Airports are a microcosm of modern life—a melting pot of stress with potential for moments of exhilaration or boredom. They can be the backdrop to overly long work days or the scenes of tearful reunions and goodbyes. As designers, how do we create the environment for this richly-lived experience?
Join SEGD Vancouver in exploring this and other questions at YVR. Winner of the Skytrax Best Airport in North America award for a record breaking 9 years in a row, Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is known for delivering exceptional customer experiences. Led by Nancy Stern, Architect, and Farzeen Mawji, Wayfinding Analyst, this tour of YVR provides an in-depth look at the architectural, wayfinding and artistic design elements that make YVR the airport it is today.
Design challenges to consider include ways of creating customer experience, meeting wayfinding and security challenges and capturing peoples’ imaginations with a sense of arrival in this unique and beautiful part of the world. How does an airport design for those who are running to catch flights, and those for all the time in the world? How is YVR balancing the need to promote commercial tenants with competing brands? Or to balance generic wayfinding with placemaking? How does YVR ensure the most inclusive experience possible?
This 90 minute, small-group tour, begins at the Bill Reid Jade Canoe and ends at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel with a catered social hour. Meet friends and colleagues and continue the discussion on the unique blend of architecture, interior design and experiential graphic design that makes up the SEGD community.
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Our Tour Guides
Nancy Stern, MAIBC MRAIC
Architect, LEED ® Accredited Professional
Ms Stern has been the in-house architect for Vancouver International Airport (YVR) since 1995. In this capacity, she has directed the planning, architecture and design for capital projects in the international and domestic terminals. She also reviews all tenant permit submissions within the airport and commercial developments on Sea Island where YVR is located. She is well-versed in presenting the unique and award-winning projects at YVR. Her spare time is spent with her family, playing tennis, skiing or painting landscapes. She enjoys travel, but her family complains that she takes too long taking photos of other airports.
Farzeen Mawji
Senior Program Analyst, Wayfinding
Farzeen has held various positions at the Vancouver Airport Authority since 2015 including Customer Relations and his current role of Wayfinding Analyst. With a degree in Interior Design, prior to joining the Airport Authority, Farzeen worked in Commercial Interior Design and Marketing. Farzeen’s background in design and marketing shape the way in which he understands and articulates passenger wayfinding at the airport - seeing wayfinding as a system that works with the architecture and sense of place that YVR prides itself on. In his spare time, Farzeen loves to travel, shop and bake.
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Event Sponsor: Knight Signs
One of Canada's leading fabricators of signage solutions for airports, retail, healthcare, commercial and civic clients, Knight Signs is based in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. They have designed, produced, engineered and delivered signage solutions for clients in every business, industry and public sector since Knight Signs opened for business in 1968. Knight Signs with over 90 employees is headquartered in 65,000 sq ft state of the art facility in Vancouver.
