“What moves you?” asked the City of Red Deer of its citizens. Collaborating with the Canadian non-profit 8-80 Cities and the Danish urban design firm Gehl Architects, a Mobility Playbook is in the works. We take a peek behind the effort with Jeff Risom, the Head of the Gehl Institute.

image: The City of Red Deer with 8-80 Cities and Gehl Architects

image: City of Red Deer working with Gehl Architects and 8-80 Cities

Next, we check in with the pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco to hear about the city’s brand new Pedestrian Strategy. With adjustments to their built environment, the city hopes to reduce fatal pedestrian injuries by 50% by 2021. Elizabeth Stampe, Executive Director of WalkSF, explains the strategy’s launch that coincided with the city’s Walk 2 Work Day.

image courtesy of: Walk San Francisco

image courtesy of: Walk San Francisco

image courtesy of: Walk San Francisco

Digging deeper into safety, we hear from an injury-prevention coalition Safer Calgary about their symposium called Safe and Smooth. Roxanne LeBlanc, the Provincial Injury Prevention Project Coordinator at Alberta Health Services, adds depth to our understanding of why mobility, the built environment, and public health are in fact very connected.

We round out the Safe and Smooth discussion with some case studies of Calgary by 60 Dutch students at the NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. Paul van de Coevering is on the faculty of the Transportation, Urban Planning, and Urban Design program at NHTV and he’s joined by Joeri Mans, a fourth year student who was part of a group of six proposing a revitalization of the Central Business District in Calgary.

image: NHTV Breda students_Safe and Smooth

image: NHTV Breda students_Safe and Smooth

image: NHTV Breda students_Safe and Smooth

Also mentioned in the show:

Kids biking to school and a Leading The Way Youth Summit that takes place May 10-12th in Calgary.

Nader Tehrani describes NADAAA projects including the Fleet Library at RISD that employs a series of CNC-milled insertions in a historic bank, the Macallen Building, the Samsung Model Home Gallery, and the GwangJu Urban Folly where steel rods form the linearity of columns and the horizontal geometry of floating mass. The University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design is breaking ground this spring. Nader Tehrani will be speaking Wednesday March 6 at Design Matters.

photo: John Horner / NADAAA

photo: John Horner / NADAAA

photo: Nader Tehrani / NADAAA

 

Heather Dubbeldam of Dubbeldam Architecture + Design shares what’s behind the Pop-Up Office designed for the Toronto Interior Design Festival. It’s modular, rapidly deployed, and reconfigurable. Our conversation also covers Twenty+Change.

photo: Shai Gil / Dubbeldam Architecture + Design

courtesy of: Dubbeldam Architecture + Design

 

Katharine Tessier is an industrial designer in search of local production of her designs. She explains why she founded M+DC, connecting local manufacturing with local designers.

image: m+dc

Christina Zeidler, the developer and president of the Gladstone Hotel, describes her community-based approach to a full renovation of the original hotel, built in 1889. The Gladstone is now a centerpiece in the emerging arts and design culture in the Parkdale neighbourhood. Come Up To My Room celebrates 10 years in the Gladstone. On another front, Christina is co-creator in a new line of furniture titled Look-I-Like.

 

What were they thinking and what vision set the groundwork for Calgary’s East Village Alderman Druh Farrell peels back a decade to show how a more human-scale Area Redevelopment Plan would come to be and how tax-increment financing helped realize it. Andrew Mosker, the National Music Centre’s President/CEO, describes the lure of the King Eddy and the neighbourhood in the decision to build a brand new institution for people and music. We dig further into the design of the National Music Centre with architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. The design was amongst stiff international competition and if you are curious how resonant vessels fit into a prairie landscape, you will want to take a listen. The Allied Works Sitings Project mentioned in the interview is pictured below.

The National Music Centre groundbreaking takes place the on the 22nd of this month. It takes a village to make one and here’s how to play your part.

National Music Centre courtesy of Allied Works Architecture / MIR

With Calgary architect Jeremy Sturgess we look back at the inspirational Connaught Gardens courtyard housing project, discuss a current road proposal, and gain insight into urban design projects that heed the street. Raymund Ryan, curator of architecture for the Heinz Architectural Center Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, describes what is behind the show White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes.The six sites were photographed by Iwan Baan and demonstrate culture as it blends with nature and nonlinear exploration, forming new ways of circulating between architecture, art, and landscape.

Inhotim near Belo Horizonte, Brazil, inspired by landscapes of Roberto Burle Marx, gallery: by Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez, installation: Linda do Rosário (2004–2008) by Adriana Varejão, photo: © Iwan Baan

Sketch of PACCAR Pavilion at Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, USA, rendering courtesy of Weiss/Manfredi

And from Zurich, Christian Brändle, director of the Museum für Gestaltung describes how the idea to show plastic garbage in a design museum developed. Out to Sea? Plastic Garbage Projecthas re-opened in Hamburg and will tour throughout the year. The container-size pile of garbage in the center of the exhibition demonstrates how much plastic is released into the sea every 15 seconds.

Debris from Hawaii, Museum für Gestaltung Zurich, photo: 2010, © ZHdK

Plastic cup, a find out of the plastic debris, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, photo: Umberto Romito, 2012, © ZHdK

Plastic in everyday life installation in the exhibition: Amount of plastic garbage an average Swiss person uses in 100 days, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, 2012, photo: © ZHdK

Basketball, a find out of the plastic debris, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, photo: Umberto Romito, 2012, © ZHdK

Chris Jordan, Midway: Message from the Gyre, Serie since 2009, photo: © Chris Jordan, Courtesy of Christophe Guye Galerie

Follow: Plastic Garbage Project

Talks mentioned in the show: Design Matters with Brigitte Shim and Richard Thieme. And another on Public Art.