcoming barriers to widespread green infrastructure implementation across the City of Vancouver and help strengthen the presence and incorporation of equity into practice.
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Despite living in an era when opinions are fluidly shared in the digital world, it is challenging for the City of Vancouver to receive feedback from Vancouver’s youth. For eight weeks, Langara College Applied Planning students conducted youth engagement to support the City of Vancouver and encourage youth participation in the Broadway Plan.
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Climate action cannot happen without social justice and equity, but what does equitable climate action mean for Vancouver, and how are other Canadian cities doing it already? Case studies of best practices across the country are featured to provide a method for future analysis of social equity projects and plans.
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A commemorative and pedagogical landscape design that integrates Alberta Street's proposed stormwater management infrastructure into a space that acknowledges Oakridge's history and community and provides fun and educational experiences for people across age ranges, cultures and mobilities.
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Affordable meal kits for Downtown Eastside residents that are easily prepared and distributed through a proposed network of smaller Downtown Eastside’s Washington Community Market (WCM) storefronts, in collaboration with the Community Impact Real Estate Society. Our project put forward a series of recommendations for operational and structural changes to the WCM based on its needs and interests.
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A resource that invites engagement among marginalized groups around key topics to build a sense of belonging and self-efficacy, while alleviating stress for community members. Our project aims to promote active participation within the Joyce-Collingwood neighbourhood, create an opportunity for personal reflection, and host a safe, equitable and inclusive space for dialogue and reflection.
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An EDI Driven program that brings to light the untold Indigenous histories of Gastown through historical awareness, recognition and inclusivity. We recognize that the stories we tell shape the way we interact with and imagine our public spaces. Thus, our program aims to work with the Indigenous community and City of Vancouver to promote Indigenous history and culture, through interactive programs. When we share true stories we create spaces of inclusivity.
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A series of proposed core interventions to increase canopy cover on private and public land, to maximize ecosystem services in areas with constrained planting possibilities, and to combat the negative consequences of climate change. By implementing creative, green solutions to the challenges facing the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood, our project seeks active community involvement through green inspiration, education and stewardship.
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Assessing the co-benefits of the St. George Rainway green rainwater infrastructure project. Our plan focuses on monitoring the mitigation of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and the rainway's impact on biodiversity. We propose using fixed and mobile temperature sensors to monitor UHI. For biodiversity, we suggest the use of rapid biodiversity assessments, quadrats, and citizen science to monitor changes.
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This cute, fluffy Penguin helps you get healthier and wealthier while keeping our planet in mind! How? For every step or roll (or waddle) you take, the Penguin Rewards App gives you digital coins that you can redeem for offers or discounts while visiting your favourite local grocers, cafes and restaurants, or while discovering new ones!
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A python app that automatically collects data from various cities’ open data portals for benchmarking. The City of Vancouver’s financial department manually collects data to benchmark and compare Vancouver’s metrics to other cities like New York City, Toronto, Seattle and Calgary. The process of data collection is labour intensive and time-consuming. Our simple app automated this task by leveraging open data portals and their APIs to extract relevant data.
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Do you want to see design interventions such as a viewing platform, food forest, and more cool features implemented within a park? To accommodate for the growing needs of citizens within the area, we strive to enhance Queen Elizabeth Park into a community-based park, focusing on accessibility, broadening amenities, improving connectivity, and engaging the public.
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A marketing campaign that simultaneously highlights combined sewage overflow systems and rainwater runoff pollution issues in Vancouver. The campaign visuals compare rainwater to a presumably innocent adolescent that is actually causing harm in local waterways. The conceptual frame positions green rainwater infrastructure as the “right” path that guides it towards natural soil.
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Reimagining how streets are used for transportation. Recommendations for how to best implement an Open Streets program based on best practices and guiding principles research, and encourage lasting positive public health outcomes in an equitable and affordable way.
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A proposed blueway corridor through a portion of the Norquay Village community, where Still Creek once flowed. The project aims to simultaneously improve water management and the community's engagement with water. A series of connected blue-green interventions link public spaces and are activated by rain water to provide opportunities for education and stewardship.
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To support events that build a sense of community, promote diversity, enhance the local economy and celebrate what it means to be a Vancouverite, our donation strategy aims to generate income for the City of Vancouver’s Film and Special Events Department so that it can continue to provide all events with operational support.
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Using social media and a school workshop to educate the public on the history of Vancouver’s streams and engage them in our iNaturalist citizen science project. Our proposal engages diverse demographics within the community with the St George Rainway green rainwater infrastructure (GRI) project. We hope this can serve as a template for future GRI engagement.
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A zine showcasing stories of joy, resiliency, and everyday life in the Punjabi Market neighbourhood, featuring traditional community-grown sustainability practices and highlighting the history and heritage of the market. A project by the community, for the community.
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Our youth outreach design complements the Vancouver Plan by facilitating civic literacy and engagement. The event invites Vancouver youth to transcend barriers to political participation, including age-based exclusion and other compounding inequalities. The scalable, adaptable activities introduce the deliberative process through repurposed elements of City Hall structure, such that participants become equipped to contribute towards an inclusive, equitable future.
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A primer that directs the user on how to value the tangible and intangible services of our local nature, giving Vancouver’s natural assets a competitive advantage against traditional aging grey infrastructure. An approach that emphasizes the climate risks specific to Vancouver, and centers equity and climate resiliency.
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Improving community emergency preparedness with community-based kit drives and spreading emergency preparedness awareness on social media. Our project proposes to raise funds and supplies, and to encourage community collaboration with local artists. We recommend partnering with BC Housing and community centers to target populations in need.
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A research project on the opportunities of expanding the Curb Side Patio Permit model to non-profits
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A Volunteer Opportunity for Youth to Help Alleviate Loneliness among Older Adults
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A public outreach campaign to generate social impetus to drive the adoption of green roofs in Vancouver by creatively and effectively imparting knowledge to Vancouver's residents.
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This project aims to address the digital divide through the perspectives of older adults.
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This project aims to use a custom neighborhood environment walkability scale alongside Walk Score to determine if a neighborhood is walkable for older adults during the pandemic.
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BanVanWaste is a workshop-seminar that promotes a Zero Waste lifestyle by educating, empowering, and harnessing the power of youth. Inspiring young people to take action and get involved.
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This project helped the City of Vancouver gain an understanding of what a “walkable community” means from the perspective of Millennials ages 20-34, and identified key aspects of such communities that should be incorporated into its ‘Vancouver Plan’. By 2030, The City of Vancouver hopes 90% of people are living within an easy walk and roll of their daily needs.
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A glowing, visually stimulating installation which uses a QR code decal to connect participants with an online survey. Our aim is to engage youth between the ages of 18 and 25, and to find out what they need in order for the city to feel complete, connected, and culturally vibrant.
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We “VanCanPlan”-ed an interactive scavenger hunt and engagement tool that fosters community connections amongst youth while gaining insight on youth opinions. Scavenger hunt locations introduce participants to local businesses or organizations within their community. Participants then fill in a short survey about resiliency and emergency preparedness to unlock clues to the next location and are entered in a prize draw.
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A visual storytelling project that aims to amplify Victoria-Fraserview residents’ lived experiences through mural and street art. Our group of UBC graduate students are working alongside Wendy Mendes (CoV), Zahra Esmail (SVNH), and other city planners, community programmers, and artists to make it happen.
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To develop an integrated marketing campaign for 529 Garage that builds brand awareness and recognition. Our task was to create an overall theme, design creative campaign elements and develop media recommendations.
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Seeing Green will connect Vancouver's citizens through a map and education-based app. Our investment in education creates opportunities for community stewardship. Seeing Green will be the city's go-to resource for green infrastructure education and support the creation and maintenance in Vancouver.
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Our framework outlines an engagement process for building ongoing, trust-based relationships with the public. We propose a user experience linking actions and emotions for Green Infrastructure projects. Our vision is to empower residents to advocate for future GI and stronger climate policies.
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A Climate Change Education Podcast is a new form of professional development for our increasingly uncertain world - one that is honest, urgent, hopeful, and above all, radical! This podcast will help all educators see themselves as climate change educators. Join us!
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Homeless persons deserve a dignified and habitable living experience in their transition out of temporary living arrangements, such as tent cities. With COVID-19 prevention in mind, Project Tenantable Tents aims to provide basic living amenities to improve sanitation and habitability for the growing Strathcona Park Tent City, while the City of Vancouver works to house campers in more permanent accommodations.
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MyCityMyPark is an engagement initiative aiming to address the gap between youth voices, and parks in Vancouver. Our goal is to support the Vancouver Plan by promoting equity in the City. We created a platform that inspires youth to voice their vision for parks. This is your City. They're your parks.
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GI Smart is an app to help educate Vancouverites about Green Infrastructure sites throughout the city and engage them in volunteer activities through GI information, an interactive GI map, a reporting system for problems with GI sites, and a volunteer system for locals to help maintain GI sites.
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FridgeShare exists to address food insecurity and food waste through mutual-aid. A FridgeShare is a community fridge for people to share excess food with those in need. People take what they need or leave what they can, while supporting collective solutions for food insecurity and food waste in our city.
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FoodWhere? centres on data from food assets for the Latin American community in Vancouver. We used an environmental scan to analyze online information. We found several information gaps and a lack of food assets which might intensify the food insecurity of this community, in Vancouver.
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Exploring our Roles is an online conversation club for newcomers to look at the topics of colonization, reconciliation, and systemic racism. In this conversation club, we emphasized that we all have a role and responsibility to play in taking meaningful action towards reconciliation.
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Equity in active transportation means improving the quality of life of community members by increasing their opportunities to access life-enriching activities through high-quality routes and active transportation options. By using our suggested unbiased census and survey metrics, it’s possible to identity inequity and enact initiatives that can then be measured to ensure efficiency.
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This is a communication project that aims to interpret the positive economical and ecological effects that kelp aquaculture has locally. The way this is achieved is by exhibiting kelp gardens, creating educational panels and collaborating with other communities that share our goals to spark curiosity and action in the general public to find local creative methods to mitigate ocean acidification.
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What would Vancouver look like without fossil-fueled vehicles? We came up with a fun and safe way to engage youth on the Vancouver Plan during COVID: an online design challenge. Four teams designed their vision for a fossil-fuel-free Vancouver in 2050 and presented their ideas to City staff.
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Students from UBC present their literature review for the Vancouver Park Board and CityStudio Vancouver. The question we focused on was how should urban gardens be planned to decolonize and provide a safe space for Indigenous communities?
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Connecting employment agencies with employers to uplift individuals that face barriers to employment
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A sound installation depicting sounds of a renewable city.
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Determining how the City of Vancouver can best engage with millennials in the city-wide planning process.
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Online application that helps voters plan their vote before going to the ballot box.
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Restoring shoreline and promoting indigenous environmental education.
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Drain Forest: a structure to decrease leaf clogging of Vancouver drains.
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Feasibility report for a Tell-a-Friend initiative being integrated into an existing community or immigration support program.
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Using artificial intelligence to help Vancouver utilize its existing parking resources more efficiently.
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Enhancing Northeast False Creek’s intertidal biodiversity through shoreline design.
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A platform where youth can express what city issues matter to them.
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A non-digital marketing strategy to increase awareness and engagement of the Leisure Access Program.
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An engaging and inclusive method of participatory planning.
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A way to increase youth engagement in city planning through festivals and public events.
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An exploratory study about consumer interactions with produce displays and its effect on food waste.
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How intergenerational practices of food and culture preservation reduces food waste.
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A public space created for community connections year round.
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The Lounge is an alley activation project that aims to provide people of different personalities a safe space to relax, interact, and connect in a highly urbanized setting.
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Expand options, market awareness and remove barriers to increase leisure access use and achieve equity in the widening gap between income and affordability.
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Research-based solutions for overcoming barriers to reusable bag usage.
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Strategies for plastic bag reduction and waste diversion in community centres.
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This project is a collaboration- and project-based approach to digital media production.
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An integrated marketing campaign recruiting volunteers for the Tell-a-Friend initiative.
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Testing the effectiveness of the slogan “Choose to Reuse” at Killarney Community Centre.
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Shifting consumer preferences for bringing a reusable drink container and helping them in their push to reduce the number of single-use items consumed by the city on a day to day basis.
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Formal data collection and best management practices for increasing herring spawning in False Creek.
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Research and recommendations for a safe sharp disposal education campaign.
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Fostering a market for salvaged materials in Vancouver.
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Looking at Public Space through the Lenses of Our Citizens.
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A walking tour showcasing neighborhood resilience to new-comers.
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Research and mapping of unused public spaces in the Marpole neighbourhood.
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Calling non-indigenous students to Truth and Reconciliation action.
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An app supporting renters through the rental journey to build resiliency.
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An affordable parklet template for local businesses to foster community connections.
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A social enterprise beauty salon designed to empower immigrant beauticians.
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Raising awareness of food waste by using unsold produce to create nutritious meals.
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Using mental mapping to create positive notions of high density living.
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A documentary project exploring Vancouver’s downtown public spaces
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Encouraging homeowners to participate in green infrastructure by disconnecting their downspouts.
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A social media campaign to combat negative attitudes towards transit in Vancouver.
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Transforming the underbelly of Skytrain stations using vertical pallet gardens.
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To create community agency in placemaking by providing a toolkit for creating free cozy spaces.
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Keeping young people connected to the world with free mobile charging stations.
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The board game that teaches youth about Vancouver's shoreline health.
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Ten local artists provoke, prototype and test new visions of art and civic life in Vancouver.
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Understanding the current opportunities and challenges faced by clothing providers in Vancouver.
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Barriers and opportunities to reducing single-use cold cups in restaurants.
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A student-focused manifesto designed to impact the Vancouver City Plan.
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Assessing bike routes for an assisted-cycling program.
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Short films in support of the 529 Garage bike recovery service.
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Partnering with food establishments to provide $5 student meals.
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A toolkit for designing art-centric, nighttime events for youth.
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Research to support development of the Tell-a-Friend initiative.
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Materials to encourage citizen participation in the 2018 municipal election.
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Designing physical interventions to keep things cool in the DTES.
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Understanding environmental education and programming offered at each community centre.
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Assessing rockweed in False Creek to help restore natural urban ecosystems.
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Communicating ecological footprint information to diverse audiences.
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Collecting user feedback on safety and comfort of Vancouver's bike routes.
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A service that provides local businesses with personalized continuity plans to recover from a disaster faster.
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A bee awareness centre in Vancouver which provides workshops, tours, a restaurant, and retail space for public education on bees.
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Citizen science program enlisting the help of grade three students to collect data on forest health indicators.
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A wilderness recovery strategy that aims to educate and empower Vancouver’s residents to help the built environment work more closely with the natural environment.
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A modern take on increasing political knowledge and participation amongst low-income households.
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Increasing awareness about the benefits of natural settings for mental well-being.
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An inclusive consignment and upcycling community to help educate and divert textile waste from landfills.
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An investigation of the challenges and possibilities for including the Iranian community in the city's sustainability efforts.
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Understanding and promoting environmental education programming through community centres.
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Providing a framework for solving public urination in Downtown Vancouver.
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A people-based approach to resiliency and emergency preparedness.
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Building the foundation to a resilient neighbourhood.
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An initiative to reduce single-use items by encouraging restaurant patrons to bring reusable containers.
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An investigation into barriers and facilitators to youth cycling in Vancouver.
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Spatial analysis of marine bird communities and recreational disturbances along the Kitsilano shoreline.
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A social media campaign raising awareness of the negative impacts of single-use cups.
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Determining which form of advertising provokes greater engagement around the consumption of red meat.
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Furniture designs developed entirely from upcycled source material.
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An exercise in bolstering disaster preparedness through neighbourhood pride and connectedness.
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An interactive music space for people to connect and feel uplifted.
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A large scale blanket fort that is a space for all ages to meet, connect and play.
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An educational installation to show the potential of underutilized urban spaces to enhance biodiversity.
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Bringing art and engagement to an underutilized space in the form of public chalkboards.
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Bringing free, playable pianos to public spaces in Vancouver.
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Connecting individuals and building a more self-reliant community.
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Ambassador program that equips neighbours to collectively lower their ecological footprint.
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Modelling friendly citizen behaviour and engaging Vancouverites in whimsical conversation.
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Five experiments in art and engagement in Northeast False Creek.
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Fostering connections and reimagining public space through collaborative community art.
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Redirecting surplus food from local businesses to a youth meal program.
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Designing and building the infrastructure that supports outdoor learning in Everett Crowley Park.
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Encouraging and facilitating outdoor learning inspired by the Park Board's Rewilding Vancouver strategy.
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Community concierge pilot project creating vertical communities in apartment buildings.
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Historical plaques designed to ensure that meaningful stories from the past figure prominently in the way this area is envisaged for the future.
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Urban Campfire is a bid to hold communal campfires in public spaces throughout the city.
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Signs in your community pointing you to local, sustainable food assets.
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Colouring Cambie aims to create temporary chalk-painted pedestrian walkways that are interactive and engaging.
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Exploring social sustainability and geographies of social inclusion in the city.
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Improving community safety and encouraging interactive play by illuminating Vancouver’s parks during the dark winter evenings.
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Repairing gaps in Vancouver’s bicycle network to improve accessibility for cyclists in the city.
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Bringing bike repair stations to the streets of Vancouver.
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Engaging and activating orphaned greenspaces in Vancouver.
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Research and mapping of unused public land in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood.
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A project series connecting high-level, policy-based goals with real people by connecting around a Long Table.
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Food waste diversion pilot projects in Vancouver’s multi-family buildings.
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Ugly Apples is a local, handmade and accessible solution to the problem of food waste.
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Choy-On-The-Go provides fresh affordable produce to Chinese seniors in the DTES.
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A fun, place-based, experiential learning resource in the form of a quest.
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An exciting card game centered around biodiversity and fun!
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An interactive light up bike and walk way that integrates art into active transportation.
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