Nature
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall): Full Spectrum
On 25, Feb 2022 | In infrastructure, News, Project | By Admin
We took advantage of the beautiful February weather to go and see MERGE fully complete. This short video follows all 356m of the acoustic sound barrier that lies at the foot of Lynn Valley, between the Fern Street overpass and Lynnmour Creek along the newly reconfigured section of the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1). The twenty naturalistic colours used in MERGE represent a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area.
@solidrockfencing
@KCIKraftConsultingInc
@NVanDistrict
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MERGE (2022) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations
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MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: BANANA SLUG
On 08, Dec 2021 | In infrastructure, Inspiration, News, Project | By Admin
MERGE features twenty colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and Seymour River area, including the beloved Banana Slug.
One of our favourite images from the MERGE installation was taken by Jason Hardy from @solidrockfencing. Jason took this incredible photograph of an actual local Banana Slug sliding out from between panels in the Banana Slug segment just after they had been stored in a grassy area since the Spring.
Reconfiguring this section of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) is a large and complex undertaking and not without a one or two unforeseen challenges… such as the huge lamp post that was installed immediately in front of the ‘Banana Slug’ section!
Thanks to the friendly team at @solidrockfencing and @KCIKraftConsultingInc we were able to carefully reposition the Banana Slug panel and complete the 4m tall and 356m spectrum with the Banana Slug unobstructed 🙂
@solidrockfencing
@KCIKraftConsultingInc
@NVanDistrict
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MERGE (2021) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations
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MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: North Shore News
Many thanks to Brent Richter and Mike Wakefield from the North Shore News for this article about ‘MERGE’ #mergesoundwall.
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“For too long, it’s been a traffic jam through a construction site. But the bottom of The Cut is taking on a whole new look.
Artist Rebecca Bayer is putting the final touches on Merge, a 366-metre-long shock of colour stretching along Highway 1 between Mountain Highway and Fern Street.
It is one of the final pieces of the $200-million Lower Lynn Improvement Project, intended to shield the Inter River neighbourhood from highway noise. But it’s also now likely the largest single piece of public art on the North Shore.
“An acoustic barrier wall could be very mundane and boring, but my hope with the bright colours is that it is more interesting and vibrant from both sides. It can be experienced at a slow pace, but also a fairly quick pace if you’re driving along the highway, and it sort of blurs together as you drive by,” she said. “I get pretty excited by public art that really blends with the infrastructure or architecture, and it just becomes part of something that was already going to be there anyway.”
Bayer chose the 20 different colours specifically because they are found in the flora, fauna and landmarks from the Lynn Valley area. Bayer consulted with the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre to match colours with individual species like the red-backed salamander, Pacific chorus frog and licorice fern. She then tried out different permutations to come up with the pattern that exists there today. “There is quite an amazing pocket of nature right there,” she said. “It made sense to try to work with the natural palette in some way.”
On the Inter River side, the names of the species appear on some panels, which Bayer said she hopes will enable Merge to educate as well as beautify.
Lori Phillips, the District of North Vancouver’s public art officer who helped in the selection process of Bayer for the project, said it does both. “Merge is a perfect example of the magic that can happen when artists are added to infrastructure projects. Suddenly a rather understated sound wall is transformed into a dynamic public artwork that is free and accessible for everyone to enjoy,” she said. “The District of North Vancouver’s public art program, was thrilled to partner with the [Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure] on this project and we know that the residents of Lynnmour, along with the thousands of daily commuters and travellers on Highway 1 will enjoy its masterful merge of colour and story, for years to come.”
Even as sound barriers/art canvasses go, the panels are a “world-class sound attenuation product” designed to neutralize sound, not just bounce it away from residences, said Mark Hersey, managing partner of Solid Rock Fencing, the company contracted to install the 623 panels.
Today, there are just a few gaps in the wall, which will be filled when the final panels arrive from Europe, Hersey said.
The final components of the Lower Lynn Improvement Project, including combining the Main Street and Dollarton Highway on-ramps into one with signalized traffic control, are expected to come online later this fall.”
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Special thanks on this project go out to:
Jay Porter, BC Transportation and Infrastructure
Erin Moxton, North Vancouver District
Lori Phillips, North Vancouver Recreation & Culture
Tamsin Guppy, Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre
Rainer Kraft, KCI Kraft Consulting Inc.
Mark Hersey and Jason Hardy, Solid Rock Fencing Ltd.
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MERGE (2021) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations
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More info:
http://www.spacemakeplace.com/portfolio/merge-lynnmour-sound-wall/
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Colourful Transformation
On 17, Sep 2021 | In infrastructure, Make, Place, Project | By Admin
It’s been another productive week at MERGE. We want to offer a special thanks to Mark Hersey, Jason Hardy and the team from Solid Rock Fencing for their special attention to detail and careful installation of the 623 colourful acoustic panels. This project is starting to transform the landscape and has already made a huge difference in reducing the traffic noise level in the neighbouring Lynnmour community.
It is all coming together very nicely and everyone is excited to see the wall complete in the next few weeks.
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall – 2021), will feature twenty naturalistic colours which represent a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area. Merge stands at 4m tall and spans 356m along the newly reconfigured section of the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek. The acoustic dampening, sound wall sits between the highway and the residential neighbourhood along Keith Road and is clad in colourful powder-coated aluminum panels. The panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant, site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.
@solidrockfencing
@KCIKraftConsultingInc
@NVanDistrict
Whereness turns 5!
Spacemakeplace is celebrating five years since the installation of ‘Whereness’. Located near the Langara /49th Avenue Canada Line Station, ‘Whereness’ was commissioned by Mosaic Homes for the City of Vancouver Public Art Program in 2016.
‘Whereness’ provides a tactile link between the area’s geological past and its current condition. The bottom boulder of the sculpture is a granite glacial erratic, deposited at this address thousands of years ago as a huge ice sheet receded up the Fraser Valley. This very boulder was scanned and replicated six times, then stacked to form a visual puzzle.
The sculpture acknowledges the practice of piling rocks at certain points along pathways to guide travellers crossing the landscape. This simple custom is still common across cultures around the world.
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Waidhofen, Austria
On 11, Mar 2021 | In infrastructure, Make, News, Place, Project | By Admin
Thanks to FORSTER and Rainer Kraft from Kraft Consulting for their recent photos of the colourful acoustic panels that have now been fabricated at Forster’s factory in Waidhofen, Austria. Later this summer (2021) these panels will be installed along side 356m of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek in the District of North Vancouver.
The public artwork, MERGE, will feature twenty naturalistic colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area. The ~620 powder-coated aluminum panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria
MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria
Newly Planted: GIANT
We are very pleased to announce the recent installation of ‘Giant’, a 71’ tall artwork commissioned by PC Urban for the newly rebuilt Lightworks Building, located at 22 East 5th Avenue in Vancouver’s Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood.
At 71′ tall, ‘Giant’ represents a juvenile Douglas Fir tree, standing at the approximate height a real Douglas Fir might be in 2018, had it started from seed when the original Lightworks building was first built in 1942.
Our special thanks to Gerald Nimchuk and his great team at East Van Vinyl for their expert printing and precision installation. East Van Vinyl are located on 6th Avenue, only one block away from GIANT! Thank you also to Wade Girgulis, Project Manager at PC Urban and Jan Ballard and her team at Ballard Fine Art for this opportunity.
GIANT installation half way. The installation took place in two phases and took four days to complete.
On the doors at the main entrance to the Lightworks Building the GIANT image is fritted inside the glass panes for added protection
TTC Sherbourne: Tom Thomson Colour Palette
On 13, Jun 2018 | In Inspiration, Make, Place, Project, Research | By Admin
The Sherbourne Station Community Mosaic will use a set of 12 colours that are inspired by the palette of iconic Canadian painter, Tom Thomson.
Colour testing by Interstyle Ceramic & Glass of the twelve colours chosen for the TTC Sherbourne Community Mosaic
Thomas John Thomson, painter (born 5 August 1877 in Claremont, ON; died 8 July 1917 in Algonquin Provincial Park, ON). An early inspiration for what became The Group of Seven, Tom Thomson was one of the most influential and enduringly popular Canadian artists of the early part of the twentieth century. His paintings The West Wind (1917) and Jack Pine (1916-1917) are familiar Canadian icons. Thomson was a master colourist.
Thomson was one of the first artists in residence at the Studio Building, located at 25 Severn Street, in the Rosedale ravine immediately east of the above-ground Ellis portal that brings subway trains into and out of the north end of the Bloor-Yonge subway station, a short walking distance from Sherbourne Station. His studio’s site and positioning takes advantage of the northern exposure that illuminates the artist’s canvas with very even, neutral light. Completed in 1914, the nonprofit facility was financed by Lawren Harris, heir to the Massey-Harris farm machinery fortune, and Dr James MacCallum.
Thomson would spend the summers in Algonquin Park and winter at the Studio Building in a refurbished a workmen’s shed on the east side of the building that MacCallum had converted so Thomson could work in an environment closer to his beloved wilderness settings.
BOUNTY – public art proposal
“The [Burrard] Inlet and Indian Arm have been a source of sustenance for the Tsleil-Waututh people since time out of mind. Our Elders taught us that when the tide went out, the table was set. Industrial development over the past 75 years has made it impossible for our children to enjoy the natural resources that our grandmothers and grandfathers enjoyed.” – Chief Leah George-Wilson of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation
Native B.C. Little Neck Clam
BOUNTY is a public art proposal by spacemakeplace inspired by a quote from Chief Leah George-Wilson of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Her people have lived on the shores around Burrard Inlet for millennia. BOUNTY is intended to honor the commitment and spirit of many local communities situated in Vancouver, especially around Burrard Inlet, who are stewards of our waters, air and land.
BOUNTY Concept Image
BOUNTY abstracts a Littleneck Clam, native to Burrard Inlet, by enlarging it to the size of seating and then casting it in white Ductal®, an ultra-high performance concrete. Ductal® has a fine, shell-like finish and can render realistic detail but is incredibly resilient to hostile environments and so is a perfect material for use in public art where tactility and durability are important.
BOUNTY Concept Layout
The outsize proportion of the clam sculpture signifies the abundance, or BOUNTY of seafood that a clean and healthy Burrard Inlet can provide. Three clams are proposed to be clustered in a public plaza in Port Moody, BC. as a monument to this important body of water.
Alberta’s Most Valuable Resource
Albertan Sky
The land now known as Alberta, has been occupied by people for around 8,000 years. Until less than 150 years ago only the sky and the North Saskatchewan River dominated the views across the sweeping prairie vistas where the City of Edmonton now stands. The success of its continued occupation of these lands will be closely related to the stability and quality of the water supply.
Canadian Watersheds
The City of Edmonton straddles the North Saskatchewan River which has its headwaters in the Columbia Icefield, high in the Canadian Rockies. The river flows east across Alberta and Saskatchewan to Lake Winnipeg before eventually draining through the Nelson River into Hudson Bay.
Water runs through Canada’s rivers like blood through the country’s veins. Since time immemorial, people who have inhabited the Prairies have relied on the rivers to sustain life. The North Saskatchewan River is part of one of Canada’s most historic waterways and has anchored the urban and economic development of much of Canada’s western prairies.
Alberta Oil Sands
Alberta’s economy is one of the strongest in the world and to a significant extent its industries rely on an abundant supply of water. While the Saskatchewan River Basin was once predominately covered with wetlands and grasslands, population increases and industrial land use have placed heavy pressure on the water supply and rendered Alberta the most vulnerable of the Prairie Provinces to water shortages.
Red Deer River and South Saskatchewan River. Near Empress, AB.
This situation is compounded by indications that the mountain supplies of water are diminishing. Most large glaciers in the headwaters of the Saskatchewan, Bow and Athabasca rivers have shrunk by ~25% in the last century. Environment Canada has stated that the sustainability of freshwater supplies is a growing concern worldwide and it lists the threat to water availability in Alberta as moderate to high.
Cantharellus formosus – a social network
On 01, Sep 2014 | In Inspiration, Place, Research | By Admin
Pacific Chanterelle Mushrooms
Cantharellus formosus is a mycelium commonly known as the Pacific Golden Chanterelle mushroom and is native to the Pacific Northwest. The popular edible mushrooms are the fruiting bodies that form on nodes of much larger mycelium organisms that live in the soil and criss-cross the region in vast networks.
The Pacific Golden Chanterelle, like other fungi, are ancient forms of life. Pacific Golden Chanterelle share an intimate and symbiotic relationship with the West Coast’s conifer forests and especially the mighty Western Cedar. These two very different species support each other in a mutually beneficial way at a cellular level, giving and taking important resources that lie beyond each other’s reach.
Symbiotic relationship between conifer trees and Cantharellus formosus
The Pacific Golden Chanterelle is fed by, and in return feeds, the conifers while actively supporting its community, helping to support soil structure, regulate moisture content and recover nutrients from decomposition. The Pacific Golden Chanterelle lives off the land with its amazing web of branching, connecting hyphae and in doing so strengthens the surrounding landscape.
Conifer forests once fully covered Burnaby, BC and as early as 5000 years ago this area was the foraging and hunting territory for native aboriginal societies. The Pacific Golden Chanterelle featured in the diets of Coastal First Nations and they remain popular delicacies in locally sourced cuisine today.
Pacific Golden Chanterelle mushrooms still appear in local forests from July to December and are identified by their orangy-yellow colour, meaty texture and funnel-shape. On the underside of the smooth cap, the mushroom has gill-like ridges that run down onto its stipe, which tapers down seamlessly from the cap. The false gills often have a pinkish hue. Chanterelles have a mild, sweet odor, are very high in Vitamin D, Iron, Copper, and Niacin. It is interesting to note that Vitamin D is especially important to humans who live in places that can have low-light conditions.
Vancouver Networks
Since Settler times the landscape around Burnaby’s Metrotown has been transformed and today it is a busy urban centre and hub for transit and retail. Maps of Metrotown show how it is connected to its neighboring cities and communities by a network of roads, including the historic Kingsway, the Skytrain as well as many bus routes and cycle networks. More detailed maps indicate an additionally complex web of power lines, water lines, and communication networks that interconnect and support city life like a giant hidden organism.
Each pathway and connection provides an opportunity for social interaction and the sharing of ideas. Mycelium like Cantharellus formosus can be understood as an organic metaphor for the interconnected social networks that bind modern urban communities such as Burnaby’s Metrotown area together – each part connected to the next.
Richmond Barn Owl Nestboxes
On 01, Jul 2014 | In Inspiration, Place, Research | By Admin
Garden City Lands. Richmond, BC.
The 55.2 hectares (136.5 acres) Garden City Lands, located between Westminster Highway, Alderbridge Way, Garden City Way and No. 4 Road, is within Vancouver’s protected Agricultural Land Reserve and plays a crucial role as a wildlife refuge in the City of Richmond. The green spaces like is an incredible amenity for the people of Richmond and is also a vital habitat and hunting ground for several rare or threatened species including the Barn Owl.
Barn Owl
Barn Owls can and will cohabit with other owls, bats and small birds like doves and sparrows. Barn Owls prefer quiet cavities to nest or roost either in trees or tall structures with multiple openings. They easily take to nest boxes placed on poles or mounted on modern barns as long as the box is at least 3-4 m above the ground and safely out of reach from raccoons and other predators. Once Barn Owls discover a nest box it will normally be used every year.
spacemakeplace – concept rendering
Research shows that even a single nest box can mean survival for local Barn Owls and can help increase threatened populations significantly. The Richmond Nature Park, located only a short distance from the Garden City Lands, manages a Barn Owl nest box program with seven nest boxes installed around Richmond on behalf of the City. The three nest boxes located at Terra Nova Rural Park all reared young in 2014!
There is potential for at least one more Barn Owl nest box at Terra Nova and several other suitable locations have been identified around Richmond and earmarked for funding when it becomes available.