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Donald Luxton & Associates offers a diverse range of consulting services in cultural & heritage planning.
Our award-winning, multi-disciplinary team ensures a creative and practical response to the management of cultural and heritage resources for both the public and private sectors. We are committed to exceptional service, and pride ourselves on our communication skills, our creative and rigorous approach to research and our commitment to sustainability. Our team members are exceptionally skilled at managing complex technical projects from inception through to completion.
Nisga'a Museum Artifacts
Museum Development
Vancouver Post Office, as built (1953-58)
Heritage Surveys, Inventories & Registers
Our firm has undertaken numerous heritage planning projects throughout western Canada. In addition to our private sector work, our past projects have involved a close and ongoing relationship with numerous public sector clients, through which we have developed a very broad understanding of the local government planning process, including the implications of multi-level regulations. This has included: strategic plans; management plans for buildings, historic areas and cultural landscapes; feasibility studies; design guidelines; historic context plans; thematic frameworks; and public communication strategies.
Our team has worked throughout British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon since the 1980s in the identification and evaluation of historic resources. This has included projects in most major western cities, including Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton and Whitehorse, as well as numerous other smaller centres. Many of these projects have involved ongoing relationships with municipal heritage planning programs that have evolved over several decades. We have unparalleled experience in the management of large-scale heritage survey programs, in the development of thematic frameworks and evaluation criteria, and in the documentation of heritage sites.
Donald Luxton & Associates is one of the leading firms in Canada providing documentation for sites listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. We have provided well over 1,200 Statements of Significance for individual heritage resources including rural, residential, commercial and institutional buildings, as well as civic monuments, cemeteries, archaeological sites and cultural landscapes. Our approach to this documentation is systematic, based on thorough and accurate research and a multidisciplinary team approach that leads to a comprehensive analysis of the unique heritage value of each site. We have completed this research and documentation for numerous municipal clients throughout western Canada, as well as for private sector clients including architects and developers. We have been solely responsible for the Statements of Significance documentation for a number of municipalities, including Burnaby, Surrey, Delta and Port Moody in British Columbia, and Lacombe and Peace River in Alberta.
Education and communication strategies are essential to expanding public awareness of community history and heritage. Our firm excels at the development of interpretation projects for historic and cultural sites, including large-scale former industrial sites, streetscapes, downtown cores, and natural sites. Our heritage interpretation plans tell the stories of the hopes, dreams and accomplishments of pioneers and citizens, events, industries, natural and cultural landscapes, and are based on thorough and accurate research, prepared to the highest graphic standards.
Donald Luxton & Associates is acknowledged as a leading firm in the conservation of heritage resources, and has the in-house capacity to undertake projects from feasibility through to completion. Working as prime consultants, or as part of a larger team, we have successfully tackled numerous complex and demanding commercial, institutional and residential conservation projects. Our services include:
One of our unique specialties is a commitment to the restoration of authentic colour schemes. The appropriate use of colour is the finishing touch of every conservation project, and our firm is dedicated to the research and technology that ensures original colour schemes can be accurately and authentically determined and reproduced. Donald Luxton is a recognized expert in the use of historic colour and early paint technology. He has been involved with the Vancouver Heritage Foundation's True Colours Program since 1999, has assisted in the development of Benjamin Moore Paint's Historic Vancouver True Colours brochure, and has given numerous workshops and lectures on historic colour. In addition to exterior colour schemes, our past projects include recommendations for period appropriate materials, colour schemes and furnishings for historic interiors.
As a community place of remembrance and respect, cemeteries provide unique cultural landscapes that require a specialized and sensitive conservation approach. We are highly skilled in dignified and sympathetic master planning, assessment of operational requirements, restoration and heritage interpretation, as well as the design of appropriate new memorial structures for historic cemeteries. Our past projects include the Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery Heritage Management Plan and Restoration, 2000-01, which restored the neglected earliest sections of the cemetery. In the Asian Section, new granite headstones were designed and installed to replace deteriorated or non-existent old markers, and a "Pavilion of Eternal Rest" was designed as a new focal point for ancestral commemoration.
Donald Luxton & Associates is a recognized leader in the provision of cultural resource planning services. We work with clients to solve problems and determine new visions and directions, with a focus on successful outcomes. Our experience includes the development of municipal arts and heritage programs, feasibility studies and institutional development. We have worked with many municipalities and organizations to strategically nurture their governance, programming and institutional development, and ensure the best possible response to arts, culture and heritage issues within each community.
We understand the business of culture. Our creative and experienced team helps establish, redefine and revitalize museums, art galleries, archives and historic sites. We understand the full range of issues relating to collections, exhibits and interpretation, and have worked with both large and small-scale facilities. From inception to completion, we can assist with institutional development, governance and administration, feasibility studies and project management.
Flack Block, 1900
Heritage Conservation
BC Binning Residence, 1941
Heritage Surveys, Inventories & Registers
Canadian Pacific Airlines, 1944
Heritage Resource Management
1030-470 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6C 1V5
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The ampersand is central to our firm’s philosophy, symbolizing connectivity, inclusion and our commitment to value-added services. Dating from Roman times, the conjunction 'et' was conveniently combined into a flowing ligature. Medieval calligraphers made extensive use of this device, as their work was simplified by the condensation of a common word into a single character. The pervasive ampersand became known as the 27th letter of the English alphabet. Along with its much younger cousin @, this ancient symbol continues to be essential in our digital age as a standard part of computer code and web language.