New Vancouver Special / Nouvelle Vancouver Special
1984
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada- Domestic architecture
- Building
- House
The Vancouver League for Studies in Architecture and the Environment was formed in 1979 with the mandate of bringing renowned Canadian and international figures involved with design to speak to Vancouver architects and interested public. The architectural community had long felt the need for the stimulation and dialogue promoted by the lectures of these leading practioners and theoreticians.
While the Alcan Series heightened our awareness of and familiarity with major international influences, many sought a similar forum which would present the work of local architects and provoke discussion of topical Vancouver design issues. In 1981, the Local Series convened at Emily Carr College of Art.
The Vancouver Special Competition sprang from the League's interest in further focus at the local level -- this time in an applied sense. This competition was an attempt to challenge architects with the design of a Vancouver-specific housing typology that few had seriously considered.
The Vancouver Special Competition also addressed an acknowledgement of "change" -- change in the economics of housing, change in the architectural profession and the architect's role, change in society and family structure, and change in urban design.
Many homeowners seek the perceived sense of "newness" and "modernity", as well as the spatial flexibility at budget cost, which the existing builder-designed prototype provides. No alternatives have previously existed.
Enter the architect. In a profession where work has become increasingly scarce, where practitioners have been forced to diversify and where more and more potential projects are community-needs based, why not consider the affordable, single-family dwelling?
Architects are becoming increasingly aware of the hypocrisy of RS-1 zoning. There are presently many functioning alternative models to the nuclear family requiring housing in our neighbourhoods. Residents who, for various reasons remain single longer and cannot obtain mortgages, band together and buy houses jointly. Many single parents who cannot afford to be sole homeowners buy with friends in a similar position and subdivide the house, or buy alone and build a rental suite to help with mortgage payments. Many two-parent families need two incomes, many mothers now prefer to work. One parent may decide to set up an office at home -- necessitating an adjoining studio or work suite. The dilemma of the "illegal" suite has arisen of social necessity and it is time we recognized that RS-1 zoning is obsolete.
Vancouver neighbourhoods have a new street-face. The proliferation of the existing Vancouver Special has brought us to a street facade of flat housefronts and boxy roofless shapes, a longing for materials and details evoking the historical character and context of neighbourhood, and a need for usable, friendly yards connected to living spaces. When densification and the two-family possibility are acknowledged, an opportunity is gained for more diverse and complex siting, articulated massing, and more detailed, less monolithic elevations.
More than imagination and creativity were required on the designers' part to solve the problems of the existing Vancouver Special. Implicit in the programme for the New Vancouver Special Competition was the necessity for competitors to come to grips with the planning and sociological implications in their design solutions.
(From official publication)
While the Alcan Series heightened our awareness of and familiarity with major international influences, many sought a similar forum which would present the work of local architects and provoke discussion of topical Vancouver design issues. In 1981, the Local Series convened at Emily Carr College of Art.
The Vancouver Special Competition sprang from the League's interest in further focus at the local level -- this time in an applied sense. This competition was an attempt to challenge architects with the design of a Vancouver-specific housing typology that few had seriously considered.
The Vancouver Special Competition also addressed an acknowledgement of "change" -- change in the economics of housing, change in the architectural profession and the architect's role, change in society and family structure, and change in urban design.
Many homeowners seek the perceived sense of "newness" and "modernity", as well as the spatial flexibility at budget cost, which the existing builder-designed prototype provides. No alternatives have previously existed.
Enter the architect. In a profession where work has become increasingly scarce, where practitioners have been forced to diversify and where more and more potential projects are community-needs based, why not consider the affordable, single-family dwelling?
Architects are becoming increasingly aware of the hypocrisy of RS-1 zoning. There are presently many functioning alternative models to the nuclear family requiring housing in our neighbourhoods. Residents who, for various reasons remain single longer and cannot obtain mortgages, band together and buy houses jointly. Many single parents who cannot afford to be sole homeowners buy with friends in a similar position and subdivide the house, or buy alone and build a rental suite to help with mortgage payments. Many two-parent families need two incomes, many mothers now prefer to work. One parent may decide to set up an office at home -- necessitating an adjoining studio or work suite. The dilemma of the "illegal" suite has arisen of social necessity and it is time we recognized that RS-1 zoning is obsolete.
Vancouver neighbourhoods have a new street-face. The proliferation of the existing Vancouver Special has brought us to a street facade of flat housefronts and boxy roofless shapes, a longing for materials and details evoking the historical character and context of neighbourhood, and a need for usable, friendly yards connected to living spaces. When densification and the two-family possibility are acknowledged, an opportunity is gained for more diverse and complex siting, articulated massing, and more detailed, less monolithic elevations.
More than imagination and creativity were required on the designers' part to solve the problems of the existing Vancouver Special. Implicit in the programme for the New Vancouver Special Competition was the necessity for competitors to come to grips with the planning and sociological implications in their design solutions.
(From official publication)