Tatlow Creek Daylighting & Park Green Infrastructure Design

Project Highlights

Winner of National Honour Award, CSLA Awards of Excellence, 2025

The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (Parks Board) retained KWL to design and provide construction support services for the daylighting of Tatlow Creek through both Tatlow and Volunteer Parks and the upgrade of the storm sewer along Point Grey Road between Macdonald and Bayswater Streets. In addition to the creek daylighting, green infrastructure is proposed in various locations in the park to provide stormwater treatment to adjacent roadways and integrate the park with the adjacent urban setting.

Tatlow Creek once flowed freely through Kitsilano before entering English Bay just to the west of Volunteer Park. Today, due to extensive development, all but a short reach of Tatlow Creek is piped and its natural watershed area has been replaced by an extensive sewer network. due to a combination of development and groundwater and stormwater discharge to combined sewers, baseflows have diminished to such an extent that the existing creek flow through Tatlow Park was supplemented by potable water to prevent it from running dry in the summer months.

The Tatlow Creek daylighting design includes three rain gardens to provide on-site treatment of runoff from the surrounding roads, 200 m of new daylighted creek, one new pedestrian bridges, a bikeway bridge, extensive foreshore rehabilitation, and general park upgrades. The Tatlow Park work design was completed with the Parks Board, landscape architect, and KWL.

KWL has worked extensively with the Parks Board to provide multiple stages of design, from concept development through to detailed design and construction services. The KWL environmental team has been imperative in supporting the daylighting works, providing erosion and sediment control requirements, Construction Environmental Management Plans (CEMPs), bird surveys, and Environmental Monitor Services (CEMP).