Ecocity Builders charrette at Gaining Ground, Vancouver BC

October 22, 2009

Earlier this week, Ecocity Builders organized a sustainability design charrette for the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). A charrette is an intensive, interactive stakeholder workshop geared towards generating ideas and solutions to planning and design problems.

As part of the Gaining Ground summit, "Resilient Cities: Urban Strategies for Transition Times," Ecocity Builders is facilitating focused discussions to help BCIT's Burnaby campus into a Living Laboratory for Sustainability. Stakeholders ranging from facility managers, campus planners, sustainability planners, and architecture students and faculty came together to offer their expertise on scaling down the campus's ecological footprint by a factor of 4 in the short term and by a factor of 10 in the long term.

Before long, most participants realized that to achieve a Factor 10 reduction, a change in the system must be set in motion now, in order for results to be seen in the 5-10 year range. Some of the exciting ideas discussed at the charrette include daylighting Guichon Creek that runs through campus, retrofitting buildings with living roofs and/or walls, and providing housing on campus to further cut down on energy used for transportation.

Interview with Kirstin Miller, executive director of Ecocity Builders, at the conference