More detail about the originator of this architectural style
His ‘Revenge’ on Architects Was the Vancouver Special
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/12/17/Vancouver-Special-Reve...
Vancouver Special
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: Vancouver Special
#52A few details not mentioned in the article: 1. The Vancouver Special originated as a way to evade zoning regulations. The lower floor is 18" below grade which qualified it as a "basement" not counting towards floor area ratio calculations. 2. Once the design became widespread, the building permitting process was streamlined -- there was no need for a detailed review of plans if they were identical to previously appro…
Re: 3 funny to see 1) how people often point to how we need "cheap and fast" simple housing to fix affordability issues, and then get mad at all the "cookie cutter" housing that results from the implementation of this idea.
and 2) these maligned "cheap and fast" building styles eventually become (at least somewhat) loved.
Looking at a generation of houses before the Vancouver Special, it's abundantly clear that all the 1910s era heritage homes one finds near downtown are also pretty much all tweaks on a similar core design, just like the Vancouver Special.
Re: Vancouver Special
#53I'm shocked by the memories that photo has unlocked. Early 90s road trip with my parents to their friends' living in Vancouver. Sleepless nights in the summer heat and humidity with no AC. All while reading Cliff Stoll's classic The Cuckoo's Egg.
Sleepless nights in the summer heat in Vancouver? Was this during a heatwave? Because average highs in July-August in Vancouver are just 22.2c: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver#Climate
It may have been... and coming from the very dry prairies, any humidity felt uncomfortable.
Re: Vancouver Special
#54A few details not mentioned in the article: 1. The Vancouver Special originated as a way to evade zoning regulations. The lower floor is 18" below grade which qualified it as a "basement" not counting towards floor area ratio calculations. 2. Once the design became widespread, the building permitting process was streamlined -- there was no need for a detailed review of plans if they were identical to previously appro…
Not so cheap anymore! They go for $2M each today which seems insane to me.
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Re: Vancouver Special
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a few, but the vast majority of Vancouver’s residential land still bans apartment/condo buildings of any height: https://twitter.com/GRIDSVancouver/status/640544192045826049
The majority of the land is low-density, but there are condo forests that have popped up over the last twenty years at ~every SkyTrain station, both in the city proper, and in its suburbs. Each of those condo forests house more people than the mile of suburban housing surrounding them.
> ~every SkyTrain station
I would say maybe half of the stations, but otherwise agreed.
Re: Vancouver Special
#56A few details not mentioned in the article: 1. The Vancouver Special originated as a way to evade zoning regulations. The lower floor is 18" below grade which qualified it as a "basement" not counting towards floor area ratio calculations. 2. Once the design became widespread, the building permitting process was streamlined -- there was no need for a detailed review of plans if they were identical to previously appro…
Re: 3 funny to see 1) how people often point to how we need "cheap and fast" simple housing to fix affordability issues, and then get mad at all the "cookie cutter" housing that results from the implementation of this idea. and 2) these maligned "cheap and fast" building styles eventually become (at least somewhat) loved. Looking at a generation of houses before the Vancouver Special, it's abundantly clear that all t…
I wouldn't assume the both halves of 1) are the same people.
Re: Vancouver Special
#57A few details not mentioned in the article: 1. The Vancouver Special originated as a way to evade zoning regulations. The lower floor is 18" below grade which qualified it as a "basement" not counting towards floor area ratio calculations. 2. Once the design became widespread, the building permitting process was streamlined -- there was no need for a detailed review of plans if they were identical to previously appro…
In some Vancouver specials, this plumbing in the "basement" has a drainage problem. As a plumber once told me, circa 1991, there are two rules in the business: (1) shit flows downhill and (2) payday is Friday. In some of these fake basements, the sewage line is well above ground level. Thus, you see weird installations like showers and toilets raised a foot above the floor or more on a little deck. I saw one house many years ago whose owner boasted of the "throne" toilet, haha.
Re: Vancouver Special
#58When I was a uni student in Vancouver in 2005, “The Vancouver Special” meant a tall young white man with a much shorter Chinese girlfriend. Most people in my circles (UBC engineering and humanities) agreed with this appellation. I wonder if it’s still used.
Like 10x more common