Eight Station, a Vancouver-based rendering studio, has unveiled a concept for the city’s outdoor, salt-water Kitsilano Pool.
The facility has faced closures due to structural issues, storm damage, and ageing infrastructure, raising concerns about its long-term viability. With the City of Vancouver exploring comprehensive long-term solutions, Eight Station’s proposal focuses on environmental sensitivity and urban planning principles to enhance the pool’s usability and accessibility, and integration into Vancouver’s urban waterfront environment.
The proposal includes four primary focus areas: expanded community gathering space, optimised spatial planning, enhanced pedestrian experience, and thoughtful landscape integration. The concept features increased seating capacity through an expanded amphitheatre design, creating more opportunities for community events and social gatherings while maintaining views of English Bay. By relocating non-essential service blocks, the proposal opens up public space, allowing for better crowd flow and creating welcoming areas for families and diverse user groups. The design improves pedestrian circulation along the existing walking path, creating more intuitive navigation and reducing congestion during peak usage periods. Strategic planting and landscaping elements are designed to reduce visual barriers, manage sightlines, and create comfortable microclimates without creating maintenance-intensive overgrowth.
‘Our approach recognises that Kitsilano Pool is a vital piece of Vancouver’s social and cultural fabric,’ said Ana Romaniv, founder of Eight Station. ‘We wanted to create a vision that honours the pool’s legacy while addressing the real challenges that have impacted its operations and accessibility.’
The visualisation studio emphasises that their proposal represents one possible approach to enhancing Kitsilano Pool, with the goal of sparking community dialogue about the facility’s future.
