Speaker Series | Urbanism as a Global Way of Life

The PLAN 509 ‘Community of Practice’ Speaker Series features planning practitioners with field experience in international contexts. The Speaker Series aims to shed light on the transborder possibilities of the planning field in a globalizing world, and questions the positionality of planners in shaping cities near and far.

Many thanks to the following individuals for contributing their time, sharing their insights, and inspiring the next generation of planners.

2021/22 Term 2

Sirous Ghanbarzadeh, a Senior Associate at Urban Strategies, is an Urban Designer with a background in architecture, who has played a key role in developing complex master plans for campuses, waterfronts, downtowns and new communities across North America, the UK, and Asia. Recently, he has been playing a key role on master planning projects in British Columbia, including planning the future of Simon Fraser Campus in Burnaby, and Surrey’s new City Centre. He is now acting as Senior Urban Designer for an extensive master planning exercise for the Jericho lands in Vancouver’s West Point Grey neighbourhood, a 90-acre site within the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh (MST) Nations. His campus planning work includes the University of Ottawa Campus Master Plan and Precinct Plans, which won numerous awards of excellence, as well as Brock University Student Housing, and Cardiff University (Cathays Park) Urban Design Framework Plan in Wales.

Felix Kariba is an urban and regional development expert, with over six years’ experience supporting UN, national and local governments, communities, and consultancies in the formulation of development policies and strategies, besides the design and implementation of projects and programmes. He has contributed to the formulation of City Development Strategies (CDS), Regional Spatial Development Plans and Urban Policies including the policy paper Addressing Informality in Cities. He holds a B.A. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Nairobi and a M.Sc. in Urban Management and Development from the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Currently is a project associate with the Cities Alliance/UNOPS, previously with private firms and the City Council of Nairobi.

Holly Pearson, AICP, has more than 15 years of experience working in urban and community planning with local governments, NGOs and multilateral organizations in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Africa. She worked with Argentinian NGO Fundación Biósfera on the development of a climate action program for the city of La Plata. She spent several years in the Bay Area where she worked as a planner for the Cities of Oakland and San Francisco and served as Sustainability Director with the American Planning Association’s California Chapter – Northern Section. She also worked with Ecocity Builders managing grassroots sustainable cities projects in Peru and Colombia. She is currently working with the United Nations Office of Project Services on a comprehensive sustainable urban development plan for the Greater Banjul area in The Gambia. Holly holds a master’s degree in Planning and a professional certificate in International Development from the University of British Columbia.

2020/21 Term 2

Dear Bhokanandh, RPP, MCIP, (she/her) is an immigrant settler from Thailand and a SCARP alum. She is currently the Lead Equity Engagement Planner at the City of Vancouver working on the Vancouver Plan – a project to develop a strategic, citywide plan looking 30yrs and beyond. Her past experience includes local municipal planning and private consulting experience in BC, UK and Asia, focusing on community development, land use, and transportation planning.

Andrew Cusack is a humanitarian and development settlement specialist with over a decade of experience responding to refugee and internal displacement situations. Andrew specializes in complex multi-stakeholder master planning, community assessment methods, and collaborative governance. Now working as an independent consultant based in Victoria, Andrew previously worked with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in operations throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America.

2019/20 Term 2

Heather K Fehr is a member of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), specializing in Disaster Risk Management, with a focus on Urban Risk Reduction, Disaster Displacement and Crisis Response in cities. She has been in various roles within the Red Cross over the last 9 years and has been a responder or advisor to major emergencies including the Nepal Earthquake, Horn of Africa Famine, Rakhine Population Movement, Mongolia Dzud, and various hurricane responses in the Caribbean. She is an advocate for improved resilience in cities, to reduce displacement during disasters and protect lives and livelihoods during emergencies. She has co-authored a number of journal articles, and is a contributing author to the Routledge Handbook on Disaster Risk Reduction, 2016. Prior to her work with the Red Cross she worked with planning authorities overseas in Asia and South America.

Patrick Chan is an interdisciplinarian exploring how architecture, fine arts, philosophy and planning can intersect to produce new ethical positions in relation to land-use. He has published and presented in peer-reviewed journals and conferences engaging with how post-colonial spatial practices can counter nationalist and racialized spaces. His most recent project aims to articulate a transpacific spatial ethics considering how economic flows across the pacific alters the capacity for some groups to maintain participation in city-making. Patrick holds a PhD from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, and is also an alumnus of UBC SCARP.

Jeff Greig is currently Vice President (Real Estate) with Deloitte Canada, and has over two decades of urban planning and real estate development experience in both government and private sector settings in Singapore, Canada, and Middle East. Jeff is an alumnus of UBC’s Geography program.