| It’s not news that Calgary’s urban development is booming. With an ever-evolving skyline of construction cranes swaying over multi-billions of dollars worth of projects going up in downtown alone, the city is entering a growth spurt unprecedented since the early ’80’s. Considering some of the work underway, or slated to start within the next year or so, the skyline of Calgary 2015 won’t much resemble the skyline of Calgary today.
With all the money being spent, and with all the potential that North America’s fastest growing city possesses, what will this skyline shape up like? Though municipal politicians define Calgary as "world-class," most in the city would agree that architecturally, and in terms of its urban planning, the city is lagging behind this lofty classification.
Byron Rich, an architecture student at the University of Calgary and vice president of the Calgary Urban Initiative (CUI), a local advocacy group centred around issues related to urban development and growth in Calgary, feels that it’s not only the volume of projects going up in the city, but their class that will contribute to the future cityscape.
"The bar is being raised. With a firm like Foster and Partners doing the EnCana buildings, Calgary will soon have globally recognized architecture here, and that’s going to affect the look and scope of the downtown projects that come after. What could happen here is exciting with the interests and resources that are present."
Rich and a group of eight colleagues, comprised of an interdisciplinary group of local designers, artists, architects, planners and students, created the Calgary Urban Initiative (CUI) in 2004 to promote the progression of the built environment of the city and to advocate for the improvement of architecture, transportation and urban planning and policy. Membership in the organization is open to anyone. It operates a website where members can comment on current local development projects as well as get information about upcoming events and meetings related to the design and architecture community.
"We feel that Calgary is at a critical stage in its history. We have the potential to grow into a truly great city. Calgary is pretty set in its ways – we are slower to respond to trends in design and architecture. One of the mandates of the CUI is to cultivate a better appreciation and awareness of the built environment for Calgarians – how the esthetic and shape of our buildings and streets affects people socially and even psychologically. We want to encourage broader thinking about the city’s spaces."
To further its agenda, the CUI maintains a website repository of upcoming projects for members to research and comment on, and the organization recently launched its first annual Awards for Excellence in Design to recognize great work locally and to encourage a higher standard of urban design in the city. The competition has a citizen’s award category of nominated works that the public can vote and comment on. The CUI board collects the comments and presents them to the design group responsible for the project.
"The citizen’s award allows the architects and designers in the city to get direct feedback from the population that their work affects," says Rich. "Our members narrowed down a list of projects in the city that are notable, and anyone can go onto the website, vote for the one they think should win and add a comment why."
CUI president, Joshua White, is completing his master’s in urban planning at Queen’s University and hopes to base his career in Calgary when he finishes. "There’s a bit of a brain-drain that goes on and that’s bound to happen to any city where you aren’t the biggest in the country, it can be hard to compete with markets that are several times larger than Calgary’s.
"But I think this is changing. People are recognizing that Calgary has turned a corner and is becoming a place where creativity can thrive. That was the genesis of the CUI. We wanted to encourage more of that kind of thought here. Calgary is truly a playground, like Toronto was in the ’60s and ’70s and like Vancouver of the late ’80s and ’90s. As a designer or architect, why would you want to go where the story has already been written, when you can instead be an active participant and shaper of it here?"
To get involved, or for more information on the Calgary Urban Initiative, go to www.calgaryurban.com. |
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