Calling all UBC student artists, bird-lovers and creators!
Bird collisions with buildings are a major threat to bird populations across Canada—including right here on UBC’s Vancouver campus. Each year, an estimated 10,000 birds die on campus due to window strikes. At the same time, birds play a vital role in our ecosystems, supporting pollination, insect control, and human wellbeing.
To help protect local birdlife, UBC requires all new buildings to follow Bird Friendly Design Guidelines—but many existing buildings still need retrofits to reduce bird strikes.
That’s where our campus community comes in.
About the Contest
Building on the success of the 2018 bird‑friendly mural at CIRS, SEEDS Sustainability Program (Campus + Community Planning) is inviting students to create a custom window mural design that will help prevent bird collisions at the Liu Institute for Global Issues. A panel of judges will review submissions, and the winning design will be fabricated and installed as a long‑lasting bird‑friendly mural—one that is expected to stay in place for ~10 years.
Design Directives
Please carefully read the following design directives before beginning your design.
Originality: Design must be original, produced by you and/or your group. This includes that the design must not be copied or produced using AI.
Colour: Design must be in one colour with no gradient transitions. This is because the winning design will be reproduced in white.
Text: Avoid text (i.e. letters, numbers, words etc.) in your design to make the mural visually appealing and understandable for viewers both inside and outside the Liu Institute.
Concept: Your design could be a repeated pattern, include different designs for each window panel, or be one complete image over multiple window panels (See Figure 1 as an example).
Bird Safety: To ensure that the design is bird friendly, negative space in the design over a maximum 5 cm x 5 cm (1.96 in x 1.96 in) should incorporate markers no more than 0.32 cm (0.13 in) in size to provide an effective visual cue that alerts birds of glass. Please see page 8 of the UBC Bird Friendly Design Guidelines for more information.
Tip: Create your design using a 5 cm by 5 cm grid to facilitate appropriate spacing. The grid feature is available in most design platforms.
Please note: While we encourage you to incorporate these bird-friendly design requirements into your mockup, we understand that this may not be possible. We will provide support to the winning artist(s) to ensure these requirements are met in the final design.
Scale and bleed: Please see Figure 2 below for the dimensions of the windows at the Liu Institute (provided in meters and inches). Consider building your artwork with a minimum of 2.54 cm (1 in) bleed on every side; this means extending your design at least 2.54 cm (1 in) beyond the final window panel size to allow for trimming and to prevent any white gaps at the edges during production.
Please note: This information is provided for guidance; you will not be penalized if your mockup does not meet these exact specifications. The winning design will need to meet these specifications, but we will provide support to the winning artist(s) in meeting them.
Figure 1. A mockup provided by supplier TINT’D that shows a sample design on the Liu windows. Please do not copy.
Figure 2. Window dimensions at the Liu Institute. Please consider these dimensions to scale your design accordingly.
This is your canvas! What will you create?
This contest is being hosted by the SEEDS Sustainability Program at Campus & Community Planning and generously funded and supported by: