Vancouver Public Space Network » rain-friendly

Feature Event: Human Easel / Art Cart – Saturday, Feb 22, 2020

VPSN — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 02:08:53 +0000

One of the Life Between Umbrellas Stream 3 winning entries – Art Cart Human Easel – will be holding a rain-friendly public space activation event. Join in the fun and help to bring a splash of colour to Helena Gutteridge Plaza at City Hall

Saturday, February 22, 2020
10am-2pm
Helena Gutteridge Plaza, City Hall
(located on the north side of City Hall – W 11th Ave and Yukon Street)

Designed by Sistema LUPO, a Spanish collective specializing in childhood and architecture games, the Art Easel allows participants to create large-scale artwork on the plaza surface. Come play in the rain and participate in a fun day launching the Art Easel. Children of all ages and familes are most welcome! Hot drinks and snacks provided!

More info: Facebook Event Page

Good News! Life Between Umbrellas Competition Deadline Extension

VPSN — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 00:22:37 +0000

We’ve gotten lots of individuals and teams registering in the Life Between Umbrellas design competition – all of them working on some creative ideas for making Vancouver’s public spaces more rain-friendly. This is exciting stuff!

More recently, we’ve received some inquiries regarding the Life Between Umbrellas competition deadline, and in particular whether or not we might consider extending the April 15 due date for submissions.

Good news! After reviewing these requests, the competition steering committee has decided to allocate some additional time for the important design and collaboration work that is taking place. The new deadline for the competition is Monday, April 29 at 5:00pm.

This means there are an extra couple of weeks to define and refine your ideas for making Vancouver’s public spaces more rain-friendly. Entries are invited in three categories:

The Place – An idea to make a new or existing public space (such as a plaza, street, sidewalk, laneway, parklet, or park) rain-friendly.
The Intervention - A rain-friendly design feature or element, or seasonal structure that can serve to enhance an existing public space.
The Celebration – A rain-friendly pop-up activation (e.g. an event or interactive installation) in a public space that will help build a more positive culture of rain-friendly activity, fostering social connections in the rainy months.

The Life Between Umbrellas is open to designers, artists, and public space enthusiasts of all ages. There’s even a special stream for entrants aged 18-and-under.

For more information on the competition, be sure to check out the competition website, and in particular the Life Between Umbrellas Design Brief. Note that with the extension all other entry-related considerations still apply.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to be in touch. The Umbrellas Team can be reached at umbrellas@vancouverpublicspace.ca. Life Between Umbrellas is being co-produced by the Vancouver Public Space Network and Viva Vancouver.

Featured Event – Draft Principles for Rain-Friendly Public Spaces (Workshop)

VPSN — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 17:26:42 +0000

Early in 2019, we’ll be launching our Life Between Umbrellas design competition to encourage the creation of rain-friendly public spaces. Even more exciting: we’re working on an agreement with the City of Vancouver to help deliver this exciting initiative.

As part of this overall project, we’ve been connecting with community-members this past year to gather ideas for ways to improve Vancouver’s public spaces during the winter months. (You may remember our various umbrella wall activities from spring, our early share-back of ideas in the VanBubble during Vancouver Design Week, or our more recent presentation at SFU’s City Conversations).

We’ve got another great opportunity coming up to help shaping the competition. On Tuesday, December 4, we’re holding a workshop on draft principles for rain-friendly public spaces. It’s open to anyone who is interested in helping us to review and refine the work that we’ve done to date, and to help us craft the principles will be used to inform the Design Competition.

We’re just in the process of finalizing a location for this event. If you’d like to be part of the discussion, please let us know. Email info@vancouverpublicspace.ca.