Vancouver Main Street Promise Project & Accessible Urban Design 

Presenter: James Brackenhoff, First Forty Feet

The May Urban Design Panel will welcome James Brackenhoff in sharing the Vancouver Main Street Promise Project. The presentation will highlight the conceptual design process, led by First Forty Feet, to transform Vancouver's Main Street into a vibrant, safe, accessible, and connected public realm. The project extends 10 blocks in downtown and creates a unified corridor vision with a single-level street profile to promote flexibility and adaptability in the public right-of-way. The project team will share their unique and collaborative engagement process with the Washington State School for the Blind as they made key project considerations to ensure and optimize accessibility for all users. 

James Brackenhoff

James is an architect and urban designer with professional experience spanning over 20 years and a variety of international and local projects. James is the co-founder and creative partner of First Fort Feet, a creative multi-disciplinary urban design and place strategy firm. Their practice advocates for equitable cities centered around people. They occupy the in-between', bridging the gap between policy intentions and design interventions through investigation, discovery, research, storytelling, and compelling visualization.