Saturday afternoon, I joined a walking tour of the Olympic Village led by Margot Long, the person who designed the public landscape including the new shoreline of the Village, and Bob Kronbauer, Vancouver Is Awesome founder!

 


I was a little late so missed the beginning of the tour but it wasn't hard to find the group nearby.


 This bridge was built so that there would be no shadow cast on the water below!



Margot talked about how everything was designed to be useful, like benches with seats that extend beyond the arm rests so that people can use them to put things on.

To face the mountains or the sun? Why not both? That's how swivel chairs came to being and the lounge chairs that face both ways.

This structure was initially intended to have glass over it so that people can seek shelter from the rain...but they ran out of money and don't want to maintain the glass so they left it like this!

These fake rivets and metal bars were put in afterwards to prevent skateboarders from boarding around here. They thought that wood and granite stones would prevent boarders in the first place but it seems any surface is game nowadays!


The trees in the Village are actually planted differently than all the others in the city. Instead of just digging a hole and plunking it in, a layer of soil extends below the concrete so that the tree roots can go somewhere instead of heaving up the concrete. A lot of the ground is permeable to water as well.


Habitat Island was built to replace the shoreline taken by the Village for habitat compensation. It is probably the only spot in Vancouver where you can see the tide roll in and out.

 Same place a little while later with the tide coming in.

You can actually cross into the island. There a little trail there. Initially it was intended to be a real island but then what if people get trapped there during high tide?

This was something I didn't know about the Village: there is actually a wetland there! It was built so that it would clean the storm water from the Village before it drained into False Creek. Because of this wetland healthy herring roe was found in False Creek which hasn't been found in 80 years. It speaks wonders to what this little patch of wetland does to clean the water!

There's all sorts of wildlife that lives in the wetlands. Lots of ducks, sticklebacks and other fish, there were even a pair of river otters spotted before.

 We spotted this beautiful heron staying still for us at the edge of the water.






This area was almost not built. The park board did not like the hill because it's harder to mow the grass on.

This was going to be a basketball court but they ran out of budget.


These blocks have pictures on them that corresponds to the letters! F for flower, W for water, etc.



Because of the wetland, they didn't need the storm drain pipes. so they decided to bring it above ground and create this funky piece of art.





I walked around on my own afterwards and saw this community garden!



These dahlias are such a beautiful colour!!!


I loved going on walking tours. Margot was also a very good guide and interesting. I learned so much about the Village I never knew about before!