GATEWAY: 79 per cent of students, staff and faculty agreed
John Bermingham
Sun
The heart of UBC has just been won — or at least designed.
The University of B.C. has announced the winning design for its $100-million University Boulevard hub.
The joint B.C.-California project will create a signature entrance for the campus, and include a plaza and social centre.
It was the biggest architectural competition since the Vancouver Public Library in 1991.
Winning architect Karen Marler, a partner with Hughes Condon Marler in Vancouver, says the project will help provide students with a sense of the school’s identity.
“The campus needs that social heart and identity that people can recognize,” Marler said Friday.
“The outdoor spaces are the most important. The architecture takes a secondary role.”
The central plaza will be a large open space featuring a Goddess of Democracy statue.
“That’ll be the new space where students will gather if they think there’s going to be a rally,” Marler predicted.
The square will have a large glass canopy, big enough to provide cover in winter weather but still offering enough bare space for summer sunbathers.
An atrium will house shops, restaurants and an art-house cinema complex.
And a promenade down the boulevard will have its own “eco-stream” of reusable rainwater.
In a non-binding vote of students, faculty and staff, 79 per cent chose the winning “Team A” entry, compared to six and 11 per cent for Teams B and C.
University Boulevard is the centrepiece of a long-term revamp of UBC. The bigger project, called University Town, will house 28,000 people by 2021.
UBC vice-president of external affairs Dennis Pavlich says people living around University Boulevard will feel part of a special campus.
“This is the neighbourhood that really says that the people who live here are really part of the university,” he says.
“As you enter the gateway into the university,” he adds, “you are in a university town with a university that is leading in the world.”
Pavlich also noted that UBC is close to a deal with TransLink to replace the old bus loop with a new underground transit station.
UBC medical Prof. George Spiegelman, a longtime critic of University Boulevard, still believes the space should be used for students and not retail stores and restaurants.
“I don’t really care what it looks like,” Spiegelman says. “I don’t think you should put a commercial strip there.”
The 7.2-hectare University Boulevard is expected to be done by 2008, in time for UBC’s centenary.
© The Vancouver Province 2005
