Creating a Green Downtown in Surrey

Across Canada the character of suburban communities is changing. The single-use zoning that for half a century led to the development of separate car-oriented residential, commercial and industrial areas is now being overlaid with more progressive, pedestrian-oriented planning and urban design principles including mixed-use development, neighbourhood densification and the intensification of existing commercial cores. The result will be a new generation of suburban cities around the fringes of our existing metropolitan centres.

By Mary Beth Rondeau

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Bold form reflects site’s rugged terrain and environmental stewardship

View of the west elevation shows how the building perches on the rock ledge. An overhang at the south-west corner [right in photo] and interior sun shades mitigate solar heat gain

Shifting, sloping and canting, the Killbear Provincial Park Visitor Centre pays homage to its site, a windswept outcropping of the Canadian Shield, its granite bedrock exposed by the glaciers at the end of the last ice age. (more…)

Net Zero Water

Sustainability performance at the building, neighbourhood and city scale

Emerging storm water management methods represent a key approach to sustainability of integrating ecosystems within our infrastructure. [NE Siskiyou Green Street, Portland, OR; Kevin Robert Perry, ASLA]

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How water and waste infrastructure strategies at different scales, from the building to the city, can respond to sustainability and other challenges. (more…)