Community Dialogue
Olympic Plaza Transformation
Great civic spaces are a form of public infrastructure, and transforming them well requires dialogue that surfaces not just design preferences, but the lived experience, tensions, and hopes that shape how a place is used.
Reimagining Calgary’s “living room” through two rounds of community dialogue, from big-picture vision to practical redesign.
Olympic Plaza is often described as Calgary’s “living room,” and the City has repeatedly returned to community dialogue to guide its future. In spring 2016, a six-week engagement process gathered input from 2,261 participants and more than 7,200 ideas about what people value, what should change, and what would draw them back more often. In spring 2024, CMLC’s Olympic Plaza Transformation engagement involved 3,332 participants across surveys, pop-ups, and workshops, including sessions with event hosts, producers, and adjacent interest holders.
Profile
Client: Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) & the City of Calgary
Practice Area: Community Dialogue
Impact Domain: Urbanism, Placemaking
Work
Led the 2016 civic dialogue, including supporting on-the-ground engagement that blended creative, approachable methods with citywide reach.
Guided the 2024 engagement approach, helping structure a three-phase process that included interest-holder workshops and broad public participation to inform design decisions.
Helped ensure the dialogue addressed both human factors and practical site realities, engaging event hosts and adjacent partners on what works today and what must change to support future use.
Synthesized multi-channel input into clear, usable findings, connecting feedback to design implications for a revitalized Olympic Plaza.
