Congregated among the sofas in the downtown office of Urban Systems, members of the public congregated eagerly to listen and engage in conversation with the three design professionals who were presenting that evening: Blanka Bracic, manager of liveable streets with the City of Calgary; Maria del Sol Galdón, award-winning landscape architect; and Philip Vandermey, architect and urbanist founder of SPECTACLE.
For the professionals, who were invited to present examples from their experience of failed architectural projects, it was a request to be vulnerable, to expose their work and ideas to criticism. Yet, it was also an opportunity to receive feedback from a group of people who are not often present during the developmental stage of these projects, but whose lived experience is impacted by them. Blanka, Maria, and Philip embraced the opportunity—and we’re glad they did!
The three presentations used different aspects of design as their vehicle to discuss failure. Blanka Bracic presented an example from her work on the city’s cycle-track network, the web of protected bicycle lanes within downtown. Maria del Sol Galdón spoke of her experiences in residential landscape design. And Philip Vandermey, highlighted one recent project that he considers “paper architecture,” a hypothetical project, created not in response to a request for proposals, but to propose a “what if” scenario.
Through each speaker’s approach, the concept of failure adopted various forms and emerged as unimplemented plans, design afterthoughts, and even the fear of failure itself. The subsequent Q&A sessions with the audience, developed the concept of failure further, noting that it changes with the perception of the observer and the time and social context in which failure is considered.
UNIMPLEMENTED PLANS
a.k.a. failure to follow through
To Blanka Bracic, the unimplemented 1st Street SE cycle track plan was a failure. In discussing with attendees why it failed, and what could have been done differently, the conversation shifted to the definition of failure. For some people, protected bike lanes are welcomed, but for others they are not; their perception is likely shaped by their chosen mode of transportation and their thoughts on safety, convenience, and sustainability. Similarly, some people praise e-scooters as an alternate mode of transportation at a human scale, whereas others condemn them for the threat they seem to pose to pedestrians using the sidewalks. Is each of these examples a success or failure? It depends on how you look at it, we concluded.
DESIGN AFTERTHOUGHTS
a.k.a. failure to consider all
Maria del Sol Galdón’s presentation focused on one architectural design element that, in her experience, is often moved to the bottom of the priority list: landscape. We mold landscape around architecture, she stated, rather than the other way around. She urged attendees to ponder, What critical pieces are we value-engineering out of our design process, and how do we start including them? Audience members identified education, policy, and regulation as realms in which change can be enacted—though they acknowledged that it might take strong voices of public interest, design trends, and even the effects of climate change to drive those changes.
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
a.k.a. failure to accept risk
Using his futuristic, “paper architecture” master plan for Calgary’s Manchester community, Philip Vandermey discussed the potential for failure and how that relates to change-making. In a time where complete streets, mixed uses, closed-loop processes, and a thriving economy exist only in a utopian world, Philip wonders if proposals that claim to meet all of these targets are bound to meet opposition and fail. To combat this fate, he encouraged exploring how failure relates to innovation, and highlighted the power of radical ideas to spark change. He acknowledges that both top-down and bottom-up support are needed for these ideas to become reality. How do these ideas arise in the first place? By innovating outside of our silos, and by including various perspectives to mitigate failure and identify alternatives that can bring about the desired change, Philip concluded.
Photo: Christina Amaral-Kim
Photo: Christina-Amaral-Kim
Blanka Bracic leads the City of Calgary’s Liveable Streets division, where she helps develop multimodal transportation policy, projects, and programs. With degrees in civil engineering and urban planning, her goal is to increase people’s quality of life by creating an inclusive, healthy, and active city; a city where public space is more inviting for everyone.
María del Sol Galdón is an award-winning landscape architect with experience in a variety of types and scales of landscape design projects. In 2015 she launched her landscape design studio, where she collaborates with architects, builders, and homeowners to create spaces that evoke emotion and improve people’s experience of a place.
Philip Vandermey is an architect and urbanist. He is a founding partner of SPECTACLE Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism, where he leads award-winning projects of a wide range of scales and typologies. His approach to design combines local and international perspectives, as well as a passion for creating great, sustainable cities.
On the Boards is a a post-post-secondary crit, where participants do a 5 minute presentation in front of a small audience to incite critical dialogue. On the Boards offers a safe space for the sharing of ideas. Our aim with this format is to bring forward some of the challenges to making great work: what barriers do we face in realizing better concepts? What gets value-engineered out and how can we become better at fighting for details that matter?