International Living Future Institute / Cascadia Green Building Council

Living Building Project Tours

Join International Living Future Institute / Cascadia Green Building Council guides for their upcoming Living Building Challenge Project Tours. Individual tours of UniverCity Daycare Centre and VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre will take place on Sunday, September 29, 2013. The price for both tours (which includes transit costs and lunch) is $75 per person ($55 for ILFI / Cascadia members and Passive House Conference attendees). For more information and to register, please click here.

2 Core LUs (1 per tour)

Prison Design Faces Judgment

Amid the proliferation of prisons, debate over their future has exposed the facilities, and details of their architecture, to new scrutiny.

By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times

August 30, 2013

It might be the most carefully hidden building boom in American architectural history. Over the last 40 years, beginning with strict drug-sentencing laws introduced in 1973 by New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and quickly copied around the country, the number of prisons in this country has more than tripled, from 600 to nearly 2,000. In California, where the inmate population surged a staggering tenfold from 1975 to 2010, the construction of jails and prisons has accelerated even more quickly. Yet the buildings themselves have managed to stay shrouded. New prisons are often stashed in rural areas or in the lonelier corners of American downtowns, where in some cases they fill districts vacated in the postwar decades by residents and corporations decamping for the suburbs. More …

Playhouse Proud in Vancouver

Office of McFarlane Biggar constructs a jungle gym for little tykes that also highlights how to build sustainably with wood.
By Nina Boccia, Azure
September 3, 2013

Called Sam + Pam, the two-metre by two-metre twin structure is made entirely out of spruce-pine-fir (the softwood combo known as SPF), protected from the elements with a clear varnish. Inside the slatted three-storey towers, the firm installed ladders for climbing up to various perches, and inserted large, bright-orange cut-outs of animated characters as dividers between the nooks. More …

City of Surrey:

Livable City Architecture Through Greenscaping: An Alternative Approach to Traditional Stormwater Management

This half-day workshop/forum will bring together members of the architecture and design communities to discuss how building design can help the City of Surrey address runoff and habitat issues. Attendees will be invited to provide feedback and ideas as to how the city can assist designers in creating designs that slow down runoff from buildings and building sites. The hope is that consideration for runoff issues at the initial design phase will prove more cost-effective and efficient than waiting until later stages of development. This session takes place Wednesday, September 11, 2013, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the Surrey Arts Centre, 13750 88 Avenue, Surrey. Advance RSVPs are required. Please e-mail Andrew Kolper at akolper@kwl.ca.

3 Core LUs

New Registered Educational Provider: City of Surrey

Surrey is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, and the fastest growing city in Metro Vancouver. Surrey’s population is over 468,000 (2011 census), and the city welcomes approximately 800 new residents each month. Learn more about all Registered Educational Providers by clicking here.