Principal
Gloria Venczel, BES, B.Arch., MRAIC, RPP, MCIP
Urban Designer/Principal,
Cityscape Design Inc.
Gloria Venczel, BES., B.Arch., MRAIC, RPP, MCIP is an award winning urban designer/planner and principal of Cityscape Design Inc. With over 20 years of multi-disciplinary experience, Gloria has worked in traditional architectural practice for a decade before embracing livable city planning and pedestrian oriented urban design. She is a cutting edge thinker and educator in Walkable + Vibrant + Affordable + Equitable Cities. Gloria is a registered professional planner and a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
Gloria has extensive experience in municipal processes and negotiations. Gloria was the Urban Designer/Development Planner for the City of North Vancouver. As Project Manager for rezoning files, from wood frame multi-family housing, industrial/ commercial projects to mixed use to high-rise residential/commercial, she has had a 99% success rate at Public Hearings. She conducted urban design reviews, negotiating for architectural consistency + pedestrian friendly streetscapes for all rezoning applications as well as supervised & developed the urban design programming for award winning Civic Plaza + Vista Commons + City Library. Gloria also lead the successful policy and master planning project for the Central Lonsdale Planning Study-Density Bonusing for Rental Housing. As Staff Urban Designer, she oversaw the Advisory Design Panel.
Gloria currently provides Executive Industry Coaching and Consulting to the development community to meet or exceed municipal planning + resident expectations around public process and a neighbourly sense of place through people scaled architectural urban design, keys to successful Public Hearings. She provides continuing education presentations to the development community on pedestrian oriented urban design as effective tools for garnering proposed project acceptance by neighbours and Councillors, including the Urban Land Institute, BC and the Phoenix Group, a development industry breakfast club, where she also sits on the Speakers' Committee.
Gloria is the current Thought Leader of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, MetroVan's standing room only "Built City Speaker Series" , providing a forum for joint public and professional dialogue and problem solving around hot topics in vibrant + walkable + affordable city building. The "Built City Speaker Series" actively creates citizen capacity in pedestrian oriented architecture and urban design, as well as urban planning to enhance sustainable city building implementation success.
As an early adopter of sustainability, Gloria was the Founding Executive Director of the Smart Growth Canada Network. As one of the Founding Board Members for the Cascadia Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Gloria was the Thought Leader + Organizing Co-Chair of Vancouver Summit 2015 called “The Business of NorthWest New Urbanism + Bridging Sustainability & Aboriginal Values”.
Gloria is a natural mentor & communicator and has taught architectural + urban design as an Instructor, former Royal Oak College, Vancouver.
Multidisciplinary Professional
Municipal Experience
Private Sector Expertise + Capacity Building
RAIC MetroVan Thought Leader on Cities
NGO Leadership on Sustainable Cities
Instructor + Communicator + Mentor
+ Post-Covid Recovery + Economic Equity + Climate Friendly Cities + Walkability + Vibrancy + Social Media vs Place Based Social Connectedness + Affordable Housing + Equity + Public Spaces + Social Resiliency + Micromobility + Curbside Management + Autonomous Vehicles + Data Collection + Privacy + Smart Tech + Democracy + Public Capacity Building + Process + Happiness