Vancouver’s Millennium Line: A Love Story
Alan Hart, AIA Founding Principal, VIA Architecture Sea@le, San Francisco, Vancouver
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Rail~Volu)on 2014 Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Why do we design transit systems?
For communiDes For people For real lives For lovers
Vancouver perspecDve
The best
freakin’ place !
Rethinking transit: Expo Line
Rethinking transit: Millennium Line
Rethinking transit: Millennium Line
Rethinking transit
Expo Line Millennium Line
Rethinking transit
Expo Line Millennium Line
Rethinking transit
• As designers, how can we make transit part of a community?
• How can we make transit an extension of place?
This goes beyond TOD, rezoning, and density discussions. It goes to the heart of a place.
How do you create a place to fall in love?
We recognized that the Grandview cut once divided Vancouver.
We asked the quesDon of how we could use it to unite Vancouver instead.
We heard:
We spent months listening hard to the communiDes. We asked them what these places wanted to be.
• a marketplace • open and transparent • safe and welcoming • a lookout • an extension of our homes • the heart of our neighborhood
We kept the best of the Expo Line:
We asked: Do all staDons need to look the same?
Elements of conDnuity to support wayfinding and system idenDty Elements of disDncDon to support placemaking and staDon
idenDty
We engaged arDsts to provide delight.
And children to imagine how the fish would feel.
We engaged young designers to challenge design assumpDons.
We chose materials that were fresh and unexpected:
Wood to make the staDons expressive of the region, and to provide warmth
Glass to make the staDons open, safe, transparent, and beacons of light
Because of our depth of community engagement and consistency of vision, we completed the line from design to operaDon in less than four years.
And under budget. A frugal romance.
And then we let go. Because these places belong to the community.
How do we measure success?
1. People get married at our transit staDons.
How do we measure success?
2. People think of the SkyTrain in Super Mario style.
How do we measure success?
3. People hold skateboard contests in our transit plazas.
How do we measure success?
4. People find beauty in our transit staDons.
How do we measure success?
5. So much so that they create art about them.
How do we measure success?
6. And create birthday cakes shaped like trains.
In the end, it’s about everyday life.
And love.
Thank you.
Alan Hart, VIA Architecture ahart@via-‐architecture.com
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