The Imagine West End Waterfront Vision Plan is a 30-year plan that prioritizes nature-based, transdisciplinary approaches to climate adaptation and sea level rise while centering Coast Salish values and culture. Vancouver’s iconic West End Waterfront plays a crucial ecological, cultural, and economic role within the city. Recently, sea level rise and intensifying weather events have impacted the waterfront through flooding, erosion, poor water quality, and damage to marine structures. Additionally, densification is increasing Vancouver’s downtown population and heightening demand for space along the urban waterfront.

The project was the most ambitious park planning project in scale, scope and budget undertaken in Vancouver, and yielded a Vision Plan, Illustrative Site Plan, and Design Guidelines informed by extensive site assessment and analysis, a Story of Place report produced by the Coast Salish Cultural Consultant, and numerous technical reports developed by the consultant team.

Our team took a comprehensive, design-oriented planning approach to weave together First Nations’ cultural and ecological knowledge, oceanographic dynamics, ecological complexity, foreshore engineering, and the design of diversely programmed public spaces into a phased, climate adaptive plan.

The planning and design process aimed to be a relational one with several workshops with the team’s Coast Salish Cultural Consultant and through Nation to Nation engagement. The team incorporated knowledge and wisdom from multiple intergenerational xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ voices. Three phases of public engagement were also conducted, with multiple strategies that included door to door meet and greets, a dedicated Community Advisory Group, public pop ups, open houses, and a love letter campaign.

In the Vision Plan, nature-based approaches to sea level rise and climate adaptation help lift and extend upland and intertidal areas to ensure resilience to increasing sea levels and storm surge. Park uses are clustered in order to develop resilient woodland, meadow, riparian, dune, mariculture and intertidal ecologies. The English Bay and Sunset Beaches are extended to ensure future use of these beloved spaces, and the seawalls are covered with gentle slopes to withstand storm surge and enable ecologies to migrate naturally upland with sea level rise over time.

Active park zones are consolidated and clustered. Additional new experiences offered throughout the park include elevated walkways and a bikeway over the riparian and intertidal zones, habitat islands for wildlife and paddling interest, terraced lounging platforms, playful floating decks, a suggested floating boat pavilion, and a sinuous upgraded primary pathway that passes through a variety of landscapes.