The Field

Earlier this year, the office where I have worked for 5 years—Campus and Community Planning—was restructured to include a new division called Campus Programs and Animation. This group of people is responsible for supporting the University of British Columbia’s strategic priority of making our Vancouver campus more vibrant. My first reaction was “Hmmm—I thought we (the landscape architects) were doing that!”

We absolutely are doing that—creating the spaces and landscapes that are essential to a vibrant campus. But we don’t do it alone. Making the campus more vibrant involves leveraging public space, campus landscape and infrastructure investments with cultural and social assets to develop strong community programs and create extraordinary campus experiences. Real success requires a concerted effort by many individuals. With the goal of creating unforgettable and extraordinary campus experiences, landscape architects do create the platform and unique opportunities for meaningful intellectual, social, and cultural experiences and interactions. The design and programming contributions of other professionals, staff and the users themselves help us fulfill this goal.

Following are a few images—and a really fun video clip—showing the fruits of those efforts here at the University of British Columbia.

And aerial footage by Amiel De Guzman of this year’s UBC Bike Rave:

It would be great to see some of your favorite images, too!

by Dean Gregory, ASLA, MBCSLA, LEED® AP, UBC Campus Landscape Architect and Campus Planning and Design PPN Chair