Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

June 14, 2009 18:40 +0000 | Activism Public Space Vancouver Vancouver Public Space Network 0

The VPSN is holding a fundraiser / movie night this thursday that promises to be both interesting and fun. I'm going to go, and if you'd like to come along, let me know eh?

City Shorts: A Public Space Film Festival â€“ Thursday June 18, 2009

Mark your calendars and join us for our first annual VPSN Film Festival and Fundraiser.

We've assembled an excellent set of short films that look at public space issues, Vancouver's urban scene and city life. Included in this diverse package are movies on urban greening, public art, urban exploring, parkour, billboards and corporate presence, graffiti, and more!

This is the VPSNâ€™s first film fest and fundraiser and we hope you can all make it. Itâ€™s part of our strategy to use this excellent series of shorts to remind everyone that great city-making still lies within the hands of its citizens. Not only will you be getting an evening jam-packed with films on the public realm, but you'll also be helping the VPSN too. Silver screen action with an added benefit!

Thursday June 18, 2009. Doors open at 7:00pm, show starts at 7:30pm. Tickets: $10 / $8 Students and Seniors. VanCity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street

Liquid refreshments will be available for purchase. And there will be some lively post-film entertainment to take in as well.

May 30, 2009 19:30 +0000 | Multiculturalism Vancouver Vancouver Public Space Network 4

I had a rather confusing experience last night that caused me to rethink a lot of the assumptions I'd made about this city.

Poesy and I had spent the evening in Chinatown's night market and were waiting at Terminal station to go our separate ways when an older gentleman appropached us and in very broken English asked us if we knew where he might find a hotel.

After some thinking on our part, we decided that the closest one we could think of was the Sandman near Stadium station and given the man's sketchy understanding of the local language as well of the area, I offered to take him there myself. It was sort of on my way anyway.

But this post isn't about Good deeds for strangers, it's about what it's like for tourists to try to experience this city and more to the point, what we can expect in 2010 when the world comes to our door.

This city is an embarrassment in the area of tourism. The transit system aside, just finding an intersection in this city is near impossible without accosting strangers, and in many cases, the strangers are hesitant to stop and help given their past unpleasant experiences with panhandlers.

There are so few wayfinding maps in Vancouver and a complete absence of them available in any other language but English. There are no tourism kiosks anywhere, especially after 5pm and all of this means that something as simple as finding a place to crash for the night becomes increadibly difficult -- even if English is your first language.

As someone who's done a reasonable amount of travelling in countries where he spoke even less of the local tongue than the aforementioned visitor, I can assure you that none of the places I visited, with the exception of Yeosu, Korea (a tiny town in a moncultural, insular country) did a poorer job of helping tourists than this one.

Now here's the kicker: the man who was curious about Vancouver and came here to experience this beautiful city but couldn't even find a place to sleep wasn't from Poland or even France. He was from this country, a little town east of Quebec City. In a nation that prides itself on having two official languages and in a city that claims to be multicultural this is very, very sad.

I'm open to suggestions here. Melanie has a plan to make wayfinding on Skytrain easier by creating (actually useful) route maps and pasting them up all over the place, but I'd like to hear some more ideas about how we could help guests like this man in the future. I'll bring these ideas to the next Mapping & Wayfinding VPSN working group.

May 21, 2009 15:05 +0000 | Public Space Vancouver Public Space Network 2

For the past few months, the Vancouver Public Space Network has been holding a design competition to create a new "grand gathering place" in Vancouver â€“ a place for festivals, markets, rallies, buskers and more -- Think Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, or even Piazza San Marco in Venice. Over 100 design teams signed up for the competition, 13 were short-listed. Now it's time to pick a winner.

Cast your ballot at online, but do it soon! Voting ends Friday May 22.

It's the most fun youâ€™ll have with civic engagement all day :-)

If youâ€™ve got time, come on out to Heritage Hall (Main and 15th) on May 27 (7:00-9:00pm) when the VPSN will announce the winner. Itâ€™ll be a great evening. For further reading on the reasoning behind the competition, visit WheresTheSquare.ca.

Oh, and for those who might be interested, this one is my favourite.

January 30, 2009 19:09 +0000 | Public Space Vancouver Vancouver Public Space Network 2

One of the groups I sometimes work with, The Vancouver Public Space Network has been putting together a big competition that I thought I'd share with you called Where's the Square?. The idea is fun and Good things could come of its results so if you have a creative streak, you might be interested:

Have you ever dreamed of what Vancouver might look like if it had the type of celebrated public square or plaza that characterizes other cities around the world? Think of the festivals, markets and concerts, as well as the opportunities to meet friends, have a coffee and people watch! There's no shortage of reasons why good public squares are the most popular and memorable places to congregate.

So what about our city? Here's where you come in.

The Vancouver Public Space Network is currently running a Design Ideas Competition. The "Where's the Square?" contest is open to anyone who feels like they have a plan for a grand gathering place inside the city boundaries.

We're looking for ideas from city-lovers, planners, artists, philosophers, architects, urbanists, students of any discipline and visionaries from all walks of life. The competition has some fairly straightforward parameters covering the size, accessibility, programming and utility of the square... but after that, it's all up to you. Most importantly, we don't have a set location in mind. Instead, we're looking for entrants to come up with a plan for where the square could be situated.

The "Where's the Square?" competition runs until March 20, 2009 and is open to individuals or teams. There will be two prizes, based on a juried review of the entries as well as a "people's choice award." A variety of other supporting events will also be taking place throughout February, March and April.

Interested in participating? The Competition Brief and other related materials can be accessed at http://www.WheresTheSquare.ca.

One more thing: we're asking participants to send us an Entrant Form to let us know that they want to submit a plan. We're looking to get these by the end of the month. According to one of our participants, the record for completing and submitting an Entrant Form is under 60 seconds. If you feel so inspired (and we hope you do!), you can try and beat this time by downloading the form here.

For more information, please email info at vancouverpublicspace dot com or call 778-239-7544.

August 12, 2008 22:36 +0000 | Cycling Public Space Vancouver Vancouver Public Space Network 3

The following was in the Vancouver Public Space Network newsletter today and I thought that I might share it here for those who might be interested. This segment touches on something I mentioned a while back called Ciclovía, an event in Bogotá, Columbia. Apparently, the brain behind that event and others like it down there is doing a talk here in Vancouver. Space is limited, so register now if you're interested:

We are now facing a “perfect storm” of increasing global warming and environmental degradation, growing traffic congestion, an obesity crisis and other public health concerns, soaring energy costs and slowing economic growth. It is time to go beyond baby steps and take some major leaps. We must re-position walking and cycling as key parts of the solution to these major challenges.

As Bogotá has shown, creating great public spaces for walking and cycling contributes enormously to creating healthier, happier, more thriving communities. Hear former Bogota Commissioner of Parks, Sport and Recreation share his experiences and his lessons for Vancouver. The evening is being co-sponsored by Translink, the SFU City Program, the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Public Space Network.

Event takes place Wednesday, August 20th at 7:00pm, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street. Admission is free but reservations are required.

To register - 778-782-5100 or email cstudies at sfu dot ca

For further information see vancouverpublicspace.ca.

February 23, 2008 23:15 +0000 | Public Space Vancouver Public Space Network 1

The VPSN's Pirates of the Seabus happened last night, and despite my own misgivings, I showed up complete with dorky hat, plastic sword and an eye patch... beneath my glasses. It was fun, though crowded, and it looked like everyone involved really enjoyed themselves.

I met a nice girl on the trip too -- she came ill-prepared for a pirate cruise, and so I gave her my sword and Leanne contributed her hat. This is her threatening me here. That'll teach me to be nice :-) Also, I should mention that navigation with only one eye is a lot harder than it looks. Peripheral vision is handy.

For those interested in pictures over and above the one at left, I've added the few I took to the VPSN Flickr pool as I wasn't happy enough with the ones I took to add them to my own collection.

February 14, 2008 08:35 +0000 | Public Space Vancouver Public Space Network 2

So as mentioned in my previous post, I showed up to help out with the heartinating of the Vancouver Art Gallery tonight and much fun was had by all. Check out Katie's pictures if you're interested in more visuals than the above.

I spent much of the night stamping little white hearts all over the place (including the trees!) and toward the end, had some fun with the pink chalk (pink is the new black baby!) I had fun, and it would appear that the others in the VPSN enjoyed themselves as well. I'm really looking forward to the Pirate Party on the Seabus next week too. That's gonna be awesome.

Update: 2008-02-14 10:18:13

I stopped by the gallery on my way to work this morning and collected a few daylight pictures to post in my imager.

February 13, 2008 20:29 +0000 | Public Space Vancouver Vancouver Public Space Network 0

I just got this email from the Vancouver Public Space Network and I thought that I would share. I hear New Mind Space is doing Queen of Hearts again this year, but they've gone to plan B, painting on the snow due to the horrible weather out there. The VPSN's plan is blatantly ripped from the New Mind Space idea a few years ago, but the best form of flattery is in fact imitation right?

The second plan is something I've heard of before as well, but I'm having trouble remembering from where. Neat idea, though 5pm will probably be tough for a lot of people.

Happy Heart Day!

Come one come all to the 2nd annual heart stamping in the city. Last year, with paints and heart shaped sponges a dedicated group of us stamped Yaletown, Granville, and Robson Square. Most of our hearts stayed around overnight until Valentine's Day and while stamping most on-lookers gave us two thumbs up for our work. It was great fun and we're hoping for the same this year. And so, if you are interested in taking part in this today, meet us at Robson Square at 8:30pm. Bring washable paints (emphasis on washable and preferably in the bottles that say "washable" in case we are hassled at all) also feel free to bring colourful chalk or any other temporary surface treatments. Come and join our crafty crew and spread the love...with paint!

any questions, call katie @ 778.829.0440 after 7pm.

3 Minute Kiss Freeze

At 5:00 pm start walking through the waterfront Skytrain station, on February 14, 2008. Time your time piece to the atomic clock
At 5:20 pm, FREEZE in a KISS. The kiss can be on the lips, on the cheeks, on the hands, on the wall, whatever - explore your creative options.

Make sure your alarm on your watch is set for 5:23 pm, at which point we will all casually move out of our kiss and keep walking moving as if nothing has happened. Yes, it's basically like a flash mob but toned down a notch.

To be specific, the Kiss Freeze will be main atrium area, or main lobby, that you enter off of water street, at the waterfront station. See picture.

January 25, 2008 23:47 +0000 | Activism Public Space The Toronto Public Space Committee Vancouver Public Space Network 2

I remember saying to myself that I wasn't going to get too heavily involved in public space issues when I returned home. I wanted to expand my involvement into other community stuff, most notably homelessness given that Vancouver requires some serious work in this area. Things may still go that way, but I'm afraid the Vancouver Public Space Network has me rather excited about the prospect of working with them.

Much like the TPSC, the VPSN fights against the corporatisation of public space, and CCTV, as well as promotes pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, and green space. They have a guerrilla gardening faction, but the also grow food and their event coordinator sorta doubles as Vancouver's version of New Mind Space. Lara will dig this: they're going to hold a Pirate Party on the Seabus!

I went to their annual planning meeting last night (TPSC folk might want to read that sentence again and take note of the phrase annual planning meeting... it's a hell of a concept ;-). Andrew Pask, the coordinator of this now 3yearold group, was amazing, navigating the group through a multi-phased process in which we first identified what we liked and didn't like about public space in Vancouver, then to how we might theoretically fix it, and finally onto a "dot-ocracy", a system that allows each member of the group to vote 6 times for as many or as few of the suggestions made as they like. It sounds complicated, but so is public space and I really feel that we charted a good course for the year.

A lot of the ideas that came out of the mix last night were excellent, but the one I'm most excited about is a move to actively create public spaces within the city either by way of a public non-profit Public Space Trust or by making deals with local land owners (as the gardeners have in the past). There was also mention of advocating the position that binners (people who sift through garbage for containers which they then return for deposit) should be supported in our community as they're providing a public service at little or no additional cost, and an ambitious online (and maybe offline?) mapping project that tracks everything from public transit (based on an open API from Translink) to good places to eat, to free wifi, dog parks, pedestrian malls etc. etc.

I went out for drinks with a few of them after the meeting and was surprised at the number of Torontonian expats we had in the group. Of the seven of us in the bar, there were 4 Toronto folk there if you include myself. Two others were born and raised here, and the last guy was from Iran. Obviously, this isn't a scale subset of the group, but the circumstances were funny nonetheless.

Thanks to the book Stephen gave me, I'm beginning to understand just how Sustainability has to be managed. You can't run it from the top-down, and it can't be haphazard either. Local groups have to build urban gardens, build pedestrian infrastructure and even Green power on their own because our leaders are either too afraid or too stupid to know how to do it themselves. I honestly think that this group has the right idea.

January 23, 2008 18:45 +0000 | CCTV Vancouver Vancouver Public Space Network 2

I'm here not more than 3months and already I've jumped into the CCTV debate. It's funny, I had no intention of getting involved, but the cover story of the Province was so offensive, I just had to write something.

The story is this, murderous cowards shoot drug dealing murderer in font of a prestigious high-end restaurant downtown. Public is freaked out, mayor says that we need more cameras as a result. However, the cops are already reveiwing footage for 30 other cameras that were in use on the scene as well as numerous eye-witnesses. This may sound a little familiar to the Toronto folk readin this.

Here's the Original article in the Province.

And here's my letter to the editor response:

I am positively baffled by the Mayor's insistence that increased CCTV cameras are the wisest response to the shooting outside Gotham steakhouse. As if the 30 cameras already being sourced by police weren't enough, Sullivan seems bent on wasting more money on devices that clearly will not make the streets any safer.

We have mountains of data from countries around the world proving that these contraptions do nothing but cost millions of dollars and have little or no effect on crime.

We also have a long list of eye-witnesses to the event, and that tells us one very important thing: these criminals don't care about being seen. These acts were brazen and violent and watching it all on TV will not prevent this from happening again.

Ms Fry at least has it half right. We need better citizen interaction with police, better lighting and a crack down on guns and drugs running across our borders. These are methods actually known to work in the prevention of crime.

I don't know if it'll get published, but if it does, I'll post a link here.

Update: 2008.02.07 08:51:00 PST

While I'd given up hope that the letter would be published, it turns out that they did in fact print the letter -- if only a few days late. My parents found it and my grandmother sent me the link, so here you go if you're interested.