The webinar is the first in a series about populating public space during the cold and dark season is rain. From the event posting:

“Wet and cold but also life-giving and fun. Are there activities best performed when raining and how do we mitigate the discomfort of bad weather? A summer rain might be sensual but how about a rainy November evening? Join us in our exploration of how to enable life in public space all year round.

The webinar will consist of two parts. First, speakers on rain placemaking from Gothenburg and Vancouver. Second, a brief workshop to further dig into the issues together. We will co-create new ways of bringing life to our cities on rainy days.”

For more on the event, or to register: Nordic Placemaking Talk

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

1. The Place – An idea to make a new or existing public space (such as a plaza, street, sidewalk, laneway, parklet, or park) rain-friendly.

2.  The Intervention - A rain-friendly design feature or element, or seasonal structure that can serve to enhance an existing public space.
3. 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 event takes place:

Saturday, April 6, 2019
9:00am to 6:00pm
800-block Robson Square (south side of the Art Gallery)

A full schedule of activities will be shared via the Facebook Event Page.
#LifeBetweenUmbrellas is brought to you by Vancouver Public Space Network and Viva Vancouver and aims to generate ideas on ways to improve public space and public life during Vancouver’s rainy months. The contest is open to anyone interested in making public spaces more rain-friendly. Multiple prizes will be awarded, including prizes for children and youth under 19. For more info, please visit: https://LifeBetweenUmbrellas.ca

The launch event will provide an overview of the competition, featuring speakers and activities that will help to showcase some of the design challenges and opportunities that come with life in a rainy city. For added warmth and coziness there will also be a hot chocolate bar and fresh-baked cookies!

Joining us for the event will be:

• Joe Fry, HAPA Collaborative
• Andrew Nakazawa, DVBIA
• Ann Livingston, VANDU
• Melina Scholefield, City of Vancouver, Office of Sustainability
• Nick Collinet, Public Disco

Details of the Competition – A Quick Overview

The Life Between Umbrellas design ideas competition will be open to a broad audience, including designers, students, and the general public. The competition will have three streams, allowing entrants to submit ideas on (1) rain-friendly spaces, (2) design features, and (3) events or activations. A number of prizes will be awarded in each stream, and winners will be chosen by both a jury selection process and a people’s choice voting process.

A separate competition website will be live on Friday March 1. In the meantime, for more information on the competition, check out LifeBetweenUmbrellas.ca.

Tickets

Tickets for the launch event are free and available via Eventbrite, but seating is limited. If you book a ticket and are unable to attend, please cancel your ticket so that we can ensure a space for someone else!

Photo by Adriana Calvo, Pixels

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.

Studies have shown that time spent outside is beneficial to mental and physical well being – in a number of different ways. In adults, depression rates decrease with outdoor physical activity and prolonged exposure to vitamin D. Children who live a more active lifestyle, as compared to a sedentary one, consistently test higher in reading comprehension and math skills. Additionally, outdoor play exposes children to sunlight, fresh air, and natural elements, which in turn benefits the immune system, contributes to healthy bone development, and encourages a lifetime of physical activity. And these are just a few of the reported benefits!

In the summer, Vancouver offers an abundance of opportunity to reap the health benefits of being outside. As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, Vancouverites emerge from our winter hibernation and begin to enjoy the numerous beaches, mountains, plazas, patios, walkable neighbourhoods, and world class parks that our city has to offer.

Yet in the winter, opportunities to enjoy the health benefits of being outdoors are often constrained by our need to be shielded from the elements. Cold, wet winters tend to drive people indoors, which has the add-on effect of removing us from a lot of the opportunities for outdoor social interaction that we get during the summer months. Outdoor physical activity also declines — and this, in combination with other factors (like the lack of sun), increases the likelihood of seasonal affective disorder and the winter blues. Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that many of our public spaces seem poorly designed for the rainy months.

Aware of the impact of winter on public life, designers, advocates and community groups have all recommended strategies to activate public spaces to encourage people to get outside on rainy days. In Vancouver, popular mid-winter activities like the Lumiere Festival the Christmas Market, and the Polar Bear Swim exist entirely outdoors, but only for a brief period of time. But what about deliberately designing permanently weather-proofed outdoor spaces to encourage continual physical and mental well being during the winter months? Among other examples that can be found from around the world, two recent ones from Toronto and New York City offer some ideas on how to design weather-proofed public spaces for the benefit of all.

Photo: The Bentway, Toronto. (Photo by The Bentway)

The Bentway, Toronto

Recently opened to the public in January 2018, the Bentway is a covered public trail and corridor space underneath the Gardiner Expressway. Spanning six Toronto neighbourhoods, a total of 70,000 residents live within proximity of this active recreational area. The design by Ken Greenberg and Public Work specifically considers families with children and seniors, and emphasizes winter activities in its programming. Since opening, the main attraction has been the ice skating trail, a figure-eight shaped sheet of ice which is host to ice breaking workshops and skate parties.

In addition to the rink, visitors also find warming stations, a dog play area, rotating public art and light installations, and a fitness area shielded by the nearly 5 story high, cathedral-like concrete form of the overhead expressway. In the summer, the skate trail will convert into a walking and rollerblading space with room for public markets, film screenings, an urban amphitheatre, and community gatherings.

Visited by roughly 20,000 in its first two days of operation, The Bentway has proven that Torontonians have a desire to escape their hibernation and to be physically active, outside, in the winter months

While we have one skate park and one playground located under bridges – the Bentway example highlights other possibilities for these covered areas. It raises a good question: how might we use other “under bridge” areas in Vancouver?.

Pier 2 Park – New York City – Photo Julienne Schaer

Pier 2, Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York

In an effort to foster an active lifestyle among a diverse population, NYC has been investing in the year-round programming of community parks. The Brooklyn Bridge Park, opened in 2010, is an 85-acre post-industrial space on the Brooklyn side of the East River.

Pier 2, one of six five-acre piers within the park, is dedicated to year-round active recreation. Protected from rain and snow by the roof of a former warehouse, visitors to the park can make uses of five fully accessible and covered basketball courts, fitness equipment, children’s play areas with seating for parents, handball and bocce courts, and shuffleboard. A roller rink, complete with live DJ, is equipped for in-line skating, roller derby, and roller hockey.

In addition to these activities, the park hosts winter walking tours, with subjects ranging from history to horticulture. Outdoor public BBQs, picnic tables and lounge areas are available year round, with a spectacular view of Brooklyn Bridge and downtown Manhattan.

The adaptive re-use of these old industrial buildings – and even just the presence of a canopy – makes all the difference here. Another example of something we might also consider in Vancouver.

Designing urban public spaces that invites a diverse group of people to spend time outdoors year round can improve inclusiveness, limit social isolation, and foster a greater sense of emotional and physical wellbeing through the benefits of active recreation.

With a little imagination, Vancouverites could reap the rewards of deliberately designed outdoor recreational spaces that shield from rain while offering engaging places for children to play, seniors to gather, and communities to come together.

Do you have examples of good rain-friendly public spaces that you’d care to share? Drop us a line and let us know. And while you’re at it, stay-tuned for more on our upcoming Life Between Umbrellas Design Ideas Competition.

Jada Stevens lives downtown and can be found enjoying Vancouver’s public spaces year round. Among her favourite spots are the beaches and trails of Stanley Park, and the many fantastic people-viewing vistas of Robson Square.

Lead Photo: Wylie Poon

Like us, they’re concerned with the plight of our public spaces come the rainy season, and they’ve decided to launch an initiative to encourage winter-time placemaking. As they note:

With a lack of covered public space in Vancouver, unfacilitated social interactions between people turn scarce in the wintertime. As people are less likely to engage in outdoor activities when it rains this places Vancouverites at high risk for Seasonal Affective Disorder.

By working intimately with nature and embracing the rain, we are able to focus on social healing rather than threaten social and physical wellness. Together, with the community, we will act as urban catalysts to encourage social healing through Seasonal Effective Design.

As part of this Seasonal Effective Design program, they are looking at a variety of ways to enhance the Vernon and Adanac space during the darker months – including weather-proofing, events, and lots more colour. To support this, they’ve recently launched a crowd-funding campaign. If you’ve got a few extra bucks, please consider supporting this worthwhile venture!

:: Support Frida + Frank’s Seasonal Effective Design Initiative

Unfortunately, it seems as though it’s only getting rainier: the overall annual number of high intensity rainfall days have increased here since the mid 1970s, likely an effect of urbanization and global climatic change. Climate change analysis predicts this trend, in tandem with rising sea levels, will continue into the future, so don’t put away those umbrellas anytime soon.

Increasing rainfall may present a problem for the water management of the city. In an urban environment where a lot of terrain is paved and impermeable, there is a limited number of places wherewater can infiltrate the ground. In turn, when sewers and storm drains can’t manage the amount of water entering them, they back up and urban flooding occurs. You can see examples of this every time we have heavy rain, and because of rising precipitation levels and intensities, this is becoming a more common occurrence. There are, however, cities with examples of compelling water systems as a means to remedy this for Vancouver to take inspiration from.

The climate in North-West Europe is also changing: which means more heavy and frequent rainfall, similarly to here in Vancouver. The Netherlands, typically low lying (most of the country is below sea level), is known for its many water-related challenges and inventive solutions for them.

Today, the increase in rainfall means many Dutch cities require water storage to ensure their sewer systems aren’t overloaded. One solution for this the sort of “Water Squares” created by Dutch design firm De Urbanisten. The following images are taken from their excellent website.

De Urbanisten’s squares are an inspiring case study of how to provide water storage within the city, to stop urban flooding and take pressure off the sewer system, all while improving urban public space. The squares were originally developed as a conceptual study to examine Rotterdam’s relationship with water, but one square – Benthemplein – has now been built, several designed, and another currently under development.

These gathering spaces are designed to be a useable space both when wet and dry: light rain will only fill parts of the square, but heavier rainfalls will fill up larger storage basins. In the case of Benthemplein, the space functions (when it’s not raining) as an urban space for people to exercise, play and linger. It contains three concrete basins of varying depths which are used as a skate park, a basketball court, and theatre seating in dry weather. During heavy rainfalls the basins fill with water through steel gutters and small waterfalls.

Water is held within the square until the rain has subsided. When the city’s canals have the capacity to take that water again, water from the square will discharge into the nearest waterway and the square makes room for its users once again.

Water squares may not be the only solution to urban flooding, but they certainly provide an inspiring example of coupling infrastructure with public space. They show us that necessary groundwork can double as a design element and become a part of the urban fabric.

You can see more about how the Benthemplein Water Square works here.

– By Nuala O’Donnell. All photos courtesy of De Urbanisten.

What about Vancouver? Should we be looking at a “water square”, or integrating this sort of infrastructure into our public spaces? Got ideas of your own? The VPSN is hosting Make it Rain: A Design Workshop for Rainy Public Spaces this coming Sunday, April 17. The event takes place at the Museum of Vancouver. You should attend! For more information, check out this article.

The result of these prolonged stretches of rainfall has been the adoption by Vancouverites of a reoccurring “hibernation” pattern, which generally occurs between the months of October and March. Consequently, regardless of mild temperatures, Vancouver has earned the reputation of a city that “shuts down” to avoid the rain during the winter months. This leads takes its toll on public spaces and public life – factors that are also tied to everything from health and wellbeing, to community involvement, to nightlife, to everyday interpersonal interactions.

In response to these issues, the VPSN will be featuring a series of articles that will aim to explore rain-friendly public space initiatives from around the world. The intent of this project is to inspire Vancouver to adopt some of these rain-proofing policies at home, thus extending public life in Vancouver to continue year-round.

This first article will launch the series by taking a look at Singapore, a city that combats upwards of 2340 millimeters of precipitation per year with highly effective rain-proofing strategies.

Singapore demonstrates several forms of infrastructure that allow outdoor activities to remain accessible throughout their rainy season. Perhaps most notably are an intriguing system of canopies, such as the one pictured here (albeit in good weather) – at historic Clarke Quay.

The canopy structure covers the roadway, creating an arcade-like enclosure that shelters visitors from the rain. These structures are suspended high above the space below in order to maintain the feeling of being outdoors. Clarke Quay is Singapore’s hot spot for bars, restaurants and nightlife, comparable to Vancouver’s Granville Street. By covering the Quay in this fashion, the city has managed to enable public life to thrive outdoors even during their monsoon season. Following this precedent, what if Granville Street received a similar canopy treatment in wintertime? Could this encourage Vancouverites to remain more social and engaged throughout the rainy winter months, or solving the need to stay in, or hop from indoor space to indoor space to avoid getting wet?

Another challenge that we see in Vancouver relates to larger campus-type spaces – such as those found at universities like SFU or UBC, or at hospitals (like VGH). These campuses are large – in some cases even comparable to a small city – and they are connected by a network of pedestrian paths (themselves a very positive feature). At the same time, the rainy season can make these paths less inviting than they could be – especially for students or workers that have to move back and forth between multiple buildings.

An example from Singapore suggests one solution: the covered walkway. As pictured here, Nanyang Technological University combats rain on its campus by providing covered walkways between buildings and along sidewalks. Additionally, the university was careful to construct overhangs that run along the sides of buildings to provide further coverage. This takes the typical Vancouver building-edge canopy (that four foot plastic rim that lines many of our buildings) and takes it to the next level.

Here’s one image of the campus by blogger olinsigapore:

So what about our city? How can we extend our public life throughout the rainy season?

Features like these are just a couple of examples of rain-proofing initiatives from another city that Vancouver could potentially adopt or modify in enhancing its own weather-related strategies. As noted, the two ideas showcased in this article have proven to be affective in maintaining public life in Singapore, extending it throughout the year.

Got ideas of your own? The VPSN is hosting Make it Rain: A Design Workshop for Rainy Public Spaces this coming Sunday, April 17. The event takes place at the Museum of Vancouver. You should attend! For more information, check out this article.