On the Boards: Bianca Bodley & Andrew van Egmond – 2024.05.11

May 11, 2024 from 2:00–4:00pm

Local Speaker Series
Presented by the West Coast Modern League
Hosted by Gabriel Ross | 1319 Government, Victoria, BC
Part of Design Victoria Festival

The West Coast Modern League brought its popular “On the Boards” series to the second annual Design Victoria festival, a weekend celebrating the city’s growing design community.

The West Coast Modern League, with Gabriel Ross, presented this spring instalment of the League’s popular On the Boards series, during the Design Victoria Festival. Bianca Bodley of Biophilia Design Collective and landscape architect Andrew van Egmond joined us for a talk about bespoke, natural landscapes, each presenting projects recently completed or currently underway. On the Boards is a speaker series showcasing the creative works of our local design talent, those who are carrying forward the fertile culture of creativity and experimentation on Canada’s west coast.

Bianca Bodley & Andrew van Egmond. On the Boards, May 11, 2024. Photo by Steve Gairns.

Photography by Andy Wang. Courtesy of Gabriel Ross.

Meet the Speakers

Bianca Bodley

Bianca Bodley has 13 years experience designing and project managing residential and commercial installations in Victoria, Vancouver and the Gulf Islands. Her project portfolio includes public and residential landscapes, interior atriums, living walls and green roofs. Biophilia’s service is driven by Bianca’s values of open communication, accountability and understanding, innovation and sustainability. Whether it is a public space or an intimate interior atrium, Bianca believes each project has the opportunity to be a sanctuary for people to connect with their natural world. That vision is what drives her to explore and innovate, and to continue finding new ways to connect to nature as we design and build our environments. Bianca and her team take on a project as if it were their own and look to find efficiencies in team work and collaboration with the community of builders with whom we have fostered long standing and deeply respectful relationships.

Working at a variety of project scales, Victoria-based Biophilia Design Collective, founded by Bianca Bodley, aims to design meaningful, resilient, and connected landscapes that enrich the lives of all users, cultivate moments of connection, create and nourish a sense of community, and support the ecological and cultural fabric within which they exist.

Andrew van Egmond

After working for 11 years at OKRA Landscape Architects, an internationally operating Landscape Architecture studio in The Netherlands, Andrew van Egmond decided to start his own design studio. He won the LILA award in 2020 and was on the jury of this international Landscape Architecture Award in 2021. While working on different projects in Europe, ranging from small to large-scale landscape architecture projects and collaborating with various parties, he decided to utilize his dual (Dutch/Canadian) citizenship and move to BC about eight years ago.

Most of Andrew’s projects are in British Columbia these days, but he also still works on projects in Europe. Working on two continents brings him inspiration, new insights, and conceptual ideas.

Andrew is well known for his subtle and minimalistic landscape design approach. With his experience, he works to strengthen the sense of place by connecting it with the underlying landscape. Andrew’s landscape architecture explores the contrast between the natural landscape and architecture, striving for a balance between the spontaneous expression of nature and minimal-modern architectural interventions.

Andrew’s recent projects in the Lower Mainland and The Netherlands represent his continuing quest to work more and more in collaboration with nature. Working with geology, a sense of place and framing nature by implementing minimalistic, contemporary interventions that create a comforting, inviting and often contemplative experience. He is exploring circularity and always trying to anchor the site in the larger landscape.

On the Boards Local Speaker Series

On the Boards is the West Coast Modern League’s ongoing speaker series that turns focus on our local designers, to those who are carrying forward the strong traditions of design on Canada’s west coast, to provide an opportunity for the community to come together in celebration of design, to share in recent works being undertaken right here in our own backyard, and to offer inspiration to us all.

PREVIOUS TALKS

Design Victoria

Design Victoria is a four-day festival celebrating the city’s growing design community. Designers and design businesses create special installations, exhibitions, events, open houses, tours and workshops. Experience design, access creative studios that are not normally open to the public, learn more about the stories behind familiar businesses and get inspired by the design ideas and creative work being produced in the City. The festival includes design in many forms, including architecture, ceramic, fashion, furniture, graphic, illustration, interior, lighting, landscape, product, software, urban, user experience.

See the link below for the full schedule of events.

DESIGN VICTORIA