Foreword
Competition organisers
Buildner is pleased to present the results to the Vancouver Affordable Housing Challenge!
This competition is part of Buildner’s Affordable Housing series, in partnership with ARCHHIVE BOOKS, showcasing projects that invent new means for driving down housing prices. Designers were tasked with proposing a flexible, innovative, pilot-phase concept for affordable housing within Greater Vancouver. Winning projects will be featured in ARCHHIVE BOOKS’ second edition of its publication, What is Affordable Housing?
Buildner’s Affordable Housing design series posits that there is no one right answer to making housing affordable. Today, a host of new ideas and platforms are enabling people to own or purchase homes. These creative methods include everything from community co-living facilities, to 3D-printed homes, stackable modular homes and new forms of transit-oriented development.
In addition to rising interest rates and a limited housing stock putting pressure on Vancouver’s housing market, the city is also restricted by zoning laws that render most types of housing - other than single- family detached homes - impossible to construct in many regions of the city. These issues, as well as many more political and economic factors, contribute to Vancouver’s mounting housing challenges. This competition tasked participants with proposing design-related solutions to the city’s housing crisis. They were encouraged to submit flexible solutions to accommodate a range of unit sizes including families, single professionals, and couples. There was no set competition site or scale, and participants were encouraged to be as creative as possible. The jury sought projects that challenge typical ideas of housing, design, and the community at large, while at the same time maintaining a practical element that could potentially see these designs realised.
Buildner collaborated with a regional and international interdisciplinary jury panel. The full panel included: Marianne Amodio, Principal of Vancouver-based MA+HG, a registered Architect with the Architectural Institute of British Columbia, Chair of The City of Vancouver's Creative Advisory Panel for Housing Innovation, and a member of the City of Vancouver Mayor's Advisory Committees for Housing; Nicky Bruun- Meyer, a Toronto-based Architect and a Co-Founder and Co-Publisher of The Site Magazine, a leading independent journal of contemporary architecture, landscape, urbanism, and design in Canada; Avi Friedman, a professor of architecture at McGill University Peter Guo- hua Fu School of Architecture, and president of Avi Friedman Consultants, Inc., a design firm with a focus on affordable and sustainable residential environments; Bryan He, an Intern Architect with Gair Williamson Architects, with experience in small to medium size residential, commercial and institutional projects in Vancouver; Melissa Higgs, Principal of Vancouver-based HCMA Architecture + Design, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, and an Adjunct at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; Tom Schroeder, a senior architect with Patkau Architects and adjunct faculty member at the University of British Columbia; and Surabhi Shakkarwar, an Urban Planner and Intern Architect with Boniface Oleksiuk Politano Architects focusing on the design and delivery of complex residential mixed-use projects in Metro Vancouver.
Buildner and its jury panel thank all individuals and teams that submitted proposals.
Jury feedback summary
Laneway Village seeks to advance Vancouver’s Laneway Housing Program through an integrated approach to create a cohesive new form of cohousing community. It claims to offer an adaptable framework to a “sustainable, equitable, and feasible” urban densification plan. The jury commented: “A smart expansion of an already existing and approved policy. This is a realistic proposal that amplifies the conversion of backlanes as streets, adding vitality to underused areas that have been attributed only for the use of vehicles. It demonstrates an affordable, scalable, and adaptable way to densify the underutilised and ubiquitous laneways all over the City of Vancouver and beyond. The flexible mixing of communal and commercial programs as well as dwelling programs shows a promising way to make the existing single-family zoned neighbourhoods more livable and accessible through the proposed community land trust financing model with local timber construction methods. It offers a viable approach to densifying and moving towards a more cooperative and communal approach to living. The scale is liveable, the design options and the concept is well described both in written content and in the beautiful drawings provided. The proposal is graphically engaging, clean and bright with a simple and clear solution. The drawings demonstrate compelling places where diverse communities can flourish.”