Where’s the Square?
January 29, 2009
Visionaries wanted.
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 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 the VPSN’s “Where’s The Square?” webpages: 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 clicking here.
“Where’s the Square?” Competition Brief:
“Where’s the Square” Competition Entrant Form:
For more information:
Vancouver Public Space Network
Box 2754, Station Terminal
349 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2
Email: info@vancouverpublicspace.ca
Telephone: 778-239-7544
One Less Square: Plaza of Nations demolished
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2 Comments
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I don’t think I have the design chops to fulfill all the requirements but I’d bet that the top location contender will be on False Creek next to what was the Plaza of Nations and the new VAG. Just have to get Concord Pacific to move their presentation trailers, erm, centre. Perfect location then. Close to transit, great views, lots of space, plans for a park already (right?).
The Plaza of Nations is still in use – during the Taiwanese Festival last September the place was bustling! And strangely, without the roof, the plaza seemed a lot more open and bright. That photo above looks quite out of date. The area where the west building was located is a parking lot and there is no fence separating it from the seawall (as of Sept 2008, because that where we set up our team tents for the Taiwanese dragon boat races).
The front lawn of the Art Gallery fulfills the “square” task quite well. On any given summer weekday there are lots of people sitting on the grass. If you want a paved square, Robson Square also sees a lot of people sitting out on their lunch hours. All of this being weather dependent of course.
Maybe addiing some food vendor kiosks to the Robson Square side would liven it up in the off-hours (but that would probably raise objections from Arthur Erickson).