Great public spaces invite people to connect, linger, and belong. Our work is about creating the elements that make those experiences possible.
We are a united front. The Urban Experience Alliance is a shared exploration of how story, brand and design can influence our most beloved urban landscapes.
We are a growing collaborative of passionate placemakers and creative storytellers. Our alliance members represent different disciplines but are united in the belief that telling the stories of place is as important as creating them.
The Alliance
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Success only means something when it's built on the backs of the local farmers and producers who make our East Van spots what they are
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Through thoughtful design and responsible material choices, we create lasting public spaces that support the fabric of our communities.
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I believe in supporting the small, local farmers and producers who make our East Van spots feel like home.
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As an educator, I am passionate about helping my students understand how thoughtfully designed places can shape human experience, foster connection, and strengthen communities.
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Real estate has the power to influence how people live, connect, and belong. Our responsibility is to create places that earn that impact.
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Places people return to are shaped by people, community and local businesses and by the everyday rituals that make a neighbourhood feel familiar, welcoming and cared for.
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Our studio's purpose is to bring possible worlds to life. We exist to evoke feeling, engineer experience and activate that which can and should be.
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The most meaningful places emerge when we come together to co-create a shared vision, drawing on our collective experiences, perspectives, and aspirations.
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Indigenous art and culture reconnect architecture to land, identity, and the living stories of place.
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Urban design quietly shapes our happiness, influencing how we move, connect, and experience daily life.
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When Indigenous culture informs design, places carry deeper meaning, memory, and connection to land.
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Place is so very connected to the very notion of how we design and collaborate - both in our homes and in our neighbourhoods.
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When design prioritizes people and experience, spaces evolve into vibrant places that communities truly value.
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Cultural placemaking is the best investment of public wealth I can think of. Education, health, wellness, social equity, arts, culture, sustainability, civic identity – it’s an investment in everything we hold dear.
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Placemaking is not a science, it is a wonderful, collaborate form of art.
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Urban planning and development must keep up with the evolution of health and longevity
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Great cities give people real transportation choices so everyone can participate fully in urban life.
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Empathy is the most powerful tool a designer has, if we only have the courage to use it.
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As architects, we have a unique ability, and responsibility, to positively influence the social, urban and environmental fabric of society through creative placemaking.
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It’s always important that we mean something to our neighbourhoods and that our neighbourhoods mean even more to the people who visit us.
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People live and work in spaces, and move within and between spaces. The individual characteristics of space are vital in determining our quality of life.
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It’s our duty to produce the unexpected and tie it to a strong narrative. We want people to be excited to come to work every day.
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Development and cities need to believe in the economic potential culture. We need to put more trust in entrepreneurs to craft and shape their communities.
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We need to explore the cultural shift in local design from architectural banality to architectural vanity and whether this has contributed to making our neighbourhoods any better.
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Good design can be subtle, invisible even, reductive and restorative, not always an additive process. It needs no owner or author, but instead can be a collective of actions born from messy, slow and loving places with no preconceived results or anticipated end in sight.
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Human experiences in well-designed spaces will never be replaced by technology.
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The way we make and manufacture is changing. How do we connect the creativity happening inside drab light industrial areas to an otherwise vibrant community?
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Place has the power to connect and inspire. Where we are, inspires who we are.
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To play a role in fostering community culture through intentional placemaking, is both an inspiring and humbling pursuit.
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Clear placemaking should be the core of the development process. It drives our wellbeing and the narrative for our lives.
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Champion them and there. These relationships, the sensations of music, food and art simply move the needle. The people and places that colour your immediate life deserve to be celebrated.
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We are sensitive to our environments. We have an opportunity to affect ourselves positively by considering what we place around us.
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As neighbourhoods and cities evolve, so do their stories. How we tell them can bridge the gap between past and future, fostering a true sense of place.
Our Alliance Members
Placemakers
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Craig Stanghetta
Ste. Marie -
Andrew Emmerson
GBL Architects -
Joseph Fry
Hapa Collaborative -
Jess Reno
Nemesis Coffee -
Andrea Piccolo
Prado Cafe -
Jorden Foss
Steel & Oak Brewing -
Adam Mills
Four Winds Brewing -
Josh Vanderheide
Field House Brewing -
Janay Koldingnes
Edit Studios -
Taizo Yamamoto
Yamamoto Architecture -
Melissa Higgs
hcma -
Andrew Laing, Adam Krahn & Mike Simpson
Quarterhorse -
Matthew Thomson
Matthew Thomson Design -
Ginger Gosnell-Myers
Ginger Gosnell-Myers Consulting -
Ali Kenyon
hcma -
Laura Potter
hcma -
Mitchell Reardon
Happy Cities
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Cory Douglas
Modern Formline -
Miki Ellis
Niwa & Dachi Restaurants -
Sunny Hahm
Tandem Real Estate Strategy -
James Harry
James Nexw’Kalus-Xwalacktun Harry -
Derek Lee
PWL Partnership Landscape Architects Inc. -
Kelty McKinnon
PFS Studio -
Sebastien Panouile
ThinkL Studio -
Denis Agar
Movement YVR -
Camila Ramos
InformProjects -
Steve Bonini
InformProjects -
Nick Rossi
Kitchen Table Restaurants -
Spencer Coppin
Life Protocol -
Shanti Williamson
Modern Formline -
Stephen Whiteside
Niwa & Dachi Restaurants -
Seng Sengsavanh
Wilson School of Design (KPU) -
Trish Almedia
Green Theory -
Bella Franske
Green Theory