Ideal City, Sustainable City: From Amiens, France to North Vancouver, Canada
MONOVA to host an international education program aimed at engaging students to take action in sustainable community building.
A photo of the ideal city with reinforced nature in the form of a park, wind turbines (upper left corner), designated bus lanes, an Electric double-decker bus, and solar panels on top of the surrounding buildings. Photo: Christy Brain
By Karen Ha, Marketing Assistant
What would you include in your ideal city? How would you ensure it’s sustainable for future generations?
During Spring Break from March 11 to 26, stop by MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver (115 West Esplanade) to discover the ideas of elementary students from Canada and France and how they could construct their ideal city.
Over the 2021-2022 school year, our colleagues at the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) engaged in an innovative and international education program around the concepts of Ville idéale, ville durable/Ideal City, Sustainable City with Cousteau School (North Vancouver), Jules Verne’s House (Amiens, France), and Arthur Rimbaud Secondary School (Amiens, France).
Sharing International Perspectives on Sustainability
This education program connected a class from each school and encouraged students to share perspectives from their own countries on sustainability in cities. This program was aimed at engaging students in environmental issues in the city and taking action to create a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future.
Rogers Arena in Downtown Vancouver, Canada. Photo: Christy Brain
Throughout the school year, Jules Verne’s House and MOV provided multiple workshops to their respective classes on sustainable cities. Students later exchanged views and ideas across the partner schools. At the end of the school year, two micro-exhibitions at MOV and Jules Verne’s House documented the work done by the students across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Factors of an Ideal City
When creating the ideal city, the students of École Cousteau and Arthur Rimbaud Secondary School focused on improving the current city’s model, building an eco-community, improving transportation within the city, and reducing urban heat islands.
École Cousteau in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Christy Brain
Improving the current city’s model includes finding other ways to source energy providers, which consist of solar panels, geothermal systems, and wind turbines. Solar panels are long-lasting, noise-less, powerful devices used to transform sunlight into electricity that can be easily concealable on rooftops. Geothermal systems are durable and sustainable underground heating sources that use the earth’s heat to provide heating in homes and buildings. Wind turbines transform the wind’s energy into electricity and are normally the most efficient energy producers, however, they are large and noisy, thus they are not often used within the city.
Building An Eco-Community
An eco-community focuses on environmental and economic sustainability, urban infrastructure, social equity, and municipal government. Building an eco-community will help limit pollution, favour recycling and composting, and limit urban spots to protect green spaces. It will also evenly spread the diverse people living within the eco-community, no matter their ages and income levels.
A bibliothèque, also known as a library in English. Photo: Christy Brain
Transportation within the city will feature bus and bike lanes, with public transportation to include blue Electric double-decker buses to transport more people and limit the pollution to the environment by producing fewer carbon emissions. This will also reduce the number of electric car batteries produced and discarded, which are known to have harmful impacts on the environment. Carpooling will also be encouraged by having designated carpool parking lots, where riders can join others commuting to the same location, which will conserve energy and allow new friendships to be made.
Urban heat islands are urban areas that are warmer than their surroundings, caused by greenhouse gases emitted into the environment. To reduce urban heat islands, it is vital to reinforce the presence of nature and water where there are urban construction projects and to optimize the spatial organization of cities.
The urban fabric with a recreation of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. Photo: Christy Brain
On View at MONOVA during Spring Break
MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver will be open daily from March 9 to March 26, 2023 during Spring Break! Join us for family-friendly programs and exhibits for kids of all ages.
From March 11 to March 26, see the “Ville idéale, ville durable/Ideal City, Sustainable City” installation in person at MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver. This student exhibit considers the importance of healthy and sustainable cities and what is needed to create them. Visitors are encouraged to add their own creations to the model city through hands-on activities at MONOVA, supplies provided.
MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver is located at 115 West Esplanade and is open daily from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Thursdays from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm from March 9 to March 26.
Project Partners
- Museum of Vancouver (MOV) — Located in Vancouver, British Columbia on the the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, this civic museum connects Vancouverites to each other and connects the city to the world. An enthusiastic civic advocate, MOV is dedicated to encouraging a deeper understanding of Vancouver through stories, objects and shared experiences. Its mission is to be a gathering space that fosters connection, learning, and new experiences of Vancouver’s diverse communities and histories.
- École Cousteau’s Grade 5 class — Cousteau, the French International School, located in North Vancouver, is the only school in British Columbia accredited by the French Ministry of Education and the British Columbia Ministry of Education. The school teaches the curricula of France and British Columbia, in French and in English, from Pre-K (from 3 years old) to Grade 9. The school welcomes 230 students from diverse cultural and linguistic origins since 30 nationalities are represented. The school has also been certified by Eco-Schools Canada since 2019.
- Jules Verne’s House Education Department — Jules Verne’s House is a 19th-century middle-class house, located in downtown Amiens, France, where the French novelist Jules Verne lived for 18 years (from 1882 to 1900). Today, this house-museum immerses visitors in the writer’s daily life and the magic of his novels. Jules Verne is well known for his forward-thinking novels, in which he imagined multiple futuristic and ideal cities.
- Collège Rimbaud’s Grade 6 class — Arthur Rimbaud Secondary School is a school based in the city of Amiens, France. This school welcomes 500 students from Grade 6 to Grade 9 every year. 45 teachers offer rigorous lessons in a caring environment and provide students with diverse learning opportunities to broaden their horizons.
We rely on contributions, monthly or one-time gifts, to help MONOVA safeguard and expand our community’s archival and museum collections, build learning experiences and inspire future generations.
Donations are accepted through the Friends of the North Vancouver Museum & Archives Society, Registered Charity No. 89031 1772 RR0001.
