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UBCx: Urban Water - Innovations for Environmental Sustainability

Learn about innovative urban solutions to the global water crisis, with inspiring real-life examples from architects, engineers, planners, ecologists, and artists.
4 weeks
3–4 hours per week
Instructor-paced
Instructor-led on a course schedule
This course is archived

About this course

Skip About this course

In this interdisciplinary course you will learn about the water-related dimensions of environmentally sustainable urbanism. The course features Vancouver, one of the world's leading cities for green design.

Each week, you’ll watch lectures plus a compelling documentary-style video featuring architects, planners, artists, engineers, and academics that have created real-world innovations which link water and sustainability in the built environment. You’ll meet the inspiring founder of the Center for Interactive Research on Sustainability (one of the greenest buildings in North America); visit North America’s largest urban wastewater-to-energy plant; learn from architects designing urban waterscapes as ‘landscape infrastructure’ along Vancouver’s revitalized waterfront; travel along one of North America’s largest revitalized urban streams, which has become a hub for community engagement; and explore the creation of a ‘watershed mind’ with an award-winning poet and artist.

At a glance

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcripts:
  • Associated skills:Innovation, Built Environment, Wastewater, Infrastructure

What you'll learn

Skip What you'll learn
  • Core concepts such as the “water nexus” and “regenerative sustainability” 
  • Blue-green building design 
  • Eco-health and the role of water in environmentally-sensitive urban planning 
  • Urban stream regeneration 
  • Water ethics

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