2022's Planning Studio students prepare their final presentations
MCRP Planning Studio
In SCARP’s Planning Studio, graduate students of the 2-year professionally-accredited Master of Community and Regional Planning program partner with community, municipal, and private-sector organizations as consultants, in a joint venture to identify problems and formally propose feasible solutions.
These important real-world projects benefit from partner relationships between students, faculty advisors, and project partners. Projects can be oriented towards exploratory research, policy, urban design, or more.
Benefit from the creative and intellectual energy of SCARP students and faculty with SCARP's Planning Studio,
A consultational joint venture between SCARP and your organization,
delivering high quality products on time and in line with partner expectations.
How it works
Projects
The Planning Studio’s project partners are typically a single existing organization with which the SCARP Planning Studio enters into an agreement. From time to time a consortium may be created for the specific purpose of partnering with SCARP to deliver a project for the benefit of multiple communities or organizations. In such circumstances the make-up of the consortium and its main representative must be clearly defined.
The best projects to undertake are ones at the early stages of conceptualization and problem definition, to benefit as much as possible from the innovative insights of the students. The best learning and report outcomes occur when the studio includes a variety of partners and a variety of projects.
The best partnerships are multi-year partnerships, with longitudinal gains and committed project champions within the partner organizations.
Faculty Support
Students work in teams of three with complementary skills and abilities and draw upon the cumulative academic learning from all their other SCARP courses as well as their own life experiences.
Faculty members, faculty advisors, and a professional consultant provide guidance and support to the student teams through all stages of project definition, analysis, revision, and delivery. Together these instructors have over 75 years of experience successfully leading students through a variety of projects in partnership with municipal governments, community groups and organizations, and private firms.
The instructors help to ensure the teams are conducting themselves with utmost professionalism, delivering high quality products on time and in line with partner expectations. Other faculty are drawn in as necessary to support the teams on various areas of planning specialization.
Studio Projects
The Planning Studio is intended to provide students with rigorous, positive and engaged experiences in real-world planning issues and professional work scenarios. While the projects will necessarily entail a research component, they are expected to be more involved and hands-on – including some level of creative output, independent analysis or stakeholder engagement depending on the needs of the partners.
Through the studio environment, students benefit from learning not just through their own project but by witnessing and contributing to the iterative processes of their classmates. For this reason, effort is made to have a broad mix of projects with different types of partners and covering a diversity of topics and challenges. While each team undertakes a single project from September – April, proposals for multi-year projects that lend themselves to a phased approach are encouraged. Most projects will be located in Metro Vancouver but some could be regional, national, or international in scope as long as they are well suited to studio objectives.
Partner Contributions
To confirm mutual commitment, reinforce the caliber of deliverables expected through the studio, and to defray some of the costs associated with studio work (local travel, participatory materials, printing, etc.) and hosting studio events: public sector and NGO partners are required to pay a fee of $3,000/team; $6,000 for private sector firms; and $12,000 for international partners.
Submitting your idea
Once you have an idea for a studio project, you can submit a proposal for faculty consideration, and we'll be in touch to work out whether the Studio is a good fit for you and how we can help. You can also reach out if you have a preliminary idea, actionable problem, or question you'd like to talk to us about.
There are four main written deliverables required, corresponding to approximate dates:
Mid-October:
Project proposal / RFP response
Early December:
Interim Report
Early March
Draft Final Report
Early April
Final Report
Structure of your proposal
You'll be asked:
Title Abstract:
Title and overview of the project, including the main objectives, target audience, key stakeholders and anticipated impacts.
Background:
Relevant context on the issues to be addressed and the reasons why the project is being initiated. Please include links/attachments of any key reference documents.
Partner profile:
Overview of the partner organization, mission and interest in the proposed project. Please also provide name, position and contact for the project lead and/or primary point person, i.e. the individual that the students will report to on a regular basis and who will provide feedback to the student team.
Scope of challenge
Definition of the geographical, demographic and/or temporal scope as well as an outline of the main outputs that would contribute to the partner’s goals for the project. The student team will undertake a more detailed scoping of work in response to the RFP and in collaboration with the project partner at the outset of the project and this will form part of the Project Proposal.
Deliverables
There are four main written deliverables required, corresponding to approximate dates:
Project Proposal/ RFP response (mid-October)
Interim Report (early December)
Draft Final Report (early March)
Final Report (early April)
Student teams will present their Proposal to the partners only. Presentations of all interim reports with a Q&A will be in early December. We will host a public presentation in late March or early April where students will present their reports, posters and a 5-minute summary of their work. If there are additional deliverables anticipated for the proposed project, please indicate these along with when they would ideally be expected. These will be discussed and confirmed with the Studio Faculty and student team at the outset of the project.
Required Skills and Experience
Students are selected and matched to projects based on their interests, backgrounds, skills and experience. To assist with this process, please outline any specific skills and/or experience that would be required to execute the proposed project. These capacities may be technical in nature (i.e. GIS) or relate to soft skills (i.e. experience working in specific community settings).
Project costs
A portion of the partner contribution fee is used to cover minor expenses associated with local travel, materials, printing, etc. Please indicate any significant additional expenses anticipated for the proposed project.
Some responses to our studio work and other student projects
“[Planning Studio] presentation materials and final deliverables represent an impressive culmination of work completed through the course and in many cases are being recognized for their contribution to planning research and design.” -Planning Standards Board representatives during 2022 accreditation
“[T]his work exceeds the quality that we see from many professional consultants... I’ve been in this business for over a quarter of a century and have seen many student lead projects. This work stands head and shoulders above anything I have seen to date.” -Gary Buxton, Community Planning & Infrastructure
“I’m reviewing several reports right now from experienced consultants who could learn a lot from [my student partners].” -Ian Picktts, Sustainability and Climate Change, District of Squamish
The Planning Studio is an intensive 8-month professionally-oriented course and a requirement for second-year MCRP students.
In the Planning Studio, students benefit from:
Working through real-world planning problems with real partners
Witnessing and contributing to the iterative processes of their classmates with their respective projects.
Students bring:
A high degree of professionalism
A strong work ethic
A commitment to pursuing the needs and objectives of project partners.
How it works
Students will be organized into teams of three or four, based on their skills, interests, and experience. Faculty will make every effort to ensure that the student teams assigned to each project have the required skills and capacity necessary to complete the requirements and deliver a high-quality product. In rare cases the required skillset may not be available to meet all needs across all projects and project deliverables and expectations will be adjusted in consultation with project partners.
Details for implementation will be given as your program progresses.
SCARP welcomes new partnerships
with a wide variety of organizations working in planning, broadly defined.
Organizations interested in partnering with the SCARP Planning Studio
are encouraged to discuss project ideas with the Studio leads ASAP.
