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Visible cities: a Gallery of Urban Design in downtown Vancouver

University of British Columbia

In my Directed Studies I looked at how architecture can make the experience of time more immediate. This can be done by the use of light that marks the passage of time and the variability of the outside world; the unfolding of and movement through a building's spaces; the juxtaposition of permanent and changing elements; and in the choice of materials and how they wear over time. To explore these ideas, I choose as my project a Gallery of Urban Design for Vancouver. The Gallery would give students and professionals as well as the interested public the chance to learn about the complexity and richness of cities. The site is a vacant 100' x 120' lot on the SW corner of Robson and Homer, across Robson St. from the new Public Library. This area is consolidating as an arts and entertainment district, and a smaller-scale cultural venue would complement larger institutions like the Library, Ford Theatre, BC Place, etc. The site is at a strategic corner of this district, with strong connections to the rest of downtown. Right now, this district is an odd mix of empty lots and large object buildings that dominate most or all of a city block, most of which turn their backs on the sidewalk. The result is a barren and uninviting streetscape. What's missing is a finer grain to knit together these large monuments, the kind of grain seen in nearby Yaletown and on Robson St. The site of the Gallery, across from the Library, has the chance to extend Robson St.'s rhythm, and also to enclose and define Library Square. The Gallery itself is the heart of the project. There are four gallery spaces devoted to different themes: the City's Origins, the City Rises, the City in Crisis, and the City Renewed. In each there is a permanent exhibit on Vancouver around which changing exhibits about other cities are organised. The areas for permanent exhibits are marked by a change in the flooring, from polished concrete to wood. For visitors, the gallery spaces, each a variation on the same palette of materials and light, unfold piece by piece as they move through them, always with glimpses ahead of what's to come and views back to where they've been. The dimension of time is involved in understanding this sequence, and emphasised in the in-between spaces that thicken the transitions. The simple materials serve as a reference for the changing qualities of light that are used to mark a centre and to draw the visitor forward, to imply stability and movement, in a rhythm of light and dark that ends with the dramatic light and city views of the last gallery.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-02-07

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4292

Architecture

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace