Guildford is known for two things: the Really Big Canadian Flag, and shopping. The flag—nearly as high as the Sheraton hotel tower across the street—is a legacy of Expo 86. After the fair concluded, the 280 foot high pole was bought by a Surrey car dealer and re-erected at the front of their lot, the dealership getting the almost inevitable name of “Flag Motors.” The flag is clearly visible miles away along the Trans-Canada Highway, and until the completion of architect Bing Thom's Central City, the big flag was likely Surrey's most high profile visual icon. Indicative of the importance of architecture to Surrey's self-image, an abstraction of Bing Thom's superb design has since recently integrated into the City's official civic logo and brand.

This is one of the most important retail nodes in the entire Lower Mainland, home to Guildford Mall (only Burnaby's Metrotown is larger.) Extending out from the shopping centre in nearly every direction are blocks and blocks of strip malls in multiple variations, car dealerships, hotels, gas stations, and almost every franchise business imaginable. Other than a compact public campus to the west of 152nd Street and north of the mall which includes a library and recreation buildings, there is precious little public realm here, difficult walking conditions, no place of repose, nothing to make you realize you are in Guildford, or Surrey for that matter. Moreover—and accentuating these problems—there is also precious little housing in Guildford Town Centre's core.

The intersection of 152nd Street and 104th Avenue is one of the busiest in Surrey. Both streets connect onto interchanges on the Trans-Canada Highway, meaning this corner is busy and noisy day and night. The two corners on the west side of 152nd are empty—one the site of a former gas station undergoing soil remediation, the sister corner to the north devoted to mall parking. These two corners represent one of the most difficult but important of all suburban design challenges—how to temper the visual and social impact of a mall ‘floating’ like an ocean-liner on a huge parking lot. How to do this without recourse to the standard European urban repertoire of plaza, piazetta or mews is the real challenge here, as the reality of ongoing noise and distraction mean all of these are unlikely solutions.

For the two corners on the west side of 152nd Street at 104th Avenue, you are given almost complete freedom in terms of buildings or no-buildings, functional program for functionless visual symbolism, any palette of building or plant materials, size, height, artworks, or projected iconography. ‘Garden Plots’ or ‘Gargantuan Tower’—the design and program choices are yours alone.

The opportunity here is to temper and humanize a busy corner, in the process inducing place-making and a sense of arrival at Guildford, and in effect, all of Surrey. You may choose to provide a sheltered repose from the strip and its automotive parade, or embrace its power and movement. You may propose new functions here (inside new buildings, outside, or with no buildings at all), or determine that landscape, sign, artwork or light projection strategies are best in creating a sense of arrival. You are free to move the big flag here, propose a rival, or eliminate anything Brobdingnagian. Think of these two corners of the starting points for the reconsideration of cheap-energy suburbia—how could they be creatively re-conceived as germs of broader urban ideas?

* Your scheme may include propositions for either just one of the northwest and southwest corners of 152nd Street and 104th Avenue, or for both sides of the intersection.

* It is advisable to restrict new construction to the first three rows of parking in from either or both of intersections of the arterial streets (see coloured zone indicated on the Sketchup 3D drawings), but in any regard, new creations are not to touch the existing mall buildings.

* The building or landscape program (or lack of these) is up to you, as is the palette of materials and forms, but remember the gateway function of this location for all of Surrey, and the need for a more humane and visually engaging entrance, and the need for public space and pedestrian/cyclist opportunities.

1. A rendered perspective view looking towards Guildford Mall's Hudson's Bay Store from the northeast corner of 152nd Street and 104th Avenue, clearly showing your propositions for the two corners;
2. A rendered plan of the same intersection, indicating your proposition in context;
3. Other sectional, detail or perspective views are optional as needed to visually explain your proposal.

1. One paragraph of no more than 200 words describing the character, materials and intentions of your proposal.

Though circled by 49,300 residents, the heart of Guildford Town Centre is dominated by a regional shopping centre and networks of strip malls. Guildford Shopping Centre opened in 1966, and remains the second largest such complex in BC, occupying a multi-block assembly of 101th to 105nd Avenues and 150nd to 152th Streets. It the 1980s, Guildford Mall grew to bridge across 104th Avenue, extending the shopping centre onto the north side.

Guildford lacks a distinct early history as a town centre and became designated as one solely due to presence of the 200 stores with a total of 985,306 square feet of shopping space. Guildford is named after the large market town in Surrey, England, which is located south of the River Thames in the same way BC's Surrey is located south of the Fraser River (and please note, both places have a “Westminster” to the west of them on the other side of the river!)

Office and professional services as well as medium-rise multifamily housing are to be found east and west of the Guildford Mall, along 104th Avenue. There are plans (if not funding) in the works to make 104th Avenue an LRT rail corridor , while there has been occasional discussion of extending SkyTrain here. Rail links would make connection between Surrey's Town Centres easier.

Whalley/North Surrey History

Created in the era of the automobile, Guildford represents anywhere a large mall is placed on busy roads to centralise access to a large collection of shops. So bulky is the architecture of this shopping centre–amplified by the enclosed bridge crossing 104th Ave–that the inward focus is almost total, with the surrounding areas looking upon almost blank walls.

Major connections to the Trans-Canada highway (152nd St and 104th Ave) are packed with traffic most times of the day. Road based movement is the overwhelming nature of this area. But bus service is growing for local routes as well as connections to other Town Centres, with a B-line (limited stop rapid express buses) upgrade promised by Translink in the near future. This area is proposed to be the terminus of the first expansion of the SkyTrain's Expo Line since it arrived in Surrey's Central City (then called Whalley) in 1985.

Many people from all over Surrey travel though Guildford, with many fewer seeking it as a work destination. Known for the mall and the flag, impressions of the corner are cars, trucks and empty sidewalks. Walking in the area is mainly quick dashes from parking lots to stores. Biking is shared on the roads with only one planned `bike friendly` lane in the future. Surrey's system of Greenways have avoided reaching the centre of this particular town centre to date.