The Lounge is comprised of two parts: Relax and Play. It is designed to activate the alley located between Main St. and Ontario St. between E 7th Ave and E Broadway. The “Relax” part of the design provides a tranquil and peaceful atmosphere within the alley, while the “Play” part provides the stimulating and vibrant feel. In order to integrate ‘The Lounge’ in this neighbourhood, we advocate partnership with local businesses and invite community volunteers to encourage and empower ownership and accountability of the space.

Given the industrial nature and the intended expansion of creative industries within the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, we selected local workers as our primary audiences. We intend to provide this growing worker population a safe place to unwind during their breaks, opportunities to build connections, and a space to promote community building. The secondary audience of our design is families with children, which we chose because our research revealed Mount Pleasant has a higher population density of children compared to other districts in the City of Vancouver. We hope to create an inclusive space for people of different ages and personalities where community programming can be found throughout the year as part of this alley activation project. We believe that the inclusive and versatile design of ‘The Lounge’ will activate the alley through assigning new purpose to this space and to enabling it to better serve the local community.