Patrick Condon

Career

He is currently the Chair of Urban Design program at the University of British Columbia where he holds the James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments. Condon's career spans more than 30 years, first as a professional city planner and later as a teacher and researcher. He started his academic career in 1985 at the University of Minnesota, moving to the University of British Columbia in 1992, acting first as the Director of the Landscape Architecture program and later as the James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments. He is now senior researcher with the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC, a sustainable urban design think tank that evolved from the original efforts of the Chair, and directs the University's new urban design degree program.

He has worked for many years to advance sustainable urban design in Canada and elsewhere in the world. He has lectured widely, and is the author of several books, most recently Design Charrettes for Sustainable Communities (2007) and Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities (2010).

In his work, he has focused attention on how to make systemic change in the way cities are built and operated, notably in work he carried out at East Clayton in Surrey BC. He and his research partners have collaborated with the City of North Vancouver to produce the "100 Year Sustainability Vision," a plan to make North Vancouver a zero carbon community. Professor Condon and his partners have received awards from the Canadian Institute of Planners and the American Society of Landscape Architects for their work.