Earlier this month, we documented how light, quick, and cheap pilot projects are changing the way we utilize our streets, drawing from recent examples in Vancouver, Paris, and Calgary. Locally, this process has been lead by the innovative CityStudio, a groundbreaking collaboration between the City of Vancouver and its various universities and colleges; founded in 2011 by Co-Directors Janet Moore and Duane Elverum.

Since its inception, this experimentation hub has launched over 200 projects on the ground. Co-created by staff, students, and community members, they have lead to permanent fixtures such as the Keys to the Streets public pianos, bicycle repair stations at Science World, and the placemaking initiative at Spyglass Place.

Each semester, CityStudio welcomes a diverse group of post-secondary students for an intensive, 12-week program, culminating in a real-life demonstration project. While participants are often given a blank canvas on which to apply their trade, for the Fall 2016 cohort, Moore and Elverum opted instead to focus their efforts on Northeast False Creek, an area currently being redesigned by the City’s Planning Department, since Council’s vote to demolish the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts in October 2015 (a decision, incidentally, made politically easier after their successful temporary closure during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games).

As it spells out in the City of Vancouver’s own Transportation 2040 Plan (a forward-thinking policy document we touched on in a previous piece about driverless technology): “We will use low-cost pilot projects to test new ideas and approaches, we will embrace new transportation information, technology that help achieve our goals and improve efficiency.” CityStudio provides a perfect opportunity to experiment with low-cost, low-risk upgrades, before evaluating the most successful ones, and considering applying them on a wider, more permanent basis.

And so, for a single Saturday afternoon in November, five “trial and learn” (versus trial and error) experiments took place inside CityStudio’s Imagination Zone in Northeast False Creek: A concept inspired by Dublin Studio designed to create permissible spaces where Vancouverites can experiment with more playful forms of urbanism.

"Interactive, Family-Friendly Activities to Do at Night"