AZAD

A Z A D E H R A S O U L I / Urban Planner

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Testing Heritage Area Design Guidelines

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Testing Heritage Area Design Guidelines

for the City of Calgary

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Testing Heritage Area Design Guidelines

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SAPL Stantec Gallery

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TwinHills Cyber City, OpenGate Properties

https://www.twinhills.ca/

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The Cloud Project_ Development proposal  

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a Proposal for Downtown Improvement Plan_ town of Carstairs

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RE-imagining Montgomery, the policy framework

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RE-imagining Montgomery, the policy framework

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RE-imagining Montgomery, the policy framework

Team members: Jolene Moran, Cong Gu, Azadeh Rasouli

The community of Montgomery is located in the north west quadrant of The City of Calgary and is considered an inner city community (Land Use Planning and Policy, 2005). Situated along the Bow River escarpment, and the Bow River, Montgomery has close access to numerous natural environments (Montgomery Community Association, 2019). Montgomery was an independent town, annexed by The City in 1963 (Montgomery Community Association, 2019). Montgomery has a population of roughly 4,000 residents as measured in 2016 by The City Census. Montgomery covers an area of three km squared and has a density of 1,290/ km squared (City of Calgary). The residents in Montgomery are varied, with 15% of the population between the ages of 0-14, which is slightly lower than the Calgary statistic of 19% (City of Calgary, 2016). Looking at seniors over 65, Montgomery has 12% which is two percent higher than Calgary (City of Calgary, 2016). The mean age of residents in Montgomery is 40 (Great News, n.d.) Our assumptions are as per the Calgary City Census Data, Montgomery can expect to see a population increase of 54% by 2042, to roughly 6, 200 people (City of Calgary, 2016). This projected population for Montgomery would actually not be new. Back around 1960, Montgomery had a population of around 6,000 residents. Regardless, Montgomery does need to accommodate new community members and those people will expect quality housing, services, amenities, adequate transportation and public spaces with parks and open space. Further assumptions include the need to stay the course with adapting to climate change. With possible extreme future weather patterns, we must be thinking about resilience and planning ahead. Offering alternate options for residents to commute to work, rather than driving a personal vehicle, to planting more street trees in the community along Main Street to link the urban canopy, to subdividing lots and having shared spaces with laneway housing options, we need to be forward thinking and look at alternate solutions. Trans Canada highway, or 16th Ave NW runs east-west through the community. This major thoroughfare is one site of two busy streets in Montgomery. Early in Montgomery’s development the primary road into the community acted as a generator for growth and establishment. However now this highway is seen as a separator and divides the community. This highway leads west out of Calgary to the mountains and is a gateway to The City moving east. The second busy street is Bowness Road. Trans Canada highway is a commercial corridor with many auto-centred uses. Bowness Road has a Main Street portion running between 43rd St and 46th St. NW. It is a challenge for any community to maintain a vibrant street realm with one Main Street and is even harder with two such streets two blocks away from each other, in the same community. The need to set good policy to establish these areas as regional and local destinations is important for Montgomery moving into the future. The City has identified these two streets as critical to future growth. Montgomery’s ARP states the community’s residential vision for the future is to maintain a predominately low-density community feel, while building up to a form of good quality, medium density, along Bowness Road and 46th St. NW (Land Use and Planning Policy, 2005). This is a challenge as to maintain a vibrant and busy Main Street and Commercial Corridor, a larger population base would be beneficial to support the local businesses. Thus we need to strategically and sensitively plan where we can allocate 2,000 additional people to accommodate the future growth, while maintaining the community character and feel of the small town that residents have come to expect and enjoy. Montgomery has a great many natural areas close by, but the pathways and trails are needing links and improved connectivity to allow residents and regional users to better access and enjoy the parks and open spaces. There is also a critical need to create gathering places, within the public realm for residents to enjoy. Naturalizing boulevards with vegetation, improved amenities and services will be necessary for current residents to share in the future with new residents. This community plan is a joint effort with several contributing partners. The Montgomery Community Association is looking to explore options and possibilities regarding the future of the neighbourhood for planning growth. As such, The University of Calgary has partnered with the community association to consider possible targeted development. Over four months we completed a process including a detailed analysis, a community workshop and draft plan presentations. Final completed recommendations are presented in this booklet. Our team vision is to work towards building inclusive, sustainable and resilient communities.

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RE-imagining Montgomery, the policy framework

Final report from Master's degree senior studio in Urban planning 

Team members: Jolene Moran, Cong Gu, Azadeh Rasouli

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The Itinerant Storyteller with a yellow hat: Understand, Empower, Mediate.

Why do we want participation?

To form a personal approach to participation, I’d need to first rethink its goals and principals. Why participation? When we plan and design from the top, the organic evolution of the city is missing. This is one of the qualities of historic cities that makes them people-centered. In my opinion, public participation can bring back some missing parts of the puzzle. When the participation process is democratic and just, citizen dominated decision making can revive the organic and human aspect of city planning. In this situation, the ultimate goal is a dialogue among actors instead of adhering to the prescribed agenda and by changing the distribution of power, instead of engineering the participation, we will trust in the process. If we examine the typologies of citizen participation from Wilber’s perspective, we will realize that they are not results of the same levels of understanding. From manipulation to citizen control, the goal of each type is different. To form a people-centered approach, I’d suggest considering all quadrants and all levels of each dilemma. From this perspective, my proposed role of the planner in the participatory process would be Understanding, Empowering and Mediating. These stages will create a loop that repeats and feeds itself for better results. In the next part, we will discuss how each theory can help us in these stages.

Who are the Itinerant Storytellers?

The Itinerant Storyteller is a social role present in many historic cultures. Naghals in Iran were folkloric dramatic artists who used to circulate in urban spaces with their pictures of mythical stories. They carried the oral tradition and were the guardians of historic literature. Their goal was to educate and entertain. Being a traveler or a wanderer is of important characteristics of Naghals. Meddahs are Itinerant Storytellers in Turkey. They improvised on contemporary issues and daily life in public spaces. They interacted with the audience through comedy and wisdom and occasionally music. Meddah was also an actor and switched between different characters by using a number of hats during the improvisation and they preserved the oral tradition. The image of the “wondering nomad storyteller” is common in the culture of first nations both in North America and in Australia. Like Wilber’s spiral dynamic, there are other ways of classifying stages of understanding through an evolutionary path. One of them is the collection of Archetypes in the hero journey by C.G. Jung. According to Jung, the highest levels of understanding and awareness are represented by two archetypes of Trickster and Creator (Jung, 1980). The Itinerant Storytellers are prime examples of these archetypes. In Wilber’s framework, trickster and creator can be located on the highest level of spiral. Historically, the role of the Itinerant Storytellers was defined in a way that they could go everywhere and interact with everyone, from the king to the poorest person of the society. This character can bridge the gap between different social classes, especially by adopting humor. The Itinerant Storyteller is the one who approaches people. We as planners should show that we are engaged with the community and space by going to places that people assemble. Not being settled in a specific space is an important characteristic of the Itinerant Storyteller. Improvisation and spontaneity are important both for Trickster and Creator and they don’t just appear in content, these qualities can also be demonstrated in the location of interaction. In many other ways, the role of Itinerant Storyteller can be beneficial to planning.

Being an Itinerant Storyteller is a skill that should be developed through time. For evolving our the planning approach towards people-centered ones, maybe we should start going to the city not as elite city planners but as the Itinerant storytellers with the yellow hat.

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Strategic Framework for land use and transportation in Calgary region  

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Applying ecological Concepts in practice_ Glacier Ridge Area structure plan  

Team members: Mina Rahimi, Tina Dadgostar, Azadeh Rasouli 

Glacier Ridge is located at the northwestern boundary of Calgary, and is part of a larger comprehensively planned regional context. Symons Valley is home to the West Nose Creek. The Valley contributes to the larger natural area and wildlife corridor extending across north Calgary and also offers opportunities for recreational amenities and pathway connections within the Plan Area and to the south where West Nose Creek joins Nose Creek at the junction of Beddington Trail and Deerfoot Trail (ASP, 2015).

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Low Car-Bon Manchester

Team members: Xinyu Chen, Jake Jellis, Azadeh Rasouli

Manchester District in Calgary has historically been used as an industrial park, servicing one type of land use at the expense of the promoting a green, habitable infrastructure, that encourages people to occupy the site. Accordingly, the need exists to modify the District into a location with a wider spectrum of land-uses that promote pedestrian-oriented, sustainable infrastructures. With this consideration in mind, the urban redevelopment proposal that comprises this project centres on three main goals. The first is to create a pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood that encourages people to take advantage of sustainable means of transportation by focusing on promoting transit-oriented development strategies. In this respect, the LRT line that currently bisects the site will act as a major hub for pedestrian activity. In addition to single use, low and high density residential land-uses, double-mixed, commercial and residential parcels are oriented along this train line to help promote its use among residents and local business owners in the area. To supplement this corridor, bike paths also run parallel to the train tracks and connect directly from land parcels to the broader city. Secondary vehicle road networks connecting individual parcels to major road arteries are converted into pedestrian-only streets, where vehicle access onto these roads is restricted to local inhabitants and emergency services. Furthermore, triple-mixed use land parcels are located near the existing industrial area located along Blackfoot Trail. In these land-use types, residential and commercial are mixed with industrial so that the three provide resources that are beneficial to each other. Labor and customers will be produced from the residential areas for the commercial and industrial zones and manufactured products and goods and the jobs involved in producing them will service the commercial and residential parcels. Moreover the locations of these triple mix zones are selected so that they act as transitionary zones between the residential and commercial areas located near the transit line, and the heavy industrial area located next to the highway to create a more seamless connection between the differing land-uses.

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Site selection of a complete community for senior housing  

Data-driven decision making A group of Developments has asked for a cohesive analysis of the existing golf courses in Calgary to be replaced with a new community for seniors and the aging population. The goal is to support ageing in place. The vision of the study is to ensure that the main needs of the aging population are met and they will benefit a high quality of life in the future.

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Physiographic Site Analysis_Silversprings golf course  

The Silver Springs Golf Course in North West Calgary is being converted into a long term care health facility. This booklet aims to investigate the feasibility of this conversion according to the site characteristics. The opportunities and constraints of the site for future development are analyzed. Physiographic features such as slope, aspect and hydrology indicate which areas are suitable for the future development of the health care facility. Through the report, each aspect is demonstrated and, we conclude by integrating all the information provided.