Upcycled Urbanism: an experiment in sustainability, creativity and public space (photo c/o Kellan Higgans Photography).

A few weeks ago, the Museum of Vancouver, the Vancouver Public Space Network and several partners invited people to Upcycled Urbanism. The  event helped enliven and transform a Downtown Vancouver street using hundreds of super-sized polystyrene building blocks that contained material salvaged from the construction of the Port Mann Bridge (located in the suburbs of Vancouver, this recently completed bridge is the widest in the world).

"MOV's Upcycled Urbanism challenged Vancouverites to do more than just talk about urban design, public space, and environmental sustainability. It brought people together to build their ideas in the public realm—but just for one day," says Charles Montgomery, Curatorial Associate at the Museum of Vancouver.

In the yard at Mansonville Plastics: raw material, ready for recycling into public design (Photo c/o Museum of Vancouver)

The Upcycled Urbanism project came together around the notion of 'upcycling' - defined as is the process of converting waste materials into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value. 

The project was born from a common aspiration to offer people new ways to re-envision public design. It was an extensive partnership involving UBC's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, the Vancouver Public Space Network, Maker Faire Vancouver, Spacing Magazine and the Museum of Vancouver.

With all of these partners on board, the public space party took several months of planning to execute. Leading up to the event, teams of participants from UBC's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture designed and built prototypes using the modular blocks of expanded polystyrene. The final design they agreed upon was some four-pronged star shapes and long pegs. At a series of workshops, teams then brainstormed, sketched, and modelled how to use these blocks for new public design ideas. 

In the end, the event was a great success, with Vancouverites, tourists, families and passers-by forming teams and building lounge chairs, forts, games, tables, towers and more out of foam blocks.

As Zanny Venner of the Vancouver Public Space Network explained, the event was an "all-out public hallucination."

"People are surprised at how much of an impact the material of polystyrene can make. You wouldn't necessarily think so, but it has inspired people to transform a street space into a unique and unexpected social landscape."

And don't think those foam blocks went to waste, according to the Museum of Vancouver, the materials are being returned for a third round of recycling.

You can read more about the process of planning Upcycled Urbanism here.

(photos c/o Kellan Higgans Photography, Josh Nychuk  and Justin Siu)