UBC Vancouver in 2050
With a daytime population of over 100,000 people, the campus is a place of learning, showcasing UBC teaching, research and innovation. Collaboration, creativity and knowledge exchange, and Musqueam and Indigenous knowledge are prioritized through inviting, accessible and flexible buildings and outdoor spaces for all. More than ever before, the campus is a test bed, incubator and role model for novel approaches to planning and implementing low carbon communities, translating new knowledge into practice, and attracting industry, Musqueam and community partnerships. Blurring the divide between academic and neighbourhood activities in formal and informal spaces throughout the campus and neighbourhoods encourages impromptu encounters that foster learning, discovery and community and unlock synergies between UBC’s communities.
Key Strategies
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Concentrating Academic Growth in the Campus Core
The Vision maintains the approach of building and renovating academic spaces within the campus core, emphasizing new growth in proximity to the future rapid transit station on University Boulevard and along East Mall and West Mall.
More Details - Concentrating Academic Growth in the Campus Core
Sites are identified for near-term capital priorities, including new or renovated facilities for the faculties of Medicine, Applied Science and Science, supporting research excellence and transformative learning, addressing deteriorating and seismically vulnerable facilities, and advancing UBC’s climate action goals. Future planning will also explore the feasibility of retaining valued heritage buildings, landscapes and places.
New and renovated academic buildings will contribute to a livelier, accessible, pedestrian-oriented campus through more mixed-use developments, more efficient use of land, and buildings with engaging and inclusive ground floor programming fronting onto streets and the public realm. A new South Campus works yard will free up additional space in the academic core and provide a consolidated space for maintenance and campus service operations, including storage of equipment, supplies and materials.
More Learning Hubs
The Vision identifies sites for new Learning Hubs, which are developments that mix student and neighbourhood housing, academic/knowledge sharing space and amenities.
More Details - Learning Hubs
These hubs encourage connections between students, residents and people at various stages in their life, bring learning to the neighourhoods, and maximize compatibility between different uses and users.
New neighbourhood Learning Hubs, such as the one envisioned for Wesbrook Place South, use ground floor “flex” spaces for learning and to seed grass roots community-based entrepreneurship and innovation. Within each hub, upper-level floor space will provide housing. In both neighbourhood-based and academic campus-based hubs, lower floors will front new outdoor public spaces and adjacent streets and feature various combinations of academic, social and community space, child care, and other amenities. Hub designs will also consider adjacent academic facilities, including how to mitigate potential impacts (e.g., building fume hoods). Some Learning Hubs are unique to the academic campus and mix student housing with academic uses. These are referred to as Mixed-Use Hubs.
Learning Corridors
The Vision enables stronger, more defined connections between Learning Hubs and other centres of activity. A series of Learning Corridors will intensify academic capacity along East Mall, West Mall and Thunderbird Boulevard to support transit-oriented development, increase vibrancy and connect to research partnership sites and housing opportunities.
More Details - Learning Corridors
Along these corridors, academic spaces will invite collaboration, experiential learning and make interior activities and research visible to the outside.
They will be complemented by ground-floor space that enables compatible retail and social enterprises. An integrated network of indoor and outdoor learning spaces will support diverse ways of learning (e.g., outdoor classrooms, demonstration projects, performance and public realm activation).
Learning Everywhere
While academic growth will continue to be concentrated in the campus core, along corridors and in Learning Hubs, the entire campus, including the neighbourhoods, continue to offer significant opportunities to support teaching, learning and research.
Here are some current examples of learning happening outside the classroom: