"Walk sign is on. Proceed with caution. Vehicles may not stop."
I walk to Hollywood Park almost every day. It's a great park. There's a tennis court, basketball hoop, baseball and, most importantly, the perfect playground for my daughter. It doesn't matter if it's wet, dark, windy or all three – you'll find me there with her.
When I became a Dad, I started seeing the world from the perspective of someone less than 3 feet off the ground. I notice curb drops that help us cross at intersections. I notice utility poles in the middle of the sidewalk that force me to step into the road with the stroller. I notice whether shops have wide aisles, or carts available so I don’t have to carry my little one while shopping.
But more ominous is the audible warning from the zebra crossing I use to get to the park. It's accurate. Despite painted stripes, flashing lights and good visibility vehicles don't always stop. Sometimes the driver notices and makes apologetic gestures while others don’t react at all. So we look left, right, left and right again before stepping into the road.
Wharf Street Portals
Hidden in plain sight, along the asphalt desert that passes for a waterfront below Bastion Square, there are portals to a different and more romantic past.
At the turn of the 19th century the inner harbor was a bustling center of global commerce. Barques and schooners and elegant clippers arrived daily from trade routes all over the world carrying necessities and luxuries to a growing city.
The ships would line up in the harbor, waiting for a berth at the deep water moorings, where Red Fish Blue Fish now sits. Sailors would throw out their lines and shoremen would tie them off to great iron rings set into the rock. Rings that are still there and clearly visible today.
Then the work of unloading would begin. Planks, set up precariously against the wharfs, alive with men hauling bales and barrels to the maze of warehouses that covered the shore. One of the largest was Hudson's Bay which backed onto Wharf Street and had a warren of catacombs reaching under the road. The bricked up portals are all that remain.
Abandoned Play
Is it just an overgrown hilltop—or a hidden fortress from which to rule a kingdom below? Using found materials like wood, moss, sticks, and grass, my children and their friends built what they call “the forts.” A series of secret hideouts, these structures allow them to observe friends and neighbors passing by, all while remaining unseen. It’s a space where their imaginations thrive—creating a secret world, both literally and figuratively.
To those walking by, it might look like nothing more than a wild patch of land. But beneath the surface, it’s alive with creativity and play.
Often, the places adults overlook or deem useless are the ones that hold the greatest potential for children’s play. As more abandoned lots and natural spaces disappear due to development, the chance for this kind of imaginative exploration is shrinking. Before we assume a space has no value, we should take a moment to consider how a child might see it.
Right In Front of Us: The Streets of Victoria
As an artist/painter I am always looking for subject matter that catches my eye. The most visually appealing subject matter to me is often right in front of me. As I searched for subject matter I had in mind, the fact that many a friend has been complaining about the intense growth in our city, the arrival of the high rise, the increase in traffic, the loss of old world charm, etc.
I wondered how I could best tell this tale of change in an artistic way.
Where to begin? It is not difficult to find a street with a new building under construction. As I walked down Cook St., camera in hand, right in front of me, asking to be recorded for posterity and history, were these enormous, rapacious vehicles carrying materials, blocking roadways, knocking down building sections. Here were the unfeeling instigators of the issues so repeatedly complained about by my friends. And the fledgling buildings themselves revealed so many materials, new ideas and shapes.
I was indeed inspired!
Living in a Tourist City
A piece of our city I find fascinating is how Victoria adapts to the arrival of cruise ships. Every time one docks, thousands of visitors arrive—and it amazes me how smoothly the city adjusts.
The Inner Harbour area feels increasingly busy as the summer begins, but you can sense how Victoria’s design gently flexes to welcome these guests, without losing its rhythm. It’s a balancing act—being both a lived-in place and a temporary vacation for thousands—and Victoria pulls it off beautifully.
Celebrating Construction
As we face the changing realities around us—where housing must be built, sustainability prioritized, and the slow, steady work of repair and reconstruction continues—there’s a small, joyful detail that never fails to make me smile.
No matter how many sidewalks are torn up or how many crosswalk detours I take to avoid a hole in the street, I still love the tiny, colourful flags that Victoria uses at construction sites.
Every time I see them, it feels less like a disruption and more like a spring fair or a birthday party. They remind me that the construction of a better city, in all its messiness, is still worth celebrating!
Going By Bike
One of my favorite things about living in Victoria is how easily I can access nature—by bike. The regional trail network, especially the Galloping Goose and Lochside, feels like a secret highway for cyclists. I glide past farmland, estuaries, forests, and creeks, all without ever getting in a car. The bridges—old trestles and sleek overpasses—carry me over rivers and roads, stitching the city to wild spaces.
Few places in North America offer this kind of seamless, scenic cycling infrastructure. In Victoria, getting from downtown to a beach, mountain or forest feels not only possible, but pleasant.
Prisms of the Past
Beneath Victoria’s Broad Street lies a hidden layer of architectural history revealed through its distinctive sidewalk prisms. These small, often purple-tinted glass blocks are set into the pavement and were originally installed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to bring natural light into areaways—basement spaces that extend beneath the sidewalks.
The prisms filtered daylight into what were once bustling storage areas, workshops, and service corridors, transforming dark basements into more usable and safer environments.
Today, they serve both as functional daylighting elements and as subtle reminders of the city’s layered past. On Broad Street, they create a unique connection between the contemporary pedestrian experience and the urban fabric of old Victoria, blending beauty, innovation, and utility in a timeless detail.
Care
I walk past the public washroom at Broughton and Douglas almost every day. At first glance, it’s just a small structure—sleek, industrial, unassuming.
We don’t often think about bathrooms until we really need one. And for some people, that need isn’t occasional—it’s daily, urgent, and tied up with dignity. This one little unit feels like a step toward a more thoughtful city, one that sees the basic needs we all share and does something about them. It made me feel hopeful that we’re looking for, and building, ways to care for each other.
Umo and Our Digital Barriers
We all know design shapes how we live, but a recent evening with my mom reminded me just how much.
She recently installed the Umo app and while she’s fairly tech-savvy, she doesn’t have the built-in instincts of someone raised with digital tools. Thankfully, Umo’s design is friendly. Auto-pay is easy to set up, the scan button is pinned to the bottom navigation bar instead of inside a hidden menu, the app is bright teal, and there’s a cheerful little smiley face—she’s gotten on the bus!
But that’s not the case with all apps and she’s often come up against confusing menus or unintuitive design in the quest to book appointments, pay taxes or update an internet plan.
As services move increasingly into the digital realm, it’s a small but important reminder: good design makes life easier; bad design can become a real-world barrier.
Rolling on Bike and Roll Lanes
Many people only seem to see people riding bicycles on Victoria's bike & roll lanes. Read the letters to the editor in any of our local papers, and you will hear from people who unsee the people rolling on wheelchairs and mobility scooters.
Open your eyes and see.
You can see and listen to Sandra Hough describing why she rolls on Victoria's bike and roll routes at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xC1yLLpQ1M
From Town and Country to Uptown: How a Shopping Center Helped Redefine Victoria’s Core
Growing up just around the corner from what is now Uptown Shopping Centre, it’s been inspiring to witness its transformation. What was once the small Town and Country retail strip, established in 1959, has evolved into a vibrant commercial hub that plays a key role in shaping Victoria’s city center.
Between 2010 and 2016, the 850,000-square-foot mixed-use complex that we now know as Uptown Shopping Center was under development. Designed to meet the needs of a growing population, the project introduced not only retail and office space, but also transit access, and community amenities strategically located at the junction of two major highways in the heart of Victoria. This evolution has made Uptown a central node in Victoria’s urban landscape, influencing how the city grows and connects.
My personal connection to Uptown has grown over the years, shaped by memories and experiences at every stage of my life. I remember the days before Uptown, when my mom and I would visit the old Town and Country plaza for grocery shopping or bowling. As a teenager, I spent weekends exploring the newly developed mall with friends. Now, as an adult, I've worked at two local stores within Uptown and still find myself there regularly. Whether it's getting my nails done, grabbing groceries or catching up with a friend over coffee. Uptown has remained a familiar and evolving part of my everyday life.
Dive Right In
Before the Banfield Dock expansion, there was another small but impactful dock design in the Gorge waterway.
Project Albero, a floating circular dock, emerged from a collaboration between local companies Aryze, DAU and Biophilia. Inspired by the successes of other harbor cities, where residents flock to the water on hot summer days, the team reflected, “It struck us that in Victoria, we have all the bones for this lifestyle, but our public realm is disconnected from its potential for harbor recreation.”
With the introduction of the Banfield Dock expansion just four years later, its clear that this small intervention has done exactly what it set out to do and convinced many Victorians to connect with the water and go for a dip!
The Secret Ban
Did you know that skateboarding downtown in Victoria was illegal for almost 15 years? In the early ‘90s fueled by complaints that skateboarding was a ‘serious social problem,’ the city outlawed skateboarding in the downtown core with bylaw officers able issue fines and confiscate boards.
Despite the ban being lifted in 2016, skateboarding is still heavily discouraged, taking the form of metal strips bolted onto seemingly every bench, ledge, and railing downtown.
These deterrence pieces are so ubiquitous in urban design that they are often installed before a single skateboarder has been there. The Courthouse playground, opened in 2017, had anti-skateboarding strips installed before the public had ever set foot inside.