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Never mind the weather, many signed up and few backed down; people were ready to participate, including many returnees from walks from the previous weeks.  As registrants filed in, they were quickly introduced to Michelle and Danielle of Cygnus Group, a wayfinding consulting group in Yaletown that plans, designs, and implements wayfinding projects across the country.  Michelle, a Junior Project Manager, and Danielle, a Communications Manager, come from different backgrounds but are clearly joined by a common interest in design and wayfinding.  In their introduction, they presented the public with three layers of classification for wayfinding devices: deliberate, adaptive, and incidental.  Deliberate wayfinding deals with direct signage, arrows, and maps which help guide us across spaces.  Adaptive wayfinding devices such as public squares or public artwork serve as landmarks which help in navigation on a secondary level.  Finally, incidental devices are cues from our environment which often unintentionally helps us to find our way, many times through conjuring up memories.  Examples include trees, foliage, architecture, textures, or even smells and sounds.

After the introduction, we set out in our rain gear and headed towards our first stop in front of the Roundhouse Community Centre at Drake Street.  The first example of signage we encountered was the conspicuous blue parking sign above the inconspicuous white Roundhouse sign pointing in the direction to the entrance.  This introduced a recurring topic throughout the walk: what wayfinding resources exist in relation to the Roundhouse?  In other words, where in the world is the front entrance to the Roundhouse?  People quickly admitted their difficulty in finding the entrance to the community centre on their first visit, myself included.  Whether in building and site design, or whether due to lack of signage, the small, white sign certainly did not help as it felt like the last thing we would notice on the street.  If there was something we noticed, it was the large blue sign for parking which eclipsed all other signage on the street – ironic, as I assume a large proportion of visitors to the Roundhouse would be locals either transiting or walking.

We proceeded to the Canada Line station in Yaletown, a popular stop along many of our past walks.  This time, however, we discussed the importance of symbols and colours.  One child participant was quick to jump in: “What does the T stand for?”.  According to Translink, it stands for ‘transit’; the funny thing is that from the beginning, I’ve always thought it stood for ‘train’ as a short form for Skytrain.  I saw it being rolled out into Skytrain stations first (well, technically the Canada Line, but how many people really call it that?) and associated it first and foremost with rapid transit (like many other systems around the world using M for ‘metro’).  Most people agreed with the general meaning of the ‘T’ in its representation for public transit, but I think the embodiment of that symbol linguistically and experientially would be quite different in less obvious signage.  One example given was the typical informational sign marked by the letter ‘i’.  I say typical because it is known the word information shares similar cognates with almost all languages in Europe, all starting with ‘i’.  But how does this symbol work and function in other places?  Text or textual symbols, needless to say, can be installed with cultural and linguistic barriers.  Do pictograms solve these problems?  Catherine brought up this point about the use of these sorts of text-based signage versus pictograms in Vancouver.  This reminded me of the debate on the EXIT sign in the United States and Canada.  In these two countries, the majority of exit signs are red and in block letters while in much of the rest of the world it is a green symbol.  Which works better for wayfinding?  Arguably, green works as a colour of safety and the pictogram of a green running man appears to be more universal; at the same time, in North America, the red exit sign can be viewed as an image or symbol due to its familiarity.

We crossed the street onto the other side of Mainland and continued down the one-way street onto the elevated sidewalk, a remnant of loading docks for trains that passed through the area nearly a century ago.  Eventually we made our way to Homer Street, where Michelle and Danielle discussed the street’s developing specialization in design-related boutiques, firms, and galleries.  Following the likes of West 4th Avenue (Ski & Snowboard), South Granville (Home Decor and Furniture), and Main (boutique and second hand clothing), the clustering of similar businesses in Vancouver was always a spatial phenomenon I have enjoyed and been curious about.  The agglomeration of high-tech companies in the San Francisco-San Jose bay area (or Bangalore, India, to take this point abroad), for example, shows this phenomenon at a much larger scale.  The large pool of skilled technicians in the area stimulates a cross-pollination of ideas and an understanding through shared technical expertise.  In a similar manner, the development of special commercial districts in cities, including Vancouver, fosters shared ideas as well as healthy competition.  This also becomes an interesting opportunity for branding of neighbourhoods or districts, which can include forms of wayfinding.

An interesting aspect of wayfinding that Michelle mentioned in her concluding comments was the introduction of mapping applications that are changing the ways we navigate the city.  GPS and Google Maps, to name two prominent examples, drastically alter not only the way we move and wayfind but also on who we depend on for information and data.  Attention is diverted away from traditional paper maps and arguably also from the natural (or unnatural) environment, and instead, directed towards screens and computer information systems, often dependent on WiFi, GPS signals, battery, and actually, for the most part – Google.  I am speaking specifically about mapping technologies on a mobile platform because that seems to be where the growth is (Google Maps is already 40% mobile).  On a side note, GPS systems have famously instigated accidents where drivers have followed a right turn (or wrong turn) only to end up in a ditch or another accident.  Apparently, wayfinding can not only be quite dangerous, but also affect your brain.

That being said, Google Maps was, and still is, a brilliant invention. I certainly cannot imagine living without it now that we have its wisdom guiding us around familiar and unfamiliar cities and continents.  Layer upon layer of information can be displayed, not displayed, or stacked to show its informational brainpower.  Street View, for example, felt utterly intrusive on our privacy, but we seemed to embrace it nonetheless, if not for practicality then out of sheer human curiousity.  One interesting new ‘layer’ I discovered while mapping Yaletown one afternoon was the surprising new depth that Street View offered; in fact, you were able to step off the street entirely and then step into a store where products and other items were clearly visible in 360 degrees.  This seems to take ‘online shopping’ to another level.  You may be able to view a structured catalogue online but now you can physically see the store layout and products on the shelf.  How does this alter how we find our way on a personal scale and how we think of systems of wayfinding and signage on a larger scale?

As we headed back towards our starting point, we gathered together one last time by the entrance of the Roundhouse Community Centre.  Again, some of us shared our early difficulties with finding that tricky entry on our first visit.  What are the solutions?  Is it simply a matter of signage or is the confusion embedded into the site and architecture of the Roundhouse?  If a physical solution is beyond the realms of what is possible, could we potentially move into the digital realm to augment our reality?

This is why I joined the Artists Walking Home Re-Imagining Wayfinding in Yaletown project as an intern – happy to have an opportunity to delve into the workings of a very significant neighbourhood in Vancouver. Yaletown is a place full of history, community, and politics, and is the product of a rich composition of stakeholders, politicians and urban planners working together. I wanted to learn about all the hits and misses in a neighbourhood that is so young compared to others in the world, but one that has experienced so much change to be where it is today.

The AWH project this year is focused on the re-imagination of wayfinding systems in Yaletown. Although such is the premise, I, along with 5 other interns, have been looking much deeper than conventional urban signage. Through various means of exploration such as architectural heritage façades, community and social fabrics, and ecological structures, the four of us spent the summer understanding and navigating Yaletown through various lenses, in preparation for the delivery of 5 public workshops at the Roundhouse Community Centre during the autumn of 2012.

Aside from some administrative work, Aska Djikia and I have been working on bringing nature to the foreground of urban wayfinding. As we are both very much inspired by ecological structures in the city, elements such as water, vegetation, sunlight and shadows have all became tools for our critical interpretation of navigational systems. We believe that where signage falls short of successfully conveying information, ecological structures fill the need for guidance and heighten the sense of intuition that is inherent in the act of wayfinding.

Though Aska and I understand each other and the theories behind urban ecologies without question, the real challenge has been preparing to convey this potentially enlightening experience to the public. Preparing for our walk that will take place as part of the five public engagement sessions in the fall, Aska and I have tried several approaches of design for our curriculum development. What has been most difficult about this process was deciding on the form in which our research should be shared. As the event is meant to be an intergenerational activity, without a clear age demographic to target, we were challenged by what degree of complexity and level of interactivity our program would manifest.

Having taken our workshop development through several iterations, Aska and I have finally decided on an “I Spy Nature” game. As both of us are avid listeners of RadioLab, an American podcast series with its success and popularity built on converting complex scientific concepts into digestible information, we decided to make use of an exercise described on the show as inspiration for our activity in Yaletown. Simply described, our game requires each participant to co-lead a group of their peers on a walk following a series of  “natural” element on the streets, elements that he or she might consider to be strong wayfinding devices or landmarks. The goal of the game is to encourage participants to navigate through the urban settings of Yaletown using organic matter as wayfinding clues, without relying on conventional signage.

Coming up with the game and testing it out was a brilliant process in itself. Aska and I had to consider really thoughtfully how our perception of the streets (and what “natural elements” are) might differ for other explorers. This curriculum development process, as well as the entire experience of working with Catherine and the AWH team, enabled me to consider the accessibility of knowledge and information regarding our city. By forcing myself to consider the perspective of those who may not have had the relevant educational background, in a way I’ve also learned more about the city than I would have in an academic setting.

The discussions between my colleagues and I, as well as with our guest speakers, were refreshing and engaging. It was through this process of constantly reformatting knowledge from one context to another, through commonalities as well as the differences in the views presented, that often I was able to gain new insight on certain issues pertaining to our discussions, and to Yaletown as our research site.

At the beginning of my internship journey I had only expected a simple research position. And while I took some time to fully realize the nature of AWH as a community outreach program, I am glad that I have been involved in this experience, and that I was given the chance to consider a different, direct application for the knowledge I’ve obtained in my educational career as an industrial designer and student of architecture. The people whom I’ve met this on this project, my colleagues and my mentors, are some of the most hardworking, thoughtful and intelligent people I’ve had the privilege of working with. And I do not exaggerate when I say that this summer has been one of the most significant learning experiences for me.

Artists Walking Home is a program that reaches out to the people living in Vancouver, providing a tool for them to engage with their city, their home and various communities in ways that educate and empower. To all students of architecture and urbanism like me, this empowerment is exactly what we all advocate for:  a motivation for city dwellers to care and be aware and to invest emotionally in the quality of their lives. As I finish my internship with Artists Walking Home, it is a comfort for me to know that from what I’ve seen, people are aware and are eager to learn more about the place they live in, and that our job as designers, educators and facilitators is to make that knowledge accessible. AWH is fulfilling this role, and I am glad to have been a part of it.

Hsui-Chi Wang, B.Des., M.Arch. (Candidate)

Life is strange, isn’t it? We succumb to pressure and transform for the sake of conformity and social constructs. It’s crazy how deep in your heart, you can feel that something is missing. I think about the past few years and the effect my academic and professional instability had on me. It felt as though every single aspect of my life was being scrutinized: my culture, the neighbourhood I grew up in, the university I attended, the kinds of friends I was hanging out with – all the way down to my own skin colour.  My whole being was never good enough.

It is a beautiful awakening when one can triumph against any “mental slavery” occurring within themselves, when you begin to close your eyes and envision all the wonderful things that are within reach.

We’ve all had our fair share of diverse work experiences. Ones where we built resiliency, ever lasting friendships, hostility, and the hard earned value of a dollar; there are also those that caused an inevitable decline of enthusiasm due to physical and mental distress, the redundancy of menial work tasks having taken its toll on us. There are also people we’ve worked with and places of employment that resonate positively. I reached a point in my life in my early 20’s when I began to feel unchallenged, not wanting to continue working in retail, ready to move on to more mentally stimulating positions but I was disillusioned about my prospects and reaching my professional and academic goals. Yep, the quarter-life crisis monster had reared its ugly head at me.

When it came to my professional and academic career, I always thought of two distinct scenarios: running on a racetrack, and climbing a mountain. There I was, placing last and at the bottom, intuitively directing myself towards branches and rocks that were merely illusions. And then there were my shoes, constantly slipping and falling off. I felt like I was bending over to tie my shoes more than anyone in that race. I couldn’t help but look around and realize that everybody seemed to pass me by. I was losing grip on the edge of the mountain and hoped to ground myself on a stronger foundation.

I guess growth begins when you remove yourself from your typical way of life; challenges, coming in all shapes and forms can hinder your potential to succeed.  If you succumb to them, you become a lesser version of yourself, one that you almost come to accept as the truth. But it’s not. It’s a deception.

***

I was slated to spend the summer in Los Angeles to work as a Planning Intern for the City of Redondo Beach. Less than a two hour drive away from home, and having a huge support system nearby, it seemed all too perfect – that is, until I received the call that they would not accept me due to liability/insurance issues with my university. I continued to stay optimistic and determined to find a place that I could call home for the summer. Despite my core relationships being in San Diego, every now and then I grow restless and need a change of scenery. Every now and then my soul flies away and I need to search for it.

In the midst of my endless pursuit for the perfect opportunity, I created a spreadsheet of places I would inquire for internship possibilities, particularly in Los Angeles. Anticipating this pursuit was causing my brain to feel twisted into the shape of a pretzel. I realized I needed to expand on my geographic locales. I considered prospects to the east, as far as Toronto – then quickly dismissed the idea due to living costs and overall practicality. I thought of key spots where my relatives were. And soon enough, the brightest light bulb blinded me completely (in a good way). I have an auntie in Vancouver! I have always been intrigued with Canada from as early as the age of 12, which was the height of my teenybopper phase when I became enamored with imported Canadian CDs. I even engaged in swaps with Canadian penpals. Yup, I had it bad.

I vaguely remember my trip to Victoria in May of 1998, including a visit to the Butchart Gardens. Fourteen years later, I was determined to venture up to the Great White North in search of clarity and promise.

Somehow, I found the opportunity to expand my entire being with a potential internship in Vancouver, with a community engaged walking project exploring urban planning, life, and reality:  Artists Walking Home. Thinking now about the whole internship experience makes me want to cry – in a good way of course! So many years of trying to fill this void in my life, so many times I have voiced concern and heartache to my sister that I needed more depth in my life. There are only so many paintings and journal entries you can keep to yourself when you realize your creativity must be spread beyond the bedroom, before realizing that a university education in Design will not grant you all your creative desires. After numerous phone calls and emails with the Project Director and Curator, artist and educator Catherine Pulkinghorn, my efforts had paid off:  I was going to British Columbia for the summer to be a Planning Researcher/Co-Facilitator in Vancouver’s downtown. I was completely oblivious to the monumental changes I was about to undergo in the next couple of months.

As I ended my spring semester at school, working with project partners on designing a television studio in California, I was simultaneously studying the previous work of the Artists Walking Home and Walking Home Projects teams, writing rigorous reflections on that material, as well as researching the topic of Wayfinding, for my upcoming summer work in Vancouver. I could not help but drift into ideas about how my life in Vancouver would be, and how much it would shape me. I was ready to fly away. There was this virtual Vancouver world that seemed to be waiting for me. The connections had been established, I had succeeded in confirming an internship for the summer, and I had secured housing with my not too distant relatives in Burnaby. It blew my mind to see how this was all coming together.

It astonishes me to realize how far our creativity can take us. We become so fixated on one specific area of expression that we fail to realize how successful we can also be in other avenues. One beautiful thing about my experience in Vancouver was that I ventured up there alone. I recall vividly a time when travelling alone was incredibly frightening to me. I have since learned how much it can strengthen one’s personal development. The next 7 weeks were mine to discover.

My creativity within a university platform seemed to be at a standstill. The experience of collaboration is invaluable but somehow I knew I needed refinement and nurturing to further my skill set. After a great deal of negotiation with Catherine, the Re-Imagining Wayfinding intern team was confirmed to not only be summer co-researchers, but also to be provided the opportunity to be mentored through the entire process of conceiving, designing, developing and facilitating the presentation of a unique workshop curriculum at the Roundhouse Community Centre in the autumn of 2012.

The thought of developing my own curriculum and delivering it to the public scared the heck out of me.  Although I knew that I was capable of producing all the work and research necessary, I recognized how, by engaging in this unique project, I was now maturing:  starting to value academics and education more, by committing to learning the long and rigorous process of planning and providing guidance in an experiential education framework. Regrettably, challenges in my early years in university led me to avoid public speaking, so I was still a little worried about that part. Also I was never quite known for excelling academically (in the shadow of my very goal-oriented sister), and the weight of my flawed GPA still haunts me to this day. But the educational strategies used in Artists Walking Home are unconventional, creative, and not confined to a classroom – encouraging openness and learning to clearly articulate our ideas and feelings while overcoming challenges (with a tremendous amount of support from Catherine and the team) and developing excellent skills (writing, editing, etc.). So I have inevitably blossomed from this experience, finding myself in the midst of intense critical analysis and artistic expression, a new woman.

My experience with Artists Walking Home was much more than an internship. It was beyond anything I have ever experienced in my entire life. My intern colleagues were more than colleagues. Every conversation was golden. Catherine was my mentor. Her approach to learning and analyzing the world around us never ceases to amaze me. The most significant people in our lives are those that see the potential in us; those who have seen it all along. The ones that continue to challenge and inspire us, granting us the skills and faith to believe that with enough hard work and perseverance, anything is possible. They acknowledge what shines, and strengthen us during our struggles. There are only a handful of these people, if any, that come into our lives. Catherine, I cannot thank you enough for this experience. I now see the tremendous value from life’s challenges. Despite my academic and professional struggles, I have finally reached a point of security. You are one of the driving factors in nurturing all that I now have brewing inside of me for my future.

I owe much of my creative refinement to this whole experience. Each day I continue to challenge my abilities to write and express myself artistically. I can recall the sweetest tunes and happiest feelings filling my soul as I left my aunt’s house every morning to go to the AWH studio this past summer. I never took for granted the opportunity to take public transit to get to downtown Vancouver – a new experience for me – and something which has taught me so much after studying city life. Something inside of me told me to remove my inhibitions – all of the great moments and opportunities within this internship have made my soul shine.

My life in Vancouver felt unreal at times, due to the fact that I knew it was bound to end and I would return to San Diego. I had expressed my concerns about returning home to Catherine numerous times throughout our meetings. I knew deep down that I was returning to a place where the nature of my conversations would change again:  less depth, less consciousness, less worldly, that I was not going to walk as much as I had in Vancouver (I’d be back in my car- commute world); and that I would have a hard time finding peers with whom I could share all of my incredible experiences. I know there are a handful of people in San Diego I could connect with about my newfound ideas – but I’ve yet to meet them.

My perceptions of time and my values have shifted. There were moments this summer when I would stop abruptly and take the time to view my surroundings, breathing it all in. So many times when I wished time could slow down just for a moment. You know when you’re sitting in a classroom or waiting for time to pass and seem to notice that the hands of time go backward? Well, that never seemed to happen throughout my time in Vancouver. Fearing for the inevitable made time go faster.

I sit and reflect upon all the wonderful experiences I had throughout the internship. Something inside of me is making my soul grow weak – balancing the tensions of change and my metamorphosis. As I write this, I think about flying back to Vancouver in a couple of days to deliver my workshop: Community and Transportation, and returning to the special place that has transformed me. With my new ideas, I’ve observed the city as much as I could while being back in San Diego – but notice my disconnection to this city, since I am driving instead of taking transit and walking. I miss the experience of the Lower Mainland transit system. Who can imagine that the Skytrain and the bus would have transformed my life? Every conversation I have had with somebody at home, my stories about taking the bus, has ended with a “you’re crazy” or “you’ve got to be kidding me.”  And, believe it or not, I am now encouraging my friends and family to take transit. Nobody has taken me up on the idea – yet.

***

I think of running that same old race. I think of where I now place within all those runners. I look down on my shoes and realize they’re no longer shoelaces, but Velcro. I am no longer insecure of tripping and falling. I am no longer running a tightly competitive race with my peers, but a huge marathon with a variety of people, for a cause. I’m finally giving myself the credit for participating in the race. I am not sitting on the sidelines sulking, but running (and even walking) amongst a wide range of people. I bask in the journey, more so than the destination.

I picture myself back on that mountain again. I’ve scaled a portion I never thought was possible. Somehow my grasp becomes stronger when overcoming obstacles. Sometimes I lose my grip but it’s not that bad, because I know I can find my way.

To the Artists Walking Home and entire Vancouver experience, thank you for making my personal quest through life a whole lot sweeter.

This summer marks my fourth consecutive year as a Vancouver dweller; I moved here at the age of 17 to attend university, and would like to believe that I quickly adapted to the Vancouver pace and life. In my third year, I began to experiment beyond my comfort levels; as a shy introvert, many platforms seemed unattainable to me, such as public speaking, community engagement, and even just speaking with strangers randomly. This took a lot of time and dedication, observation and mentorship; I joined and eventually headed committees, became a member of the Students’ Union, and began to taste the thrill of public outreach and leadership.

Through researching for one of the student groups that I partook in, I had come across the 221A Artist Run Centre, and it immediately caught my attention; as the goal of this particular student-run association I was conducting research for was to create a platform for students, particularly in the design field, to expand their basis of networking and exhibiting both inside and outside of Emily Carr University. 221A seemed especially interesting to me, both as an exhibiting platform for local artists and designers and its Emily Carr Alumni origins. Though I had originally applied to 221A, I was redirected by Executive Director Brian McBay to the internship opportunity for their community project Artists Walking Home under Director Catherine Pulkinghorn. Looking through the website, browsing essays on walks surrounding the rich urban history of Vancouver with prominent Vancouverite artists, historians and politicians, I thought back to a course that I took in my third year, Studies in Humanities: Technology in Design. We had been discussing spatial cognition through altering ones’ path for frequented destinations, a derrive. The student presenting that day happened to be one of the co-founders of 221A and brought my attention to Walking Home Projects, the parent-project to Artists Walking Home. I was nervous, as I was still uncertain what the internship would entail, but I was compelled to find out more!

Catherine briefed me on the Wayfinding project; while I had never solidly worked with mapping and wayfinding, I had explained my various albeit brief experiences of wayfinding through planning for public installations, curating art shows and even working as a tour guide at Emily Carr – all of which, to my fortune, Catherine found interesting and relevant to the project! My first week I dove right in, learning the inside-outs of Artists Walking Home and the Walking Home Project, while communicating with Catherine’s other interns Christine and Madeleine. Under Catherine’s ruse, I became fast penpals with Christine, exchanging notes and reflections on WHP and AWH, as well as wayfinding, materials, public art reflections and the notions of getting lost with intention! I was immediately inspired by Christine’s honest and eloquent responses. Still adjusting to Catherine’s high expectations, I was scrambling to improve in the areas that needed work. For example, assuming confidence in my work and my decision making, writing with precision for an audience, and slowly picking up teaching methods from Catherine that would later help me become a better presenter, critical thinker and mentor to others.

While originally Catherine had informed me of the great opportunity to work on a personal project, I did not expect to be presenting my own curriculum. When she first proposed the project to Madeleine and myself, I underwent a series of convoluted feelings, ranging from excitement to pure horror at the thought of deciding on what the public would like to know, and then presenting it. I think at one point Catherine came short of swatting me on the nose with a newspaper as I juggled between my reservations and fear of committing to an idea that might turn out to be a preposterous disaster. Coming from a confused design background, I started out in Industrial Design, which progressed into Communication Design, finally culminating with a degree in Interaction Design. With my adamant passion for sustainability, I had tried to combine two vast and differing ideas into one 45 minute walk, which, ironically given my original nightmare, did turn into a preposterous disaster. Catherine helped me hone in my interest and drop one of the topics.

Pairing my finally decided-upon topic of water-based wayfinding with Sandy’s green-space project, we decided upon the workshop that we were to present: Nature in the City. All the while during the development of the curriculum, Catherine continued to lead walks, bring in sector professionals and teach us about the city. I was so tanned by the end of the summer, from the dozens of walks that we went on! Catherine prompted us to aspire to meet sector professionals from Vancouver, with emphases on Yaletown, where we heard from Cygnus Group, the friendly Roundhouse Community Centre staff, Gordon Price, Henry Tsang, Denis Gautier and thoughts and reflections from our very own team. Alongside the Youth Walks of Summer 2012, I came along on two Viva Vancouver AWH-Forbidden Vancouver partnership walks of the summer, that provided a fresh perspective on the luscious Granville Street. Thanks to Catherine’s attention to detail, and peer-editing, my writing has grown through the intelligent eyes and opinions of those surrounding me this summer. I have also had the opportunity to expand my knowledge of HTML and WordPress back-end under 221A Executive Director Brian McBay, and harness my communication design techniques through working with Denis Cymbalist’s brand standards, and now have the confidence to voice my opinion without Catherine prompting me with a cattle-rod.

I have always found hands-on experience-based work to be the most fruitful in world knowledge, taking opportunities to work with real-life projects whenever I could. Working with Catherine has been one of the greatest holistic learning experiences – as a mentor, Catherine had been attentive and malleable, adjusting to each of our individual strengths and weaknesses, training us to be better where we failed, encouraging us to excel at what we knew well, always giving her honest opinion and pushing us to do the same. I have seen Catherine cater not only to our four different personality types, but apply her impeccable ability to teach with large groups, sector professionals and even passersby; her unyielding resilience and hard working nature is a constant inspiration to me and how I would love to lead my life one day.

This summer, I have overcome challenges that I thought were rooted in my personality, and uncovered new talents I did not know I possessed. Catherine has truly helped me expand my comfort zone, offering me a plethora of resources from her own wealth of knowledge. I am also very grateful to have worked with these wonderful, brilliant interns who comprised the AWH summer intern team and the inspirational sector professionals who have each provided beautiful reflections on topics including transportation, urban planning, wayfinding, community, nature and architecture.  Feeling well versed in not only the factual history of Vancouver, but also the critical reflections of its urban planning, community and public art, I walk away from this internship with a stronger mind and an ecstatic thirst for more, as well as an unexplainable urge to blabber on shamelessly to all of my friends and family about the city. I am so eternally grateful to everyone who participated in and facilitated the youth walks, for the treasure trove of information I received this summer, and I am absolutely blessed to have worked with Catherine, Christine, Madeleine and Sandy, who have each taught me to think about myself academically, critically and about myself.

On a final note, over the summer, I jotted some reflections that I had in relation to wayfinding in my personal life. They are in no particular order and will remain dateless.

Eyremount at Eyremount
I went to North Vancouver this weekend with a friend of mine, to go on a hike. As we got on the bus, we knew we were headed towards Eyremount Drive at Chartwell Drive. Mounting confusion kicked in as we approached an intersection of “Eyremount Drive at Eyremount Drive.” We then left Eyremount entirely and ended up on Chartwell Drive. About ten minutes later, and with some guesswork on the part of the driver, we got off somewhere that turned out to be the right place. On our way down, we passed by multiple three-way intersections with four street names. In that moment, I was so grateful for Vancouver’s simple, one-street-has-one-bloody-name grid system.

Experiential Maps and Mental Asylums
My mother, a woman with a limited sense of direction, had finally managed to come visit me for the first time in four years – she had been to Vancouver once, to drop me off and settle me in at university. Beyond that, it had been too expensive for her to come up, until my graduation – a sincerely hectic time for me, as I was running around assembling the grad show, preparing for my graduation, and saying painful goodbyes to friends who, in the absence of my relatives, had become my family. This meant that on many days my mother was left to wander around Vancouver, alone. In order to avoid her getting lost, keyless and cellphoneless, I drew her an experiential map on how to get back to my place from Granville Island. I drew something that I thought was ingenious and intuitive – something that looked like this:

Drawing of my house
Straight line down 1st street past a bridge with lots of cars
Intersection with an owl and a garden
Walk sign across to Go Fish with a drawing of a fish and coleslaw
Battle through the seawall with the beautiful ponds on the right hand side and a sea monster hidden in the waves on the left
A massive bridge under which we stood with a right arrow saying “forget about the sushi”
Fin with a peninsula drawing of Granville Island with my mom (with comically curly hair) on it.

My mother promptly began to laugh at me, commenting that were she to show this to a stranger she would be admitted to a mental institute. We agreed to disagree. Often I think back to that map, as an experiential wayfinding device – no matter how insane it made my mother feel!

The bad part of DTES
Today at Tim Hortons, I was approached by a wide-eyed individual who immediately inquired if I was from Vancouver. With a moment’s hesitation, I answered “no…” but rectified my mistake almost immediately. While part of my mind was questioning whether I am indeed a Vancouverite now – with my umbrella packed safely in my backpack rain or shine, my biking sweater prevailing all other fashion sense, and perhaps most obviously my four years spent here with a complete love for the city – the other (non-ego) part registered that this man might be looking for directions. Sure enough, he was asking me about the neighbourhood, but the exact question was, “when does it get bad?” Of course, he was referring to the DTES, to which I explained to him that the intersection at Main and East Hastings was likely what he was referring to, and that at broad daylight at 10 in the morning there was nothing to fear about it. I feel my perception of Vancouver has changed drastically from the moment where I, too, once feared the DTES for its drug addled and poverty ridden reputation. After working in Chinatown for 3 months, I became accustomed, even endeared towards the neighbourhoods east of Downtown.

Take a left at the bush that looks like a dragon spewing fire
A friend of mine and I went to Deep Cove to go kayaking. Both of us, however, being broke recent graduates, dropped our jaws at the prices and timidly turned away. Lucky for us hikers, there was a forest at bay! As is our style, we ran in without considering directions, with one goal in mind – to recuperate from the rare Vancouver heat by finding water to swim in. However, as we did not want to go into the beach at Deep Cove, we set our minds to a quieter area. So we trekked through the beautiful rainforest, devouring huckleberries with almost no effect on the forest’s supply. On occasion, we would drop down to the road in search of water, only to find private property after private property. We finally succumbed to the mirages we were seeing of water and asked for directions. A very kind woman, brushing a lovely but yapping dog, smiled at us and explained that we had to turn around, take a right up on the road, go to the left of the gray house, walk between two ferns, take a left at the fork in the forest… Or maybe it was take a right at the middle of the intersection of the trees that looked like the three blind mice doing the limbo… no wait… My friend and I thanked her sincerely for the directions, which she gave to us twice. As we walked away, we both reflected that first of all, she had given us directions to the very place we had been trying to avoid, and second of all… well, I would have taken my sea monster-infested experiential map over a wayfinding novel about two ferns that look like battling hobbits that, while fascinating, gave me no sense of direction.