I was not at the presentation and it has been many years since I have experienced the thrills of AMS council. Though, I have worked with Stantec Architecture- Specifically Ray Wolfe and Mike McColl- on the Student Centre project at UBC Okanagan (the one shown above) for the last four years or so. While the Student Union here was hesitant about our vision being eclipsed by the University’s Vision of what the building should look and function like (the Student Centre is a shared building with SU on the bottom floor and top two floors UBC) Stantec went out of their way to make sure we were accommodated.

As well we were worried about the cost, but in the end saved money by going with a firm where the Architecture, Engineering and Interior Design was under one roof. Finally and most importantly, they understood what the goals and direction of our Student Union within the huge administration and bureaucracy of UBC, first and foremost that we remain as an independent space on campus owned and driven by students.

While I was not at the presentation and I am sure there are many gifted architecture firms, I have worked with Stantec and I would recommend using Stantec Architecture to any Student Union.

If you have any questions relating to my experience please do not hesitate to email me at generalmanager@ubcsuo.ca . I wish you lots of luck in your building endeavour and look forward to the opening of the new AMS building!

Rob Nagai, GM
UBCSUO

As you wrote in your reviews of some of the other teams, you were afraid that some teams would underestimate the difficulty of actually getting the students engaged. We know it will be hard. Getting the attention of participants always is, but we have a lot of ideas about how to do this in novel ways, as you also noticed in our presentation. We also believe that we should keep the students engaged by giving them a worthwhile experience. Sipping stale coffee at a meeting might not be the best way to do that, which is why we often prefer to use technology to create a more playful participatory process. On the other hand, when furnishing the future, we wouldn’t want the students to just order from this year’s catalogue – we want to challenge the users! We want to learn from the future users, but we also want to raise the bar and make everybody think seriously out of the box.

We, the Danish part of our team, are steeped in what some academics call the Scandinavian tradition of design, which at its root is a democratic endeavour. It’s about consensus building, but also about passionately debating what’s important, and making the tough decisions to keep the result as simple and functional as possible. That’s the beauty of it. The Scandinavian design tradition has for a very long time also been about participation, inclusion, involvement, mutual understanding and ownership. That’s what our societies are built upon – why else would we pay half of what we make in taxes ;) Sometimes I think we forget to tell the full story simply because it’s just an integral part of the way we think – and do business.

At a more tangible level our team has been discussing not only the interactive stuff, social media, and using the website to engage the students. We have also talked about setting up a studio on site in Vancouver at the right times of the process with students actively participating, having students visit Copenhagen (and us at 3XN) as part of exchange programs, having interns at 3XN from Vancouver, doing workshops with students, take part in relevant courses, etc.

But we also want the actual engagement to be planned in close collaboration with the students. It’s not only the project we want to engage the students in; it’s also the process.

I hope this alleviated some of your concerns?

Rune Nielsen Stantec/3XN Team

I just imagine the SUB stantec/3XN might design as some amorphous blob resulting in a lot of under-utilized space. I understand that having open, airy space is nice, but I’m also keeping in mind that the money in the budget isn’t sufficient to build a building large enough to hold the entire program. Space will be at a premium and uniqueness of design won’t make up for that.