AU Basics

SAAB Story

It was a typical Vancouver cold and wet winter morning as our team steered down Oak Street in the SAAB out to the Barn on the Southlands site for a meeting with the community planning team. We were discussing the Southlands project, a private residential development that would see two thirds of the 530 acre site protected for agriculture and wildlife habitat.

We knew this was a new approach, a way to address the increasing growth pressure in our region while capturing all of the economic, ecological, and social value of building strong local food systems. The world-renouned team of Duany Playter-Zybeck, founders of the New Urbanism movement, was coming in a few short weeks to run an intensive design workshop to produce the first plans for the site. We realized that we needed to harness the design power of this team and direct it towards planning a site that truly and genuinely integrates agriculture, recreation, wildlife, and residential development. So, we asked ourselves, what exactly is the backbone for the Southlands? What will make it special and stand out from other development projects that do not consider putting over 200 acres of farmland in trust and connecting the urbanism to the agriculture? As the SAAB approached the turn-off onto 57th street, we had an a-ha! moment, the term agricultural urbanism landed in our laps, and we knew it was the right name for this new approach. Since then, agricultural urbanism has taken-on a life of its own and has been used in other DPZ projects, has become the centre piece of Masters thesis work, has been beaten up at regional discussions on how to plan for the edge, and others.

Many people have contributed to the evolution of the concept and it will continue to be a collaborative effort in exploring new strategies for planning for sustainable food systems for cities.