rebirth & return

Regeneration of a post-industrial site through the lens of environmental justice

Yueying Zhang

Kees Lockman

To fight against the climate crisis and global warming, the decreased usage of fossil fuel in Canada leads to the emergence of post-oil landscapes, requiring consideration of the negative environmental and health impacts brought by the oil industry to its surrounding neighbourhoods. This project explores landscape designers’ roles in spatializing environmental justice through the regeneration of contaminated post-petroleum landscapes, in order to return the disturbed site to non-human species and nearby residents who are heavily influenced by the toxic oil pollution.

For this project redesigns Shell Canada’s Shellburn Distribution Terminal in Burnaby as a prototype, transforming it into a greener, healthier and more dynamic public space that reflects the local industrial history, cultural identity, and equitable environmental distribution.