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A pair of Chicago architects planted this electric pink porch in downtown Vancouver

A pair of Chicago architects planted this electric pink porch in downtown Vancouver

A stand-alone porch with a psychedelic paint job opened earlier this month on Vancouver‘s Robson Street, beckoning passersby to inhabit the lighthearted public space for the fifth round of the city’s Robson Redux design-build competition.

Porch Parade, by Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer—together, Design With Company or Dw/Co—is a temporary shelter from the summer sun that will be recycled after its residency on the 800 block of Robson Street with the help of a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

The young Chicago architects schemed up the space in collaboration with Jana Yeboah.

“The design features a collection of porches that appear abstract at first, but when full of visitors, becomes a lively and familiar atmosphere for downtown Vancouver,” according to the project description by Viva Vancouver, the public art entity that stages Robson Redux.

Hicks and Newmeyer were also featured in the eclectic Graham Foundation show Treatise: Why Write Alone?, put on earlier this year by Jimenez Lai. Their whimsical installation Shaw Town opened last month for visitors to The Ragdale Foundation‘s annual Ragdale Ring pavilion. The design played off original Ragdale architect Howard Van Doren Shaw‘s arts-and-crafts forms with a collection of architectural pillows stored in a giant toy box.

Their winning entry for Viva Vancouver was selected by a jury of “prominent Vancouver urban thinkers,” said spacing magazine, from more than 80 entries exhibited at the Museum of Vancouver in March.

Honorable mentions went to: #icu by Jeanie Lim, Jason Pielak, Grace Chang, Christine Chung, and Samuel McFaul; Robson Reclaimed by Haeccity Studio Architecture – Travis Hanks and Shirley Shen; Basic Re-Purpose Design – Theunis Snyman; and Jorge Roman; and Greenest Block by D’Arcy Jones Architecture – D’Arcy Jones, Matthew Ketis-Bendena, Craig Bissell, Dea Knight, and Caralyn Jeffs.

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