Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance – The University of British Columbia Vancouver Campus

11 December 2017

Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners Eric Damer, Historian

1 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 3 2. Study Area ...... 4 3. Brief History ...... 6 4. Key building and landscape elements over time . 10 5. Statement of Significance . . . . 16 6. Strategies for building on area character . . 22

Left: Google aerial of current playing fields Above: View north from Thunderbird Stadium parking lot, with Rhododendron Wood beyond Stadium Road Right: West 16th Avenue at Marine Drive

Cover, right: View of campus, looking southeast, 1959 (UBC 1.1-1600) with future Stadium Road Neighbourhood site circled

2 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

Introduction

This Statement of Significance identifies features that are key to understanding the Stadium The area of the southern campus now termed the Stadium Road Neighbourhood was at the time Road Neighbourhood and the cultures that helped form it. These features can be found both in of the university’s establishment literally a piece of the second growth forest that helped frame the neighbourhood itself and in the surrounding portion of the campus that lies roughly between the campus clearing. This forest became agricultural research fields and later the site for the Hampton Place and sea, and between Agronomy Road and Wesbrook Place. university’s outdoor stadium – home to football games and rock concerts – far out in the hinterland beyond B Lot. This area has seen new development all around it: botanical gardens, playing fields, The use of “hinterland” in the title reflects the fact that until recently the university has viewed the research facilities, and residential housing. southern end of the campus (once the south campus, now mid-campus) as a kind of back yard, a place to put things without the formal organization and access of the north campus. The entire But of course, the campus lands, including the southern end, have never been a hinterland for southern end of campus was accessed exclusively from the malls of north campus until the latter its Indigenous people, the Musqueam. This is their un-ceded homeland, a life sustaining ecology half of 1960s. The campus’s west, south, and east boundaries at its southern end were defined by of landforms, plants, animals, and traditional cultural practices that make the land part of the second growth forest edge, to be cut down as more space became needed. themselves. Campus planners considering the future of the Stadium Road Neighbourhood now have an opportunity to imagine the place as an integrated piece of the increasingly urban campus During the earliest years of the university, this forest clearing was harnessed for use as agricultural landscape, and to consider the ancient cultural stewardship that has long been ignored. By doing research fields, fulfilling part of the central mandate of the early university to support the province’s so, they may create a place that truly is no hinterland. developing agricultural economy. But over time, growing numbers of students and academic programs at the university required additional academic building sites; the sheer amount of space The study is composed of three main sections: in its southern “back yard” made the area an irresistible target for campus growth, and land was appropriated to expand facilities on a project-by-project basis. Most of the non-agricultural expansion Brief History of the area and neighbourhood in the southern campus took the form of recreational infrastructure and research facilities – both To understand what might be important elements of the area, the study begins with a brief history requiring large areas. of the mid-campus area, including what is now being termed the Stadium Road Neighbourhood. The back yard nature of the southern campus lands began to wane with the widespread postwar The brief history is accompanied by a series of historical aerial photographs of the campus with embrace of the automobile by UBC faculty and students. To facilitate automobile traffic and access development of the area charted over time. to the expanding research campus, Wesbrook Mall was extended south almost to Marine Drive Statement of Significance and character-defining elements while Marine Drive itself was widened to handle greater vehicular access to the southwest corner of the campus; as well, West 16th Avenue was pushed through the forest to connect the city, the The values of the area are expressed in the Statement of Significance, and supported by the campus, and Marine Drive. In just a few years in the late 1960s, the southern end of the campus mapping of key building, landscape and cultural elements over time. The statement and mapping went from being the inaccessible back yard of the campus to its main vehicular entry point. Much together identify what is valued and why. The mapped key elements can be interpreted as of the agricultural landscape was transformed into a vast expanse of inexpensive parking at the character-defining elements for the area, including the Stadium Road Neighbourhood, and are southern outskirts of the built-up northern end of campus. Daily student life was often bracketed by organized according to the broad themes about the heritage of the campus as whole that are a trek between academic buildings at the north end of campus and B Lot south of Agronomy Road. outlined in the Vancouver Campus Plan. The area had become a postwar suburban sort of hinterland. Strategies for building on area and neighbourhood character Since the 1960s, as the demand for academic facilities has only increased, the devotion of so much land to routing and storage of the automobile has been replaced by a denser expansion of the The study concludes with some possible strategies for the consolidation of the values and built campus into its southern end, including new housing for faculty and students and the wider significance of the area as the Stadium Road Neighbourhood is planned. community, plus amenities for those new residents. This expansion has historically occurred in a rather ad hoc manner as funds and as needs cropped up. The un-integrated southward expansion of the campus has resulted in a hinterland of isolated initiatives with little internal connection and with little definition.

3 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Study Area

ACADIA UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT LANDS HAMPTON

PLACE WEST 16TH AVENUE 16TH WEST UNIVERSITY BLVD EAST CAMPUS WESBROOK MALL WESBROOK MALL WESBROOK PLACE CHANCELLOR PLACE DOUG MITCHELL THUNDERBIRD SPORTS CENTRE

THUNDERBIRD PARK

STUDENT UNION BLVD

View of campus, looking southeast, c.1940s (UBC 1.1-115190) EAST MALL with future Stadium Road Neighbourhood site circled UBC FARM HAWTHORN

MAIN MALL PLACE RHODODENDRON WOOD THUNDERBIRD STADIUM

MID-CAMPUS THUNDERBIRD BOULEVARD THUNDERBIRD WEST MALL UBC BOTANICAL CONTEXT GARDEN

SW MARINE DRIVE STADIUM ROAD NEIGHBOURHOOD

4 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

Brief History

UBC’s Point Grey campus appears today as a large, developed, and bustling community negotiate with neighbours, and how to participate in cultural protocols. They listened comprising the western edge of a thriving Greater Vancouver region. However, the campus to the teachings of their Elders and learned their identity in the context of their lands. site was intentionally chosen in 1910 because it was a hinterland to Vancouver – off in Creeks, ponds, rocks, bays, trees, and animals all had cultural and spiritual significance the woods of Point Grey, surrounded by ocean and stunning mountain scenery, a place to the Musqueam. Although decimated in large numbers by disease introduced by Spanish unsullied by the commercial interests of town, and with acreage that provided both a and British visitors in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Musqueam buffer from the city and room for future academic research in service of the provincial lived on lands that until 1858 “were overwhelmingly a Native place” that made the economy. As the UBC campus took shape in the early years, a populated north campus, trading post at Fort Langley a few miles upstream merely an “island of British control.” with teaching, administration, and, to a small extent, student laboratory facilities defined After 1858, however, the Fraser River gold rush prompted a rush to colonize the province, the core of the institution, while agricultural fields and barns for research on the different mainly by British subjects, and relegate Native peoples to an inferior status living on facets of agriculture spread out over the university’s own “hinterland” at the south end of marginal reserves. By the time UBC’s site had been chosen, the original inhabitants had the campus. Over time, however, the hinterlands diminished as postwar Vancouver took largely been pushed off their traditional lands and onto a nearby reserve where they to the automobile, and as research, teaching, recreational, and administrative facilities were suppressed for many years by the settler society. UBC, as early campus plans spilled southward onto the former agricultural fields and forest. By 2000, the UBC south show, was conceived very much as an imperial university, complete with a permanent campus included residential neighbourhoods that suggested it was no longer a hinterland parade ground and drill hall for military cadets. A British publisher had even suggested at all, but a homeland to the new, long-term occupants. Meanwhile, members of the to Premier McBride, himself a staunch supporter of British imperialism and Canada’s university community were increasingly aware that the UBC campus had always been imperial role, that the university be named to honour King George V. Nowhere did the the homeland of the Musqueam, who insisted on a place in directing the future of the plans consider or include local Indigenous people who, like others living in British campus. Columbia, never ceded their lands through treaty or any other means. The Musqueam The first inhabitants continued to live on the outskirts of the university and continued to use the natural resources of their ancestral home. Those who chose Point Grey as the site for the university were not the first to recognize the outstanding beauty and educational potential of the land. For thousands of Establishing a Campus years before Europeans arrived, the Musqueam had lived on and around “Point The University of British Columbia came into the world slowly. Plans to build a university Grey” as part of an ancient eco-system, sustaining themselves on the abundant first arose in the 1870s, but were hampered for several decades by a shortage of funds, natural resources and creating a rich culture. According to the archeological record, low demand by a small settler population, weak government commitment, and, above people came to the region following the retreat of the last ice sheets some 10,000 years all, competition between university supporters on Vancouver Island and in the Lower ago, settling along the recently opened coastal waterways and river deltas. Unlike Mainland. The first serious attempt to create a university in 1891 fell apart due to a the land south of the Fraser River, however, Point Grey was solid glacial till rising regional rivalry. Yet a small but influential group of BC residents continued to press for nearly 100 metres above the ocean. The Musqueam and neighbouring groups a state-controlled, non-religious provincial university that would provide both liberal including the Squamish and Tslei-Waututh have lived in the area ever since or, as arts education and scientific and professional education in agriculture, engineering, the Musqueam put it, from time immemorial. The Musqueam had occupied their village medicine, and other practical areas of material and economic significance. Several at present-day Marpole for over four thousand years before western contact. small colleges opened in Victoria, Vancouver, and New Westminster during the 1890s The land and water of the Musqueam homeland provided resources for hunting, fishing, to satisfy the increasing demand for higher education, but the decision by Vancouver trapping, and gathering to supply the people with food, medicine, tools, and other items and then Victoria High School to affiliate with McGill University in Montreal provided an of material culture, while the raised headland and bluffs jutting into the ocean provided indirect path toward the provincial university. As the BC economy improved in the early look-out posts and defensive barricades against raids from more northerly peoples. 1900s and Richard McBride’s Conservatives introduced party discipline to strengthen its Young Musqueam were taught how to use and respect these resources, how to trade and grip on power, the provincial government and McGill University created a local college

5 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

in Vancouver (“McGill BC”) to provide several years instruction in Classics, literature, vegetable and fruit growing techniques, cheese-making, egg-laying and poultry health, modern languages, and applied science, notably mechanical engineering. The provincial cattle breeding, and other developments to help BC farmers and agricultural workers. university, legislated into existence in 1908, would adopt much of the same curriculum. Although some of the research was directly applicable to practical farming, faculty also Choosing a location for the new university presented an additional hurdle, as sectionalism conducted basic research in biochemistry and other biological sciences. had scuttled earlier plans. The provincial government appointed a selection committee Thus, UBC had two ends to its campus: a developed northern end, which contained in 1910 comprising university leaders from other Canadian universities to review various the original Main Library and Science buildings to which were added semi-permanent possible sites. After a short tour of the province, the committee quickly recommended a buildings to provide classrooms, offices, teaching laboratories, and, thanks to student location near the economic, industrial, and population centre of the province – Vancouver. initiative, a sports field and gymnasium; and a peripheral southern end with its barns, The UBC site selection committee included agriculturalists who believed strongly in local sheds, fields, and livestock beginning just north of Stores Road, about midway between agricultural productivity, so they chose Point Grey because of its open areas and good today’s University Boulevard and Agronomy Road. UBC administrators during the late soil useful for the study of agronomy (crops and soil), animal husbandry (beef cattle, 1920s planned to expand university facilities in the northern end to accommodate dairy cattle, swine, etc.), and poultry science. At the same time, Point Grey satisfied a additional areas of teaching as enrollment at UBC grew. The southern end, however, small number of university supporters who believed that higher education should take would remain very much the same for many decades as a sort of hinterland area with place in a pastoral setting set away from industrial and urban ills if it were to develop the agricultural facilities extending from Stores Road to a little south of today’s Thunderbird “character” of young men and women. Point Grey, as Vancouver’s hinterland, satisfied Boulevard, at the edge of second-growth forest. In 1923, the provincial government this criterion as well. The government passed legislation to secure the tip of Point Grey swapped its university endowment lands in BC’s interior (set aside by legislation in 1907) for the new university. for additional land on Point Grey east of the original campus, which was largely intended Much of the old-growth forests of Point Grey had already been logged, but removal of old for residential development to provide income for the university. logs, stumps, brush, and second-growth forest proceeded on the university’s future home Postwar Boom after 1910. Following an architectural competition to build a grand, imperial university Development of the more populated northern campus had to wait for the Depression and (dubbed a “Cambridge on the Pacific” by the first President, Frank Wesbrook), work Second World War to pass. During the 1930s, the government put UBC on a starvation began on the library and science buildings. With little warning, however, the economy budget that forestalled any new facilities. Students funded a new stadium in 1937, while began to decline sharply in 1913, and progress on the university buildings slowed. during the war they raised funds for a student centre, Brock Hall (1940). Members of the When war broke out in Europe the following year, construction at UBC halted, forcing Officers’ Training Program paid for an Armoury (1941), while the federal government paid the university to open in 1915 in shabby wood-framed buildings next to the Vancouver to convert a depression relief camp into housing for servicemen taking special courses General Hospital, where McGill BC had run its classes. (1941). Following the war, the university acquired dozens of decommissioned army A North and a South Campus camp buildings and placed them around the campus, pushing the agricultural facilities Although UBC opened to students in temporary Vancouver quarters, activity on Point a little further south, on the other side of Stores Road. These “huts” were unglamorous Grey continued, mostly on the south (and slightly east) end of the future campus. A but functional, providing classrooms and offices to accommodate the surge of postwar few barns and other rough buildings were built beginning in 1915, while the Provincial students. One new student residence, Totem Park (1948), also pushed southward along Botanist, John Davidson, began establishing UBC’s botanical gardens in 1916. By 1917 the west side of campus, near Marine Drive. the Dean of Agriculture had hired faculty who began establishing experimental fields and During the postwar student enrollment surge, the province and a few private-sector pasture for livestock. By the time the government resumed building the UBC campus and benefactors provided new funds to begin a long-awaited development program. Some students moved to their new home in 1925, the southern end of the campus contained eleven new buildings were built between 1946 and 1949, with over twenty added during experiment fields for the Departments of Horticulture, Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, the 1950s. The majority of these were in the north end of the campus, which created Poultry Husbandry, and Dairying, and a dairy barn, beef barn, piggery, and poultry plant. space for new teaching programs (e.g. pharmacy), expanded others (e.g. engineering), Although the university was fairly small in terms of students and staff, the Faculty of and filled many of the empty lots on campus. Faculty research, hitherto a marginal Agriculture was rather disproportionately large when compared to the low number of activity for most faculty, was now taken seriously as new laboratories and other research students enrolled in the Faculty, yet it housed one of the most active research programs facilities were included in the new buildings. By 1960, most of the north campus holes at the university. During the 1920s the Faculty contributed to grain and alfalfa production, had been filled, so campus developers started to look south, toward the open spaces

6 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

occupied by the various agricultural departments. relationship between Indigenous peoples and the settler society. Although new buildings continued to go up in the north campus, some began to locate Sport was an important part of many student’s lives from the 1950s on, whether in élite southward. The MacLeod Building for the Department of Electrical Engineering (1964), or intramural competition, or simply for recreation. As one legacy of the war, first-year for example, was built a little south of the existing campus at the time, on space once students were required to take a physical education class until the 1960s when rising occupied by poultry research facilities. The deliberate expansion of the north campus, numbers made this impractical. Several UBC administrators were also keen to make motivated by increasing student numbers, academic ambition, and a greater appreciation UBC a gatekeeper to professional sport, especially “American” football, and attract of applied research by BC’s industrial sector, was facilitated by fundraising and matching the private funding that could accompany a successful, high-profile sports program. government funds. A decade of rapid construction from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s This scheme never really materialized, however; UBC spent a couple of unimpressive pushed the agricultural research facilities even further south. years in an American college football league before backing away from that ambition, At the same time, two other forces began to impact the south campus agricultural fields. although it would resurface later. The old stadium came in handy to host events during One was the rise of the automobile. In earlier times, the low number of motorists to the 1954 British Empire Games, as did the new Empire Pool built for the occasion next campus (mostly faculty and administrators) accessed the campus primarily via University to the War Memorial Gym. Such events drew considerable positive publicity to a growing Boulevard and found enough parking on lots near the northern edge of campus near university, exactly what President Norman MacKenzie (1944–1962) wanted. Marine Drive (and were permitted to drive down Main Mall). During the 1950s, however, By the late 1960s, as the north campus began to fill, the fields and some of the sports larger numbers of students came to the university in a car. Campus through-streets were facilities on the north campus were replaced with facilities to house academic and blocked to vehicular traffic and large lots were placed in between agricultural buildings administrative activities. UBC’s President from 1962 to 1967 worked to enhance the south of Stores Road. Thus began the legendary “B Lots” so well known to several university’s scholarly mission, strengthening research and graduate programs; he was decades of students (although UBC also had a A, C, and D Lots). not a great booster of sport for its own sake. The old stadium came down in 1968 to The other force was the relocation of student sport fields and gymnasiums to the south make way for the Student Union Building; the old (women’s) gymnasium came down in campus. The old facilities had served students well. Students had been responsible for 1971 for Buchanan Tower. The new General Services Administration Building was built the first facilities – a playing field for the new campus in 1924 (not the highest quality, but on top of earlier tennis courts in 1969. But students had invested considerable time, serviceable nonetheless), a gymnasium in 1929, and a stadium in 1937 built at the north- energy, and money in the facilities, and sport was a popular aspect of university life east corner of University Boulevard and East Mall. During these years, UBC athletes that brought popular support – and sometimes money – to the university, particularly had won considerable success in local, national, and even international competitions. from alumni. The sport and recreational facilities had to go somewhere and space was During the Depression, the university had launched a very popular and inexpensive found for them in the south campus. The university built a new Thunderbird Winter recreational program of intramural competition. In the first couple of decades of UBC, Sports centre (1965), a new Thunderbird Stadium (1967), a new Physical Education sport was influenced by the shadow of the First World War, which presented an ideal of Centre (Osborne Gym, 1970/72), a rugby pavilion, a race track, and several fields and the “soldier-scholar-athlete”; indeed, many of the university’s top athletes in the early tennis courts named for alumni and emeriti who had been athletes or athletic boosters, 1920s were veterans. Although this ideal was very masculine, UBC’s female athletes who were often financial benefactors. The new stadium provided a home for sports were surprisingly active and successful considering the secondary status given them (particularly soccer, football, and rugby), rock concerts, and cultural events. by the rest of the university community. Interestingly, it was through sport that UBC Of course, agriculture had to move from its former location. Animal husbandry found remembered Indigenous peoples, as students appropriated the name “Thunderbirds” a new home in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island when, in 1962, a New York from west coast cultures for their team identity. During the Second World War, physical stockbroker donated almost 1,800 acres of land to the university for that purpose. education again appeared vital to the war effort as students undertook compulsory military The property became the Oyster River Research Farm, where the re-named Faculty training. Following the war, students helped raise funds for a new gymnasium to serve a of Agricultural Sciences (after 1969) would conduct much of its research into cattle growing sports program and provide a memorial to war casualties, particularly students breeding and dairy farming until the late ’nineties. Other plans had been afoot since from UBC. When the War Memorial Gym opened, women were given the use of the old the early 1960s to move other agricultural facilities further south, past 16th Avenue (1929) gymnasium. About this time, playing fields acquired names honouring athletes, which had become a main access road to the campus. By 1966, plans for this new area alumni, emeriti, and benefactors, who were often the same person. Local First Nations showed the location for various agricultural research facilities, including plant science, in 1948 asserted their presence at UBC by formally and publicly sanctioning the use of poultry science, botany, and forestry. As of 1973, however, some of the old agricultural the name “Thunderbirds” for sports teams as a few UBC faculty began to reconsider the facilities, like the poultry barns, remained between the new Thunderbird Stadium and

7 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

the Osborne Gym; some original barns remain today, refurbished and repurposed. The political assertiveness, did not. Botanical Garden also moved from the northern end of campus to a new location adjacent By the 1990s, UBC had also come under the jurisdiction of the Greater Vancouver Regional to the Thunderbird Stadium, freeing up space for academic purposes. District and had to consider new values for sustainability and public consultation as dictated The new area south of 16th Avenue had other residents. Perhaps most impressive was by the District’s “Livable Region” plan. UBC’s Official Community Plan in 1997 and the the new TRIUMF particle physics accelerator, the world’s largest cyclotron, launched in subsequent Memorandum of Understanding between UBC and the GVRD (2000) showed 1969 but not operational until 1974. Nearby was the new BC Research Council laboratory increased concerns for municipal-style planning and for campus housing while pursuing (1969), moved from a more central location in the north campus where it had been built academic and educational “excellence” and building the university’s endowment. Eight in 1951 as a spin-off from the Wartime Metals Research Board. Although ground-breaking areas around the university campus were identified as future residential neighbourhoods, research into nucleic acids had been done by BC Research Council scientists in the late including the south campus near 16th Avenue. The area occupied by the new UBC Farm (a 1950s, the Council was not a core element in UBC’s academic program so was moved to much smaller reminder of the earlier experimental fields) was marked as “future housing the periphery of the campus. UBC Buildings and Grounds also reserved space in the new reserve.” A mixture of housing – student, faculty, and market – would lessen student southern end of the campus. commuting, attract international students, create “community,” provide faculty housing (a Millennial Surge great recruitment incentive given the high cost of housing in Vancouver), and generate income for the UBC endowment through rentals and condominium sales (although much Development of the southern end of campus became relatively quiet for several decades of it was leasehold property). The mid- and south campus seemed ideally suited to new as the funding that fueled the growth of the late 1960s and early 1970s dried up and residential development. enrollment numbers stabilized. The earlier agricultural fields (now called “mid-campus”) became the home of sports centres and playing fields, the UBC Botanical Gardens, and One early initiative in the mid-campus was the new Thunderbird Residences (1995) for parking lots. A few additional research facilities went into the “new” south campus in students, built on parking lots south of Agronomy Road. Not long after, construction of the mid-1980s when provincial and federal governments sponsored “Discovery Parks” the much larger Hawthorne Place development began, providing rental suites for faculty to encourage university-industry liaison. Among the non-UBC laboratories built were and staff when it opened in 2007. Also built on former parking lots and almost reaching pulp and paper research facilities (Paprican, 1985), followed by a federal laboratory of the Thunderbird Stadium, Hawthorne Place was named for the founder of UBC’s program the National Research Council in 1995. Similarly, on the mid-campus, near Thunderbird in anthropology and architect of the landmark “Hawthorne Report” on Canada’s Aboriginal Stadium, were built forest products laboratories Forintek and FERIC (1990). Otherwise, peoples. The new housing development presented a suburban and family-friendly little changed in the southern end of the UBC campus. neighbourhood environment, including pedestrian and cycling paths, green space, and a community centre. To make up for lost parking, UBC built a new parkade next to the After the mid-1990s, however, the pace of construction at UBC picked up, sparked by Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre; most of the sports facilities remained. In 2005, the successful fundraising efforts, new matching-donation government schemes for research largest and most ambitious development plan gained approval for the south campus, facilities, and philanthropic donations that were larger and more numerous than ever. south of 16th Avenue. Wesbrook Place promised to be a community of townhouses and UBC’s central administration had promised to enhance the university’s stature as a “world apartments complete with a secondary school, a grocery store, recreation amenities, class” research and teaching institution, funding expansion by embracing private-sector professional offices, and green space that would eventually accommodate over 12,500 partnerships and commercial activities as never before. The university even created a students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and members of the general public in a mix private corporation in 1988 to acquire, develop, and manage its properties, beginning of townhouses and apartments. Some of the upscale units were leasehold sales, some with Hampton Place at the eastern edge of the southern campus, an upscale development were rentals at market rates, and some were rentals at non-market rates; the majority of of lease-held condominiums with proceeds supporting research at UBC. Protesters feared residents had to be affiliated with UBC. By the time Wesbrook Place was under way, the that UBC might turn the entire endowment lands into an urban neighbourhood, ruining province had transferred regulative authority for the campus plan from the GVRD to UBC what had informally become a favourite park on the west side of Vancouver, by then a which became the sole development authority (but with Ministerial oversight). Residents large, cosmopolitan city adjacent to the university. In 1989, the province stemmed these first moved into the “world class neighbourhood” of award-winning, sustainable designs fears somewhat by creating Pacific Spirit Park, transferring land and responsibility to the circa 2008 as construction continued. However, protestors in 2009 halted plans to build Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), a relatively recent authority, and setting on the UBC Farm site, forcing developers to redistribute floor space to other campus an eastern boundary to south campus development. Although many people supported neighbourhoods. the new “wilderness” park, the Musqueam First Nation, which had grown in numbers and

8 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

Meanwhile, the sports facilities in the mid-campus had renovations and upgrades. In 2001, References consulted donations from Lee Wright to improve Logan field with artificial turf resulted in a name change to Wright Field. The Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre re-opened in 2008 after a “Musqueam and UBC,” UBC: A Place of Mind, http://aboriginal.ubc.ca/community-youth/ serious make-over thanks to a donation from alumnus Doug Mitchell, making the facility musqueam-and-ubc/ suitable to host events for the 2010 Olympics and other international events. The facility “UBC Thunderbird Sports Centre named in honour of hockey builder Doug Mitchell.” UBC was re-named to recognize the benefactor. The soccer pitch also received improvements News, 21 August 2009. in 2008 while in early 2009, UBC built it first baseball diamond, coincidentally the first Basso, Keith H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western artificial baseball field in the province. Later that year the Rashpal Dhillon Track and Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Field Oval was built thanks to a gift from the Dhillon family. Many of the other fields, however, remained as they had been earlier and retained the names of various UBC Cowan, Micki. “Wesbrook Place changes met with petition and protest letters.” The alumni and emeriti. The Botanical Garden similarly remained south of the Thunderbird Ubyssey, 14 October 2011. Stadium. Damer, Eric and Herbert Rosengarten. UBC: The First 100 Years. Vancouver: The Just as the growth of metropolitan Vancouver made the UBC campus much less of a University of British Columbia, 2009. hinterland, the developments of the new millennium helped to erase the status of UBC’s Harris, Cole. “Voices of Smallpox Around the Georgia Straight” and “The Making of the southern end as a sort of campus hinterland. As residents moved to campus to live for Lower Mainland.” In The Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays on Colonialism and long periods of time, the area became “home” and not just a place to work or study. Geographic Change. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997. Yet many were also coming to realize that the entire UBC campus had always been a Howell, Mike. “Part 2: Land development big part of Musqueam’s economic future.” homeland. Musqueam and other Indigenous activists had worked for many decades to Vancouver Courier, 21 September 2016. bring their story to a wider audience, and slowly people were beginning to listen. As early The University of British Columbia. Land Use Plan, The University of British Columbia as 1927, Musqueam had asserted their presence through a donation to the university of Point Grey Campus. 2 June 2015. carved house posts, but despite some acknowledgement of them by the UBC community after the Second World War, it was not until the 1970s that their concerns attracted much La Salle, Marina J. Escape into Nature: the Ideology of Pacific Spirit Regional Park. attention. Through changes in Canada’s social and political landscape, population growth Unpublished PhD thesis, The University of British Columbia, 2014. within Indigenous communities, and hard work by Indigenous leaders, the Musqueam MacDonald, Moira. “Indigenizing the Academy.” University Affairs, 6 April, 2016. had made progress reviving their culture and asserting their rights. In the university Maps and photographs kept at UBC Special Collections. itself, they had influenced the Museum of Anthropology and new educational programs Musqueam: A Living Culture. http://www.musqueam.bc.ca/ for young Indigenous men and women, particularly after 1987 with the construction of the First Nations House of Learning. In the new millennium, Musqueam helped establish Official Community Plan for Part of Electoral Area ‘A’ (25 July 1997) and GVRD-UBC community food and medicine gardens at the UBC Farm, tended by local Elders and Memorandum of Understanding, 2000. UBC faculty and students. After federal and provincial governments and First Nations Pleshakov, Sanya. “We Do Not Talk About Our History Here”: The Department of Indian leadership signed the Transformative Change Accord in 2005, UBC began serious Affairs, Musqueam-Settler Relations, and Memory in a Vancouver Neighbourhood. efforts to “indigenize” the institution, further encouraged by the work of the Truth and Unpublished MA thesis, the University of British Columbia, 2010. Reconciliation Commission. Future development of many parts of the UBC campus would Roy, Susan. Making History Visible: The Politics in the Presentation of Musqueam have to consider the relationship of the university with Musqueam, who had their own History. Unpublished MA thesis, the University of British Columbia, 1999. views about the future of their homeland. Scott-Clayton, Judith. “Do Big-Time Sports Mean Big-Time Support for Universities?” The New York Times, 27 January 2012. The University of British Columbia, UBC Athletics & Recreation Sport Facilities http:// sportfacilities

9 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Key building and landscape elements over time

Top Left: Totem Park, 1962 (UBC 1.1/3329) Middle: View of Agronomy Road, 1962 (UBC 1.1/3368) Right: Totem Park Residences, c.1960s (UBC 1.1/4183) Bottom: Left: Parking lot on old dairy farm, early 1960s (UBC 41.1/2482-4) Middle: B Lot with Main Mall on the left, 1974 (UBC 105.1/127) Right: West 16th Avenue, 1974 (UBC 5.2/301-2) 10 THEMATICTHEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK THEMATICTHEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK THEMATIC FRAMEWORK THEMATIC FRAMEWORK see seesee THEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK see seesee THEMATICTHEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK 8:2,8see 8:2,88:2,8 8:2,8see 8:2,88:2,8 THEMATICTHEMATICTHEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORKFRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK 8:2,8seesee 8:2,8seesee see THEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK 8:2,88:2,8 seesee see8:2,8see 8:2,8 8:2,8 THEMATIC FRAMEWORK 8:2,8see8:2,8 8:2,8see8:2,8 8:2,8see8:2,8 8:2,8

Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

THEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK THEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK see seesee seesee THEMATIC FRAMEWORK 1:5seeseesee THEMATIC FRAMEWORK 1:5see8:2,8 1:51:58:2,8 see8:2,8 1:51:58:2,8 THEMATICTHEMATIC FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK 1:5seesee 1:5seeseesee see see1:5see 1:5 1:51:58:2,8 seesee1:58:2,8see 1:51:5 see8:2,8 1:5see1:58:2,8 1:5see1:5 1:5 193019301930193019301930 193819381938 193019301930 19381938193819381938 1930193019301930193019301930 193819381938193819381938193819381938 193019301930 19381938 CampusCampus defineddefined asas aa 1938 forestforest clearingclearing Campus defined as a Campusforest clearingdefined as a forest clearing

seesee seesee 1:5 1:5 MAIN MALL 1:5 1:5 STADIUM see ROAD see NEIGHBOURHOOD 1:5 ROAD AGRONOMY see1:5see 1:5 1:5 EDGE OF 2ND GROWTH FOREST CLEARING 1930193019301930 19381938 EDGE OF 2ND GROWTH FOREST CLEARING 1938 1930 1938 193019301930 1938193819381938 11 11 11 11

11 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Homeland / Hinterland – Stadium Road Neighbourhood Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian December 2017 THEMATIC FRAMEWORK T H E M AT I C F R A M E W O R K T H E M AT I C F R A M E W O R K T H E M AT I C F R A M E W O R K

T H E M AT I C F R A M E W O R K WESBROOK MALL

ADDED AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH FIELDS

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK see 8:6 AGRICULTURAL BARNS AND SHEDS

MAIN MALL STADIUM see 3:11 BARN ROAD see NEIGHBOURHOOD 8:8 see 8:7 ADDED see 8:7 see 3:11 WEST MALL AGRICULTURAL see RESEARCH 2:29 FIELDS

see 8:6 EDGE OF 2ND GROWTH FOREST CLEARING

MARINE DRIVE see 3:11 see 8:8 see 8:7 1949 12 see 8:7 see 3:11 1963 see 1963 1963 2:2912 1963

1949 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK THEMATIC FRAMEWORK

WESBROOK MALL

ADDED

BUILDINGS AGRONOMY ROAD AGRONOMY

STADIUM MAIN MALL ROAD NEIGHBOURHOOD

see 3:23 WEST MALL see 3:23 see 3:23 EDGE OF 2ND GROWTH FOREST CLEARING

MARINE DRIVE 1949 1954 19491949 19541954

13 13 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Homeland / Hinterland – Stadium Road Neighbourhood Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian December 2017 THEMATIC FRAMEWORK

EXPANSION OF THUNDERBIRD ACADEMIC WINTER SPORTS CAMPUS CENTRE PARKING LOT NEW PARKING LOT CLEARING PARKING LOT EXPANSION OF ACADEMIC CAMPUS RHODO. NEW EXPANSION OF WOOD CLEARING ACADEMIC CAMPUS

NEW PARKING CLEARING LOT ORIGINAL EDGE OF 2ND GROWTH FOREST CLEARING VANIER NEW RESEARCH TOTEM NEW RESIDENCES BUILDINGS PARK CLEARING

1963

14 14 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK

EXTENSION OF WESBROOK MALL

EXTENSION INTO SPORTS SOUTH CAMPUS COMPLEX (& BUILDING OF PARKING BLDGS SPORTS TRIUMF) LOT PLAYING FIELDS

PARKING LOT EXTENSION OF EAST MALL

PARKING LOT STADIUM RESEARCH ROAD BLDGS NEIGHBOURHOOD

EXTENSION OF WEST 16THAVE.

T’BIRD PARKING LOT STADIUM

EXTENSION OF WEST MALL BOTANICAL GARDEN (APPLE ORCH.) ORIGINAL EDGE OF 2ND GROWTH FOREST CLEARING TOTEM PARK MARINE DRIVE RESIDENCES NEW AND WIDENED

1963 1974

15 15 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Statement of Significance Values The value of the Stadium Road Neighbourhood and the mid-campus zone lies in its ability The mid-campus provides a valuable record of the character of that densification. The to illustrate central themes about the university as an institution. The significance of its major new residential districts function almost as isolated enclaves separated from each location at the tip of the peninsula, its place in the traditional territory of the Musqueam other by suburban-scaled arterial roadways. The experience of the landscape remains First Nation, and particularly its location along the Main Mall axis make it an important with few exceptions non-urban. Pedestrian paths remain along the arterials without the physical record of the university’s evolving use of its hinterlands as the institution and complexity of stores and businesses associated with an urban experience. its population have grown. The Stadium Road Neighbourhood is not yet a true neighbourhood. It is more accurately In a manner typical of new settlements on recently-cleared agricultural land throughout an area that is hemmed in by other uses, and mostly occupied today by the Thunderbird the province, campus development followed clear-cut logging, as though the forests were Stadium and its parking lot. Two other sections within this area appear like leftover an empty hinterland and not unceded territory of local Indigenous people. This approach spaces: the area north of the stadium/south of the residential enclave, Hawthorn Place, to the land displayed the newcomers’ material conception of the place: it was a resource and the field between the Thunderbird Stadium parking lot and East Mall. The area to be exploited. is valued principally for the stadium, for which a Statement of Significance is already Further settlement of the land by the university, while unique by virtue of the institution’s written. function, was typical in its actual pattern, particularly the way in which administrators dealt with land at the university’s margins. Its southern outskirts were cleared a second Character-defining elements time for conversion to agricultural research fields, while over time this forest clearing was enlarged here and there when new agricultural activities required inexpensive space. Identified character-defining elements have been listed according to their ability to The hinterland was domesticated in small bites as needed. illustrate the overall themes for the university, as identified in the Vancouver Campus Plan, identified and mapped in the five following pages. For a complete reading of the As the academic activities of the university expanded following the Second World War, character-defining elements for the study area, the values and elements identified in the room to house new educational programs and research was found by encroaching on the Thunderbird Stadium Statement of Significance should be added to this list of elements southerly agricultural land, again a pattern of settlement typical across the province. The for the general mid-campus area. level of encroachment was compounded by the postwar embrace of the automobile as a growing number of faculty and especially students commuted to UBC by car from across the Lower Mainland. New parking lots began to eat away at the agricultural lands, and new arterial roads were pushed through the forests to the southern end of campus to service the traffic needs of all these new commuters in their automobiles. The mid-campus zone became a hinterland of another sort typical of the postwar suburbs found in almost every town in the province: a kind of blank slate literally run over by the automobile. As the campus activities and population continued to grow and diversify, the value of the mid-campus zone during the 1990s became its under-utilization: its low density, postwar- suburban nature that could easily be reworked into a higher density. As the university sought more space to expand its academic teaching and research mission, the profligate use of southern campus lands for automobile parking and low-rise research facilities became unsupportable. As well, administrators were increasingly committed to providing housing for university staff, faculty, and students. A more densely populated campus would reduce automobile dependency and the need for parking lots, and would improve the liveliness of the university experience. The mid-campus zone is valued today for manifesting the university’s densification of its postwar suburban spread.

16 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian A18

Theme A: COMMANDING POSITION

The 1914 Plan envisioned a visually prominent north end to the campus, providing the university with the impressive physical setting for its cultural and social ambitions. These ambitions were A6 visually supported by the stature of the early stone-faced buildings of Edwardian character and the buildings constructed between the 1920s and 1940s buildings, which helped delineate the grand malls and boulevards reaching the southern end of campus, where agricultural fields met the forest. But long before the arrival of the newcomers and their ambitious university campus, the land at the point was a place of prospect and command for the Musqueam, who viewed themselves as guardians of the Big River (now called the Fraser). Stadium Road Neighbourhood is situated in a powerful spot: it is on the alignment of the university’s grandest axis, civic space and carrier of cultural meaning, Main Mall, which bisects the neighbourhood. Its southern boundary is at the present edge of the second growth forest, which is the regenerating shoreline ecology that is integral to Musqueam culture. The campus is at the top of the escarpment overlooking the river and sea, and so can be seen as contributing to the broader ecology of the unique shoreline.

STADIUM Natural Systems ROAD A1 Edge of escarpment/place of overlook to the sea NEIGHBOURHOOD A8 Ecological connection with the shoreline (e.g. groundwater) A2 A3 A6 Spatial Organization A2 Main Mall axis connecting the southern end of the A6 campus through recent residential development, postwar expansion of academic space, the very heart of the early academic campus, and finally to the place with a commanding view over the sea looking north to the mountains A3 Traditional Musqueam territory with coastal ecology including the Big River (the Fraser) Cultural Traditions A4 Musqueam coastal traditions A8 Topography A5 Escarpment and its views to the southwest A8 A8 Vegetation A8 A6 Temperate climate ecology of the 2nd growth forest Water Features A7 Big River (Fraser) and the sea

Edge of 2nd Growth A1 forest clearing A5 A4 Agricultural research A7 A7 early field divisions 17 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Theme B: ROOM FOR RESEARCH

While the physical prominence of the north end of the campus became a key feature of the university’s identity, the south end of the campus provided room for scientific research. From the earliest agricultural research fields to today’s high-tech laboratories, the campus’s south end holds a physical record of the university’s important role as a site for research. Research in the area was initially agricultural research. With the postwar burgeoning of engineering programs, buildings for science and engineering research were sited mainly along Agronomy Road, but also along East Mall and West 16th Avenue Remaining early agricultural buildings, and references to them, mark the origins of UBC’s identity as the province’s leading agricultural research B1 institution.

Natural Systems B7 Rhododendron Wood B3 B9 Land Use B8 B4 UBC Farm B5,6 UBC Botanical Garden and Apple Orchard Cultural Traditions B4 UBC Farm Market B2 B5,6 UBC Farm Apple Festival STADIUM B4 B10 Aboriginal uses of the site for plant medicines ROAD (non-specific location) NEIGHBOURHOOD Circulation B8 Remnant geometry of initial field organization Topography B7 B12 B9 Relatively level ground for agricultural fields B11 Vegetation B4 UBC Farm B5 B5 UBC Botanical Garden B7 Rhododendron Wood Buildings and Structures B6 B1 Science and Engineering research building cluster along Agronomy Road B10 B2 FP Innovations (Forintek) B3 University Hill Secondary School, built in 1995 as the National Research Council (NRC) Institute for Machinery Research B11 Site of old barn (now community centre with name B5 recognizing first structure on site B12 Gas gun research building

Edge of 2nd Growth forest clearing

Agricultural research early field divisions 18 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

Theme C: COMMUNITY BUILDING C14

The challenge of maintaining a sense of belonging grew in response to having a larger campus population. Student and faculty initiatives to C1 maintain community spirit can be seen as a bulwark against increased anonymity of the burgeoning campus community. The development of community in the area has taken the form of both C13 student and faculty housing building programs (e.g. Totem Park, Orchard Commons, Hawthorn Place) and residential property development (e.g. Hampton Place, Wesbrook Place). Community-building in the area has C2 C2 also taken the form of sporting facilities and fields, and community pro- C5 grams associated with agricultural research lands. . C5 Natural Systems C14 Pacific Spirit Park (off map, to the east) C4 C3 Spatial Organization C5 C15 Main Mall and pedestrian path extension Land Use C1 Hampton Place C13 C2 Wesbrook Place including commercial centre C13 C4,5 Sports fields and indoor facilities C6 Thunderbird Stadium STADIUM C9 C12 C7 Hawthorn Place ROAD C9 Orchard Commons NEIGHBOURHOOD Cultural Traditions C15 C11 UBC Botanical Garden Apple Orchard C12 UBC Farm market and medicinal gardens C8 C16 Aboriginal uses of the site (non-specific) C6 Circulation C7 C13 Grid of arterial roads to service the area C9 Buildings and Structures C3 University Hill Secondary School C13 C8 The Barn Community Centre C9 Cluster of Orchard Commons housing and amenities C11 C13

C10 C16

Edge of 2nd Growth forest clearing

Agricultural community resource Edge of 2nd Growth forest clearing Residential area and buildings

Agricultural research Sporting fields and buildings early field divisions 19 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Theme D: MAKING AN IMPACT

From its inception, the university has taken pride in its position as a pre-eminent post-secondary institution in the province and has cultivated its intellectual and cultural leadership. The extending reach of the university is exemplified in its drive to be a leading research institution nationally and internationally. Cultural and intellectual pre-eminence and leadership, the gradual replacement of temporary facilities, and the university’s central role in the professionalization of the provincial public education system and workforce, all contributed to the institution’s eminence. D2 Beyond research coming from facilities planted mid-campus, area ele- ments with impact have been in the sports facilities, notably the Doug Mitchell Centre, the Tennis Centre, and Thunderbird Stadium. Recently, the university is taking a leading role in planning for the sustainable densification of postwar suburban lands. The outcome of D3 the development of the mid-campus area can be another way in which the university makes an impact.

Buildings and Structures D1 Thunderbird Stadium D2 Doug Mitchell Centre D3 Tennis Centre STADIUM ROAD NEIGHBOURHOOD

D1

Edge of 2nd Growth forest clearing

Agricultural research early field divisions 20 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

Theme E: RESOURCEFULNESS

The campus is marked by resourcefulness in meeting pressing needs. The adaptive re-use of the remaining army huts and work camp struc- tures for academic, research, residential and social space is the clearest illustration of this resourcefulness. The pioneers’ willingness to make do E8 is one of the major stories of the University’s culture and is a contributor E9 to a feeling of pride in the institution amongst alumni. At the southern end of campus, a 1990s National Research Council re- search facility was re-purposed in the 2010s for the relocation of Univer- E9 sity Hill Secondary School, reflecting the increasing local population and the consequent additional secondary school population pressure. One can argue that the re-purposing of farmland for use as student and faculty housing or new academic research facilities shows resourcefulness – using what can be easily recycled with a minimum of financial outlay. E13 The history of resourceful development of the southern end of the campus is a history of ad hoc decisions in response to funding that would suddenly E1 come available. The physical result is a landscape marked by the presence E12 of isolated building initiatives. The university used its hinterland as a site for building initiatives not easily integrated into the more developed north end of the campus. E7 E11 Spatial Organization E6 E5,6 Orchard Commons and Hawthorn Place housing E5 STADIUM each flanking Main Mall axis ROAD Land Use NEIGHBOURHOOD E4,5,6 Student and faculty housing on agricultural land E13 Sports facility cluster on agricultural land E8,9 Hampton Place and Wesbrook Place housing and support commercial on previously forested lands E3 E10 UBC Botanical Garden buildings on land opened up with road-building E5 E11 FP Innovations on agricultural lands E6 Cultural Traditions E2 Aboriginal uses of the site (non-specific) E4 Topography E12 Playing fields on relatively flat agricultural land E2 Buildings and Structures E1 University Hill Secondary School E10 E3 Thunderbird Stadium E7 Agronomy Road research facility cluster

Edge of 2nd Growth forest clearing

Agricultural research early field divisions 21 No Hinterland Stadium Road Neighbourhood Statement of Significance

Strategies to build on area character

Strategies for the future planning of the neighbourhood can build on the valuable character already found in the mid-campus area of the university. To work with what is already valuable is to play to the area’s physical and cultural strengths, and integrate its past and future.

1. Recognize the site as a carrier of cultural meanings Recognize that the neighbourhood, being on the Main Mall axis and also part of the shoreline ecology, can literally and imaginatively play a pivotal role in the deepening of the meanings of Indigenous and newcomer cultures. The neighbourhood literally straddles the Main Mall axis, and sits at the edge of the developed north end of the campus and the landscape of the ancestral lands of the Musqueam. How the Mall axis in the neighbourhood is managed can be an exercise in embodying the Mall’s cultural meanings, and integrating the ecological values of the coastal area.

2. Connect surrounding isolated pockets together As the increasingly urban character of the north campus extends to the mid-campus, plan to connect the isolated enclaves currently surrounding the Stadium Road Neighbourhood. Find commonalities in land use, and reasons to connect with adjacent areas.

3. Re-use the physically important buildings, structures and landscapes The university can introduce an urban diversity in its new neighbourhood by re-using the physically important structures and landscapes that are a legacy of the development of the mid-campus area.

4. Recognize the neighbourhood’s history of cultural and sporting events As the site of Thunderbird Stadium, the neighbourhood has a long history of student events that have been key to student community identity for over 40 years. The neighbourhood could provide room for the continuance of social and cultural student life.

22 Birmingham & Wood Architects and Planners – Eric Damer, Historian

23