What is Being Subverted?
1 Building zoning bylaws
2 Parking bylaws
3 Fire exit requirements
4 Residential expectations/amenities
5 Back Lane conventions
6 Residential balcony design
7 Commercial building norms
8 Main-level commercial ceiling heights
9 Setback loopholes
10 Street trees
11 Rain protection
12 Setback loopholes
Fictional Case Study Questions
Can current zoning create viable housing and commercial space on small existing sites?
Can the parking bylaw be met on small commercial sites without expensive excavation?
Can small sites provide more than one commercial space to nurture more variety on high streets?
What loopholes help make small living spaces feel larger?
Can ground-level commercial activity invigorate lanes?
How can zoning cliffs between six-story buildings and single-family neighbours be softened?
Can street trees in Vancouver offer better year-round rain protection?
Can enough residential units fit on a 33’ wide site to make it financially viable?
Dictation
The site was chosen because it is in the neighbourhood near our studio’s homes and offices. We know the area well because most of our studio is nearby. The project’s goal came directly from observing the site from the street and the lane for 18 years. The property has been for sale on and off for over ten years.
It has always had a slanted-looking building that appears ready to collapse. It used to have a barbershop inside. There was one barber and six chairs. No matter what you asked for, the haircut was the same. The site is 33 feet wide by 120 feet deep. This is normal for commercial mid-block lots on main streets. It’s also the most typical size site for a single-family lot in Vancouver.
As Vancouver grows, most new commercial developments combine a few of these sites, replacing them with larger full-block or half-block buildings. These buildings end up being enormous. They try to break up their façade to look like smaller buildings, but no one is fooled. They have commercial space on the ground floor and residential above. They are usually four to five stories tall.
Vancouver’s current C-2 zoning allows up to six-story buildings on these sites, but only if the building has rental apartments. There are two reasons why this site is still for sale –besides the asking price, which is excessive. The parking bylaws for residential buildings mean developers must build big underground parkades, which are expensive to excavate on a site like this. However, the ramps that curve to get your car down to the lower parking levels would use up almost all the available footprint on narrow sites, leaving no room for parkades, furnace rooms, exit stairs, or elevators.
These sites are empty until someone tries to buy and consolidate a few of them in a row to allow for a larger building. If not, other current or new owners build small, new commercial rental buildings. These new commercial buildings have high 17-foot ceilings because the zoning allows for it. The interiors are cavernous; they echo and seem like they are missing a second floor. Commercial buildings with apartments above are no longer built on these small infill sites because they can’t fit the required surface parking at the lane.
Some of these small new commercial buildings have an allowable mezzanine at the back, mostly where kitchens or offices are located. It is quite absurd to see serving staff run up and down long flights of stairs to bring food and dishes back and forth to the dining room.
Vancouver is slowly coming around to the idea of allowing buildings to have less parking than the bylaws call for, or even no parking under special circumstances. But, for now, parking bylaws require one vehicle per unit.
DJA primarily works on residential projects. This case study moves our studio towards larger infill projects. We have never designed a building of this size. Most new developments on Vancouver’s main commercial streets sterilize the street by removing variety and replacing an eclectic mix of small businesses and restaurants with half or full-block corporate anchor tenants. The streetscape would be richer and more diverse if every block had dozens of buildings designed by different architects.
This case study is a resistance and alternative to over-scaled urban redevelopment. It proves its viability by solving the parking issue, providing enough housing to be economically viable, and re-introducing fine-grained commercial units facing the street and the lane.
Our first trick is to use a car elevator to meet the parking bylaw. They’re becoming quite common. Urban car repair shops or dealerships rely on them. The working shop is in the basement or one story above grade. Vehicles move up and down on a giant elevator, like the ones at newer IKEA stores. On our site, vehicles enter off the lane, drive to the middle of the building, and then take the elevator up to the floor they live on. They either pull forward or back into their parking spot. Each parking spot has a fire-rated roller door that opens with a remote control. Almost every modern car has a backup camera, so it is easy to maneuver your vehicle. This same elevator is used to move people too.
This strategy provides 13 parking spaces for 15 units. Whenever you buy or rent an apartment, the cost of a subterranean parking space is factored into the rent payment. Our proposal is to connect the parking spot to the unit itself, which is more logical. The space can be used for many other purposes if a tenant does not have a vehicle. This same elevator is also used to move people.
When you start designing a building like this, you quickly realize two exit stairs eat up all the space at the core (with a scissor stair) or at the two ends (with a corridor between). Very little space is left for decent living units on sites as narrow as ours.
We chatted about this case study with Tavis McCauley, a building code consultant who presented his opinions about the code issues. He pointed us to Conrad Speckert (secondegress.ca), who did his thesis about single-exit stairs. Conrad is petitioning the National Building Code of Canada to allow buildings like our case study to be built with one exit stair.
The idea is widespread in many European cities. It is even accepted in nearby Seattle if there are no more than four units per floor and no single floor plate is larger than 1500 square feet. The benefit of a single central stair is more units can be on the corners, space-wasting double-loaded corridors can be deleted, and the exit stair can be airy and bright, acting as a social space. The British Columbia government announced their plans to support this code change while our case study was wrapping up, so an idea that seemed provocative at first is quickly becoming probable. Single stairs are becoming more approvable for three simple reasons. Concrete buildings can’t burn, new buildings require fire sprinklers, and interior walls are built from non-combustible drywall.
Our proposal will easily house 30-45 people on a property that often has a single restaurant. It creates this density within a narrow building that is not large enough ever to dominate the street or lane. This development model would significantly increase the housing stock faster and more concurrently than larger drawn-out projects. Unit layouts are left schematic and will be considered and designed by our entire studio as a separate Design Week exercise.
Ground Floor
Our proposal also criticizes recent ground-floor infill developments. Typical new commercial building on 33-foot-wide sites assumes one commercial or retail tenant, rarely two, and never three. This development model has contributed to the death of small mom-and-pop owner-operated businesses that can only afford a small space. Small tea shops, specialty retailers, and little gift stores can’t afford Vancouver’s commercial rents. We split the street front unit into two and added a third commercial unit facing the lane.
The smaller unit looks onto the accessible parking spot. The larger unit is separated from the smaller one with an inset glass entry, nodding to older retail stores that displayed their wares in similar inset entries that were out of the rain.
Customers can see from one commercial or restaurant unit to another, making the whole development livelier on the ground level. The commercial units’ washrooms are shared since the cost and floor area required for three units to install their own washrooms would make our proposal unviable. Shared washrooms are uncommon in Vancouver, but they are common almost everywhere else.
Small Unit
The smallest unit at the front could be considered too small for most potential tenants.
Medium Unit
The larger unit at the front is still undersized by current commercial standards. Ignoring the city’s generic treatment of mezzanines, which no one really wants or needs, our solution rethinks how to take advantage of small spaces with very high ceilings. Like a child’s bunkbed, we proposed a restaurant with two tiers of tables. Circumventing building codes, our invention would be considered “furniture.” It is not a floor area because it is not continuous with any other floor area below or connected with a stair.
Guests would be raised by a scissor lift, safely run by a host. Staff also come to retrieve you if you need to use the washroom or leave. There would be two tiers of servers. The lower staff would wear normal comfortable shoes. The upper staff would wait on the upper tables wearing drywaller’s stilts. The kitchen would serve both levels, moving food to the servers with a traditional dumbwaiter. The bar would be above the kitchen to save space, using its own dumbwaiter to move the drinks.
Lane Unit
Back lanes in Vancouver are disgusting. They look like parking spaces for banged-up dumpsters and canvases for graffiti. They’re a forgotten wasteland for rats and cooking oil. Still, they are a second “street,” and many cities have developed their mews and minor streets into viable commercial spaces. Low-density Tokyo is famous for this.
Dumpsters
Our ground-floor commercial space out back suits a café or a bar. The added ceiling height will be returned to the rental building above as a common space. Tenants would walk or take the elevator down to the mezzanine level of this commercial space to drop off recyclables and garbage. This mezzanine will be used for the pick-up procedure on developments where garbage and recycling are part of the elevator.
On pick-up days, the refuse would be pushed out on an overhead track and dumped into the top of an urban garbage truck. The mechanism is the same for any body shop that lifts heavy engines and transmissions around a shop. Forktrucks that lift and collect the garbage from any standard dumpster have a hole at their top. Modifying the existing trucks to allow for a new top-loading method would be uncomplicated. The lanes are still used for garbage but are tucked away into wasted ceiling height. Being in the commercial space while the garbage is being loaded would be interesting and lively.
Car Wash
If tenants are effectively going to be parking their cars in their unit’s second living room, they will need the option to wash their cars as they come home—likely daily, depending on the weather. Sitting in the café or bar while a car gets washed would be delightful like roadside car washes with large windows, where anyone can watch the cleaning in action.
The whole ground floor will appear like a scene from a Richard Scarry book came to life. Someone would be parking in the accessible parking spot only inches from the restaurant’s kitchen, and vehicles and bikes would be coming and going. Soap suds, cars, and customers waiting for the toilet would mix like a modern dance. Our case study fosters a dense vibrancy with no precedent in Vancouver.
Window Washing Balcony Baskets
Many apartments charge extra if the unit has a balcony. Balconies can’t go past the front yard setback, so they don’t fit in our case study’s floor plans. If a building hires someone to wash their windows with suspended hanging baskets, the mechanism is considered temporary and utilitarian, so it can operate outside the allowable setbacks. Developers of our case study buildings would convince city officials early on that this proposal’s clientele are neat freaks, so window washing will be frequent, if not constant. The result? If you want to have a drink in the sun or barbeque on a unit facing Main Street, you will reserve or call for the elevator like calling a cab. Once the “balcony” is outside your sliding patio door, a mechanical switch will trip, locking it in place. The same technology has always been used for elevators. The same switch allows a tenant’s sliding patio door to open fully, so they can step out onto the “balcony”.
Bay Windows
One other little loophole about setbacks is windows. A casement window can swing into a setback area. We propose to use very large casement windows that open as balanced sashes. The floor and ceiling of the two units would come with them, almost like a folding steamer basket. Insulated Gore-Tex fabric between two rollers would keep the drafts out if required. The added floor space could be opened and closed seasonally or daily. The arc of the operable windows adds valuable floor area to small living spaces.
Sitting on the Floor
Our case study proposes fixed concrete balconies at the back of the building. As anyone in Vancouver knows, narrow balconies are almost useless for outdoor dining because they are often only 5’-0” or 6’-0” deep. You cannot sit around a table unless a balcony is about 7’-6” to 8’-0” deep.
Our fix for this problem is inspired by Japanese restaurants where customers sit on the floor. The balconies would be built 18”-20” below the floor line of a unit. When tenants open their doors, the first 18” of their interior floor becomes a “seat” so the table can be located close to the interior.The sliding door track would be flush to the floor, making it comfortable to sit on. Cushions or felt pads could also be used. If people are using the balcony while someone inside is feeling a draft, a large two-layer insulated curtain can be pulled shut and installed 24” inside from the face of sliding glass doors.
Shared Barbeque
Many balconies are full of bikes and barbeques, which is not attractive. We have a fix for that. This site’s zoning requires that any balconies be pulled in 6’-0” from the side yards. We thought this void space should be used for something. No one minds sharing a barbeque, but they are often on another level or roof deck and often in use when you need them most. Sharing anything is much more appealing when it comes to you. Our case study proposes a barbeque on cables that move up and down in this leftover space on demand. Like bike and car sharing services, having access to a barbeque you don’t have to maintain brings a lot of value to any residential building.
Garbage and Laundry Comes to You
Working in conjunction with the mezzanine garbage room, some developers will opt for more amenities to differentiate themselves from other new infill buildings. Since elevators that can lift heavy cars are very robust, they are a major expense for developments like ours. To keep an expensive elevator working hard to justify its existence, we propose that an underbelly be attached to the elevator under the lifting platform. Nice apartments from the past had garbage chutes in the hallway on every floor. Similarly, our proposal brings garbage and recycling up for tenants on every floor. There will be the option to bring the laundry room up to each floor for use by any tenant for any variations of our case study that don’t come with in-suite laundry machines.
Rolling Privacy Patio
Even though our six-story case study is allowable under current zoning bylaws, it introduces a big change for any single-family houses that back onto our site across the lane. We will block some of their light, and our design’s upper storeys will impact the privacy they currently enjoy in their backyards. As a bit of a housewarming or thank-you gift, we propose that all developers offer to build or buy a rolling raised sundeck that will be parked on top of any concerned owner’s back garages. Inspired by common rolling gantry cranes seen at the Port of Vancouver, these portable amenities are not considered buildings, so they don’t need building permits or to adhere to the building code. They are more like a boat trailer than a building.
These gifts will be rolled over existing garages. One added perk is that if the existing garage’s roof needs repair, the new rolling sundeck will keep it dry, deferring an expensive re-roofing job. The sundecks could hold hot tubs, a garden, or patio furniture.
Street Trees
Most commercial sites have at least one street tree on the sidewalk out front. Our proposal respects and nurtures the urban tree canopy, but we want to improve its functionality. Since all civic street trees are deciduous, they offer poor rain protection during the rainy months when they don’t have any leaves. Street trees are unhappy growing in a constrained hole, surrounded by hot concrete. We propose that all street trees be raised up on level, creating spots to get out of the rain under each one at any time of the year. The tree’s planter would block the rain. As the tree grows, the planter expands to match the size of the root ball, inspired by the same folding steamer baskets that were a precedent for the casement window design.
Super Short Sentences
D’Arcy
If underground parking is too expensive, do it elsewhere. Cars make good living rooms. When ceilings are high, exploit vertical space. Share culture could change barbeques and balconies. In The City of Glass, use glass and windows in weirder ways.
Kelsey
Mechanical building for living.
Jonny
Background: A parking problem in a fun neighbourhood with a livability problem.
A Main Street Marvel, 4411, takes Vancouver’s classic parking conundrums on an overlooked site and extends them vertically for all to park and live to their heart’s content.
Jesse
How many ways can we logically/practically mechanize an apartment building to be most efficient with space and function?
Alex
Drive-thru apartments and coffee shop.
Mary
What can a 33’ lot do? 4411 Main is a sizzling melting pot of DDes themes that calls for a maximalist approach on a tiny city lot.
Shane
4411 Main Street is an urban-ish infill project that seeks to increase the car storage to household area ratio of homes in the area.
Breana
A multi-family building with the desirable vehicular pleasures of a single-family house.
This exploration is part of an ongoing speculative project that began as doctoral research. The collaborative case studies test ideas that will inform future built work. A new design methodology using unconventional techniques explores how to delay aesthetics and form in a search for utility-driven, human-focused projects. Architecture’s status quo is questioned through an optimistic but contrarian lens.
