MVRDV, along with PWL Partnership Landscape Architects, Deltares, and Modern Formline Design have been selected as one of two teams to complete Vancouver’s Sea2City Design Challenge. The challenge is intended to inform the urban development and ecological revitalisation of the False Creek floodplain, a body of water in the heart of Vancouver that is home to a number of the city’s major attractions including Science World and the BC Place Stadium.

The Sea2City Design Challenge was created by the City of Vancouver to explore coastal adaptation approaches that respond to the challenges of sea-level rise and coastal flooding; to expand the city’s toolbox of approaches for coastal flood management, and to increase public awareness of climate change and sea-level rise.

The MVRDV + PWL team will work on the project in parallel with Mithun + One, with the area around False Creek divided between the two teams. MVRDV + PWL’s approach to the challenge is founded upon a diverse range of expertise, but a unified set of values. All team members share a passion for protecting, enhancing, and adapting urban waterfronts in response to climate change. They also all recognise that False Creek’s cultural history – as an important site to the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, as well as its role in modern Vancouver – is as important as its geological history, and are deeply committed to the restorative, inclusive, and respectful process of Sea2City.

The team combines the PWL’s broad experience of waterfront planning, ecological urbanism, and local knowledge with MVRDV’s global perspective and interdisciplinary approach to design, Deltares’s shoreline engineering experience, and Modern Formline Design’s deep understanding of Coast Salish values and cultural expression. In addition to the core team members, the MVRDV + PWL team will benefit from the expertise of WestMar Advisors for local foreshore engineering, G.L. Williams & Associates as local biologist, Happy City for socially focused planning, Modus for urban planning, and Goudappel for mobility.

At the completion of the Sea2City Design Challenge, the visions created will be taken forward to inform the city’s overall coastal adaptation plan and to be refined in concert with project partners, Indigenous governments, stakeholders, the public, and coastal regulators. You can read more about the Sea2City Design Challenge here.