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A 'Plague' of Condos

And other observations on Vancouver from the author of 'Architecture of Happiness.'

By Charles Campbell, 28 Dec 2006, TheTyee.ca

Alain de Botton

De Botton on Granville Island. Photo by Charles Campbell.

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  • The Architecture of Happiness
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  • McClelland & Stewart (2006)
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London, England's Alain de Botton has been in Vancouver for one day, and he's sitting in a Granville Island café, unsullied by incessant hype about 'Vancouverism' and its positive influence on North American urban redevelopment. What does the author of The Architecture of Happiness think of our new downtown?

"It's a condominium plague," he says. "It's like a locust invasion."

Lucky for him he's headed for the airport, after a late fall whirlwind North American tour with stops in New York, Washington, San Francisco and Toronto. De Botton blames the generic nature of the new development on architects from away who don't understand the city. On that count, at least, he needs a primer; Vancouver is good at using its own architects.

But first impressions matter, and de Botton's reflects a growing sense that our new downtown isn't entirely the equal of its glowing press.

What Vancouver buildings does he like? There's a long hesitation -- and the question is a little unfair to someone who has been here so briefly. Finally, he waves his hand toward the window, toward a temporary willow-branch sculpture and one of the few Granville Island industrial buildings that's still used for such a purpose. "I nominate right here as a good place."

How do buildings make us happy? In The Architecture of Happiness, de Botton explores the issue as he traces the history of architecture. He cites John Ruskin, who said we want shelter and we want to be reminded of what's important. He quotes German art historian Welhelm Worringer, who says society loves in art "whatever it does not possess in sufficient supply within itself."

He says himself: "We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves." And: "What we seek, at the deepest level, is to inwardly resemble, rather than physically possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty."

As you can tell, de Botton brings an academic eye to his work. He is the author of How Proust Can Change Your Life. But he's also an acclaimed TV documentary maker -- Architecture is the basis for a series on Britain's Channel 4 -- and a very engaging writer, despite and even because of all the Ruskin and the Proust and the Worringer. The Architecture of Happiness is one of those gems that occasionally shows up on a university reading list: a serious book that doesn't feel like a duty.

Here's what else de Botton had to say, including why we need a gun-toting individualist inclined to kill immigrants to help sell a more communitarian model of living.

On what is distinctive about Vancouver architecture:

"I think it is the integration of materials which you could describe as rough into settings which you could describe as elegant. Rather than making a distinction between what is fancy and what is simple, you get an upscale hotel that will have a bare concrete wall, you get an upscale house that will have raw timber.

"The good stuff is going for some kind of regionalism, with materials like concrete and quite dark wood, and furnishings with earth tones, woollen things, an attempt to build something that subtly sends out signals that you're in one part of the world and not another.

"Lots has gone wrong with these condominiums. There's just too many of them. I guess it's just a matter of people pulling the levers. The condominium structure is never going to be all that inspiring. The best of them are done with touches that are out of the ordinary. And I haven't found any evidence of that. I found that they are standard-issue stuff. And I think it is ruining the city. I think as an outsider it is clearly, clearly wrong. It's a real pity."

On what Vancouver architecture tells us about ourselves:

"It's kind of relaxed. I like this zone here. Where are we? It's half industrial. It's kind of a rough city. The grit is left on the surface. It's not all rubbed away. It's got a good kind of roughness.

"In parts of the States, if you've got money and you're trying to create a fancy effect, you don't leave a wall in bare concrete, you don't do any of that. I think what that reflects in the Canadian spirit is a greater democratic sense, a sense that there's less of a hierarchy, you can show up somewhere and be simply dressed, and that's okay. You're just part of the community."

On what we need to demand of our city:

"Really what we want is local identity. We want to know why we're living here rather than there. At its worst Vancouver is becoming like Anywheresville. No one likes Anywheresville, actually. What do tourists coming to Vancouver want to see? Do they want to see the parts of Vancouver that look like everywhere else? No. They will hunt out any kind of particularity. They will come here [to Granville Island].

"It's time for people to tell the city government that this is the case, that if they want to put the City of Vancouver on the map, if they want Vancouver as a destination, they are shooting themselves in the foot with their development, because the world has got no shortage of blandness. It's got no shortage of places without a history. The places where everyone wants to go are the places where everyone remembers who they are, and where they are, and where the architecture can communicate that. It's good business to create a place that remembers its history."

On the trouble with our road signs:

"One of the joys of travelling is to find places that have an identity, and we take delight in those things. One of the most disappointing things for me, coming to Canada, is that the road markings are exactly the same as they are in the States. If I were the autocratic ruler of Canada, I would say we've got to get Canadian at the level of our street signage. It's nice when you get light switches that are different from country to country, when you get regionalism at the level of doors, and paving stones and bricks. All of these things when they're done well capture the flavour of the local area."

On what North American cities he likes:

"I like Portland, Oregon. I kind of have a sneaking admiration for L.A., even though it's a horrific city. It's kind of interestingly horrific. I love the smaller places. Austin, Texas."

On who builds great buildings:

"Good buildings come when governments put in some minimal guarantees. They force architects to spend a certain minimal amount of money, plus 10 per cent, on good architecture. I think that architecture is too important to be left to individual property developers. I'm a great believer in the free market in some areas, but I do not believe that the free market can on its own produce great architecture. There will be too much temptation to cut costs.

"If you look at the great buildings of the world, they've either been the result of good strong central-government city planning or they've been the result of very wealthy aristocrats, and sometimes very wealthy corporations, though that's very seldom. Whatever your politics, if you care about architecture, you're going to lean toward a more communitarian, left-leaning model of how things get built."

On whether a great building has the power to change a city:

"There are buildings that are like a high achiever in a family. People say, if he can do that, then I can do that. A building can put a city on the map, like the Guggenheim in Bilbao. In London, on the south bank of the Thames, the Tate Modern has transformed that whole area. You've got to service that destination. There are hotels, bars, cafés. And then people realize it's a lively area, so they start building apartments. It's a virtuous circle."

On what Guggenheim Bilbao designer Frank Gehry is trying to tell us, and what lack he is trying to compensate for:

"He represents an escape from the austerity of the modern capitalist machine. He is the kid that we can't be. He's the showman and player that we long to be but are unable to be."

On whether green roofs and green buildings are practical choices or emotional ones that compensate for what we lack elsewhere:

"I think it's partly an emotional thing. It's sold to us as a very rational thing to do. It's efficient. It's sold to us under the language of efficiency and science. But in many ways it's an expression of a quite romantic, irrational desire for contact with nature."

On where the world should look for an example of great planning and architecture:

"The only city is Amsterdam, and it's the greatest city in terms of the attempt by the city government of Amsterdam to build out to the north and west new communities. They are world leaders; they are leagues ahead of anyone else in the world at doing this well. Any architect or urban designer who needs inspiration or wants to know how it's done should get on a plane to Amsterdam. For Canada, the Dutch model is a good model, because Holland is in many ways what Canada in its left-leaning moments aspires to be -- a society which reconciles the demands of the market with social needs.

"There's a development called Borneo Sporenburg, and there's another area called Ijberg. These are two new zones on former industrial land. It's low-rise -- two, three, four storeys -- on a tight urban grid. You can cycle around. They've actually built spaces that we all like -- this sort of area -- where we can all walk. They've built that new. Most places in the world just don't build like that. The only places that have these kind of human dimensions are the older areas. As soon as an area becomes new, you get motorway, tower, you know."

On whether there's hope that the world will start to get it right:

"We're getting the idea. But often what goes wrong is there are still zoning problems. And it ends up being sterile because it's only a pedestrian zone, or there's no businesses."

On how we can encourage better planning habits:

"It's like anything, you change the reward structure. Are [planners] rewarded by new tax revenue that comes in, or is there some sort of architectural board that awards them points on the basis of how well they've instituted certain ideas, and if they don't hit those targets, they'll lose their jobs."

On what Amsterdam has done:

"They've denied the right of any old person to do any old thing on any old piece of land. The land is part of the community. When you apply for a permit, the government will say, 'If you want to build on that, you must use one of these five teams of architects.' All of whom have been beautifully trained by the top schools in the Netherlands. If you don't want to use them, you won't be able to build on it. So bad luck. So they're going to use them. And they're going to make money. And everyone's going to be happy. They could have made more money, but what would they do with it? They'd only go on holiday again.

"In the end, that's how it works. That's how good, paternalistic government works. It tempers the short-term, blind, stupid impulses of individuals in the name of something greater. It's just common sense."

On how you sell a 'communist' message like that in today's North American culture:

"You know where I think this leads, it's like in many areas, like when you've got a serious problem such as AIDS. Who's going to be a spokesman for AIDS? Do you choose the sick guy who's disgusting-looking. No, you get the top model, and the top model becomes a spokeswoman for AIDS. And she's able to carry her message to communities that would normally not have listened to the message about AIDS. It's not that the message has changed, it's the spokesperson has changed.

"So, if I was trying to sell my version of 'communism,' what I would do is get an extremely rugged looking, individualistic multi-millionaire who has previously shown an inclination for shooting guns and killing immigrants, and I would make this person the spokesperson for a new kind of communitarian politics. Often the most courageous left-wing decisions have been taken by right-wing people, and the most courageous right-wing decisions have been taken by left-wing people. Because they're the only ones who can carry the idea across. Nixon goes to China, Begin makes peace with the Egyptians.

"That's what I would say you need. That's the problem with, say, Hilary Clinton wanting to become president. Everyone hates her in the South.

"Really, what we're saying is, how do you address people's fears of something? It's like being a teacher. You get people who hate learning. The good teacher is the cool teacher. The good teacher says, 'I'm cool, I know about music, but I'm going to teach you Latin today. And if you don't learn Latin, you're really uncool.'"

On why our schools should be beautiful, and why so many are not:

"What more important symbolic building do you have? We live in a world that is extremely utilitarian, and that recognizes primarily only financial values. Architecture is not a financial value. Good architecture is not about money. People who care about good architecture have a hard time persuading the accountants to spend a bit more money. It's very difficult to show economically the benefit of good architecture. You could do a cheap school or a good-looking school, and how can you tell what the benefit of the good-looking one is? People are likely to be happier there, and they may learn better, but you can't quantify that on an accountant's spreadsheet."

On why more communitarian models of living, such as co-housing, haven't become more prevalent:

"There are many good ideas in the world which have not been developed, not because of any problem in the idea, but because people are lazy, and there's inertia, and people are scared. It's true that we have only scratched the surface in many ways for how good architecture could be, and the interesting ways in which we all might live. Anyone who brings up children knows that the existing ways of arranging family living are really poor. The suburban family home is kind of a problematic institution, given the communal nature of raising children. Let's hope there are mavericks out there who will do some of these projects and make a noise about it and kick-start a movement. "

On architecture's role in how we marry and bury:

"What do you do in a secular world where religion has ceased to be the guiding way in which we interpret our experiences? How do you commemorate and mark those big events like births and deaths and marriages, just at the level of ritual? Then there's the level of architecture. How do you honour the dead? You can't put a cross anymore. We don't know about crosses. We want to get married. Can we build a church? That seems like an old sort of thing. And yet we still feel the need for buildings that can accommodate these sorts of things.

"The Japanese architect Tadao Endo did a wonderful crematorium, secular, built out of concrete. In Sweden there's some nice commemorative architecture, a very nice crematorium just outside of Stockholm. I haven't yet come across a wedding chapel that isn't kitsch. But that's no reason not to get up and do it.

"Again, what I think we're groping our way towards is a new kind of humanism that acknowledges the demands of major life moments and tries to give them dignity and weight, as religions used to do. A secular religious architecture. We're groping our way towards that. The closest we get to it is the museum. The museum is the modern temple. It's the building that we go to, and lots of money is invested in it. In lots of cities the museum is the great building. It's about more than art."

[Tyee]

Charles Campbell is a contributing editor to The Tyee.

119 Comments:

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  • G West

    5 years ago

    Comments on "A 'Plague' of Condos"

    Nice to see someone from away with the balls to call Vancouver architecture what it is. An enormous pile of high priced shite. World class only for its tackiness. Without its natural setting this city would be on an architectural par with Denver.

  • Christina

    5 years ago

    Shoudn't the Japanese architect be "Tadao Ando" (rather than "Endo")?

  • Logjam 603

    5 years ago

    just another stuffed shirt "intellectual" who can't figure out why there is such huge DEMAND for the product he chastises.

    He just doesn't get it. Probably a socialist at heart and thinks it isn't "fair"

    As a Yaletowner, I can tell him that life here is just wonderful.

    Send him back to dreary old England where his enlightened intellectualism can be appreciated.

  • Grumpy

    5 years ago

    I note with intrest that the two cities he likes, Amsterdam and Portland have extensive light rail networks. Maybe the dreadful condo malaise that affects Vancouver is conditional with building a metro (SkyTrain or RAV)?

  • _brian_

    5 years ago

    Most of what he says I have been saying all along. Vancouver has erased it's history it is a cultural void. There is a definition of culture and diversity based upon Asian Culture which is great but it is an excuse to use the word culture to describe Vancouver as being diverse. I feel the subcultures of a city are far more important. Cultures based upon one neighborhood to another. The Italian section, Greek, Jewish, Gay, Latino.... Downtown Vancouver always represents Vancouver internationally. We get defined by Yaletown and the bland architecture of downtown. It is all done and can not be changed. It was designed to make money not create living space and sidewalks with soul that defined a wonderful city. Anyone that says Yaletown is wonderful is part of the "Me" concept of living in Vancouver. It is all about "Me" not about a community. Yaletown represents an area that believes it is great and wants to be seen but is a product of ignoring the larger picture that is truly Vancouver, not just downtown. And as far as England being dreary it is far from that. London has some incredible architecture that has been built in the past 20 years. Vancouver can not even compare. But then London is far more culturally divers than Vancouver and they know they have to do it better than anywhere because they have gone through what developers have done to Vancouver already and come out the other side. The only areas that are really interesting in Vancouver are areas that the people in local neighborhoods have pushed to preserve. It is not developers that make cities it is the people.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Planners can be some of the most Machiavellian of all bureaucrats.

    In my view and experience , they have far too much power and their visions can have long term negative consequences. I'm not sure many are truly aware of this unaccountable power.

    All it takes is the proper whispering in the ear of a gullible City Council...presto...stuck with shite piled high for 25 years till a new wave sweeps in.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    The fact that there is a " huge DEMAND" for Yaletown condo crap just indicates that the same people I see lining up to buy more stuff at 'boxing week' sales have more money than brains. I'm not surprised someone from Calgary would appreciate Vancouver 'Denver' Schlock, loggie.

  • ubiquitous

    5 years ago

    I've lived in many different neighborhoods in Vancouver and in my opinion Yaletown was the worst. It is a soulless place where living animals are considered disposable accessories. I used to think that being a 'new' residential area that it'll take time for it grow into a strong vibrant community, but when I moved to the west end, it didn't take long to realize that it was the condo development that's hindered the growth of the 'community'. In Yaletown there was barely any impetus to leave the building where I lived because the building itself had all of the amenities that are 'traditionally' a part of the community centre. The gym, the library, even green space was all confined within the secure lock of the condo development. What I found in the west end was that people are, in a sense, force to get out and interact in the community - in Yaletown, I found the sidewalks to be more of a veritable run way of consumerism instead of a public realm where citizen interact on a daily basis.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Ubiquitous:

    Good point, the trend seems to be quasi-gated communities in various guises.

    People will find all the amenities closer to home. That seems to be the planning model I am seeing more and more. The ultimate would be self containment /self sufficiency within a given complex. This simply encourages and fosters an anti-social "society" . More la-de-da from the Planners and Politicians.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    And not all that much happiness in evidence last time I visited the area either. A lot of people trying to look happy and a lot more who clearly weren't - according to my analysis.

  • dbarefoot

    5 years ago

    What are the alternatives to all these condos? One of Vancouver's blessings is its dense downtown core. How would you maintain that density without skyscrapers?

  • dbarefoot

    5 years ago

    To add to my above question, consider this: Over the last 15 years, the city of Vancouver has added 100,000 people. If not for condos, where would those people have gone?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Well, to start with, urban population growth is not always a sure thing. Between 1971 and 1981 Vancouver's population actually fell by more than 12,000.
    Projections currently suggest the Vancouver population will reach 635,000 by 2021.There are all kinds of mixed housing options centered on communities within the city's boundaries which could handle the increase in population between now and then without building another high-rise. The major problem with the city as a decent place for all kinds of people to live and work is, as Grumpy pointed out above, the provision of decent, reliable, well-planned and cheap transit. Spend a few months in any of several European cities and the fact that there are other, better alternatives to what's been forced on Vancouver by its developers will become immediately evident.

  • Cycling Commuter

    5 years ago

    Alain de Botton wrote:

    "it ends up being sterile because it's only a pedestrian zone"

    Some people would prefer to live in a pedestrian/cyclist only zone. Others would prefer to drive their SUV or climb on board a massive, noisy, smelly diesel bus to travel one block to the corner store instead of walking, even on the nicest day. Why force everyone into the same mould? Why not zone some residental neighborhoods pedestrian/cyclist only for those who prefer that approach, leave other neighborhoods with their SUV or diesel bus lifestyle, and split the difference in yet other neighborhoods where you can drive your SUV from your doorstep to the corner store, but only at 5 kmh on residential roads kids are around, not 50kmh.

    My preference would be to live in a pedestrian/cyclist/twike (see http://www.twike.ca ) only single family residential neighborhood where large cars and large buses are banned entirely and emergency vehicles must always use flashing lights and moderate volume sirens to warn pedestrians and cyclists of their approach. Service vehicles would also be allowed, but their maximum speed would be limited to 5 kmh, they'd have flashing amber lights on their roofs (no sirens though), and they'd be super-quiet plug-in hybrid vehicles, not noisy, smelly diesel vehicles. I'd be quite happy to pay an extra $2 to have a new couch delivered to my door to compensate for the fact that a delivery truck would spend a couple of more minutes driving slowly for the final 5 or 10 blocks on the way to make a delivery.

    I wouldn't get rid of my car entirely. I'd prefer to park the thing in a secure, strata-title, underground parking garage 5 or 10 blocks away on a major road near a shopping centre. If I wanted to drive a long distance, I could walk or bike to the parking garage and drive from there. My garage could then be converted into a small, cozy, well insulated, solar/geothermal-heated bachelor housing unit, with the rental income used to make payments on the underground parking garage spot.

    A few weeks ago, a mother of 4 young children was jogging on the sidewalk in her residential neighborhood in the Toronto area when a speeding car jumped the curb and killed her. She was one of 5 pedestrians who were hit by motor vehicles in the Toronto area within a 12 hour period. In a second incident on the same day, a disabled man was trying to cross the street in front of a stopped transit bus when he was clipped by a car and knocked to the pavement in front of the bus. The bus driver didn't notice this, so he started up the bus and drove over the disabled man, crushing him under the bus's massive wheels and killing him instantly. A few days before that, a car jumped the curb in Vancouver, mowing down 3 young children and a teenager on the sidewalk before plowing through a fence and coming to rest in a daycare centre playground, next to a swing set. Witnesses saw a baby laying on the ground beside the crushed stroller she had been in. A few weeks before that, in another Vancouver neighborhood, a 5 year old boy was struck by a car and killed in front of his own home. A horrified witness saw the child thrown into the air as high as a lamppost. Previous to that, a disabled man in a wheelchair was hit by a car and killed a few blocks from his home. He was in a wheelchair as a result of being hit by a car and permanently disabled some years earlier. It took two attempts for cars to kill him, but they finally finished what they had started.

    If terrorist bombers were killing even a fraction as many Canadians every year as cars do, we'd be spending tens of billions of dollars on extra security. But with cars causing all this horrific CARnage, people just shrug their shoulders and consider it to be unavoidable. But most of this CARnage is easily avoidable if we start designing our cities to meet the survival needs of human beings instead of designing them to tickle the fetishes of architects.

  • Cycling Commuter

    5 years ago

    Alain de Botton wrote:

    "[green roofs and green buildings are] an expression of a quite romantic, irrational desire for contact with nature."

    Some large cities satisfy 60% or more of their food requirements with urban gardening. What's irrational about wanting a dependable, local supply of fresh, healthy, tasty, low-cost food?

    "you must use one of these five teams of architects"

    What if the homeowner wants to place evacuated tube solar water heaters and photovoltiac panels on their roof, and all five of the beaureaucrat-approved, empty-headed fetishist architects think that nuclear power stations are more pleasing to the eye than solar collectors?

    I don't really care what my neighbor's house looks like as long as it doesn't block my sunlight and as long as I'm allowed to grow an 8-foot hedge to block the view if it looks ugly. Some overzealous municipal zoning nazis have prohibited high fences/hedges because they "don't look nice." The result has been that toddlers have climbed over low, zoning-conformist fences and drowned in their neighbor's swimming pool. The life of a child seems to have little value compared to the need for architects to indulge their fetishes.

    In Florida, fetish-driven architect types talked empty-headed, power-tripping municipal politicians into outlawing clotheslines because they "don't look nice." Fortunately, Governer Jeb Bush responded by passing a state law nullifying all such municipal bylaws.

    "So, if I was trying to sell my version of 'communism,' what I would do is get an extremely rugged looking, individualistic multi-millionaire who has previously shown an inclination for shooting guns and killing immigrants, and I would make this person the spokesperson for a new kind of communitarian politics."

    This guy really is a nutter! Stalin killed about 1/3 of the entire Ukrainian population. How could that give him any credibility?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Stalin killed about 1/3 of the entire Ukrainian population. sez cc recycling nonsense. That would have made Stalin a very busy man, don’t you think.

    Could we have a little proof of this claim.

    Besides, Stalin was a statist authoritarian and not a communist anyway so your point isn't one.

    Why’d you bring him up?

  • dbarefoot

    5 years ago

    G West: You didn't actually answer my question. I said:

    "Over the last 15 years, the city of Vancouver has added 100,000 people. If not for condos, where would those people have gone?"

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Yes I did.
    I'm not suggesting the city tear down the condos but the fact future growth doesn't need any more high-rises amounts to an response to your point, mutatis mutandis, anyway.

    Here's the substance of what I wrote:
    There are all kinds of mixed housing options centered on communities within the city's boundaries that could handle the increase in population between now and then without building another high-rise. The major problem with the city as a decent place for all kinds of people to live and work is, as Grumpy pointed out above, the provision of decent, reliable, well-planned and cheap transit. Spend a few months in any of several European cities and the fact that there are other, better alternatives to what's been forced on Vancouver by its developers will become immediately evident.

    Mixed housing options are the key to the problem and there are several models available including:

    Redeveloped commercial/residential projects of the kind that are increasingly evident on the west side and along Broadway which can easily be expanded fo other corridors once most car traffic has been eliminated.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Higher use of infill developments and expansions in single-family areas to provide density without destroying the streetscape;
    Greater utilization of small suite expansions within existing housing.

    The city planning department has some interesting possibilities and pictures of what has already been achieved on a fairly ad hoc basis on their website if you want to investigate this a little more.

  • dbarefoot

    5 years ago

    Thanks for that, but maybe I wasn't clear. The general message of this thread has been to bemoan the numberous condo skyscrapers in Vancouver. I was asking what alternative there had been for the last 15 years of population growth (from 1991 to today).

    I'd also point out a fact that ought to appeal to the Tyee's core audience--condos are extremely environmentally friendly. The footprint of the average condo owner is smaller than pretty much any other urban resident.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    “…condos are extremely environmentally friendly”.

    I'm not sure this is an accurate description.

    There were lots of other ways to absorb the population growth of the last 15 years without that hodgepodge of anti-human crap. At least at Brasilia, where the ideas Le Corbusier formulated in the Unite de Habitation and which Oscar Niemeyer created on a massive scale in Brazil, there was a provision for a lot of green space.

    20 years down the road people won't be singing the praises of Concord Pacific's blight on the shores of False Creek. Mark my words, it is only a matter or a very short handful of years before the same problems that are tearing Toronto apart will have started to destroy the ‘planners’ dream’ that is False Creek. There is no community there and there never will be.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    As a builder of many houses I have the reaction mentioned in the original article to most housing built in the recent decadeds: the trend seems to be to create a functional weatherproof (?) shell, paint it in pastell and make it "individual" in the choice of interior wall colour and kitchen appliances.

    Just behind my monitor is an horizontal log salvaged from the salt chuck complete with exit holes where some boring beetle has chewed it's way out. This is not decoration. It is part of the Gable end of the structure. Downstairs the (nominal centre) is supported by a column of river rock and concrete that chases the Fireplace flue and the basement furnace flue through the roof.

    Obviously I did not construct this house for it's "universal appeal" nor it's "Resale value". I built it on a very limited budget as a place to raise my two daughters.

    Never worked on a "Condominimum" but I have built "Spec" houses for other owners which sell in the .5M range and I would not trade straight across for any one of them .

    I beleive that the problem centres on the fact that all housing is now regarded as "real estate" and is an "investment" first and a "home" somewhat secondarily.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Re: condos as enviro firendly.

    If we are referring to high rise condos ,...In terms of energy efficiency I doubt it. The architects seem to be enamoured with floor to ceiling glass which take up a vast amount of wall area...

    Glass is one of the worst insulators/ highest heat conductors. The best double- glazed windows are in the R2 - R3 range, a fully insulated wall ( 2 X 4) studs) has an R12 rating.

    If its baseboard electric for heating, or any other Non forced- air option...this results in poor indoor air circulation = poor air quality. Mold often grows on walls in the corner areas.

    However, re : dbarefoots posts about population growth ...Given the status -quo , major population growth can only be accomodated vertically , by hi rise condos etc,, and people often have no choice, and they are being herded and shoe- horned in this Non- option by the powers -that- be.

    In other words NO real alternative.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    maestro
    You need to look a little more closely at infill options, mixed use alternatives and what can be made of all the space currently devoted to cars. High-rises are NOT the only option for a growing population.

    You're right about the heat loss and other issues though.

  • Capitalism

    5 years ago

    I'm in favor of townhouses, though I hate the city of Condo's we've become. $400K for a tiny little one bedroom!

    My house is worth over $1M in North Van, and believe me - it is nothing to shake a stick at. I'd love to sell, but I'd have to move in somewhere at equally inflated prices. Part of the problem is that we are locked by water and mountains.

    We need townhouses and parks. Where people can actually raise a family. Not these foolishly expensive condos.

    All of my employees are moving to Richmond, Delta or Maple Ridge. You know what will come next?? Businesses - as these people get older they are not going to want to drive uptown for work anymore. Business will follow and Vancouver will be gutted.

    We need to develop South Vancouver/East Vancouver into places where families (with reasonable incomes) choose to live....

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Cappy,
    I'm pleased to say that, at least on this issue, you are absolutely right.

    Put a mark on the wall somewhere. When was the last time we agreed on anything?

  • dangrice.com

    5 years ago

    I have to disagree with this article, I've travelled all over Europe and across most of North America and I think that Vancouver's downtown core is by far the nicest modern city. We may not have castles, or a large monumental heritage, but our architecture is some of the most clean examples of neomodernism, and we lack much of the hideous cement structures that were raised for most of the 20th century. Vancouver's protection of a Seawall that spans 26KM is something that most cities lack. Also, I've been to Bilboa and while the Gugenheim is interesting, it is purely a tourist draw and I couldn't imagine have to look at that twisted mass of medal on a daily basis. Cities that have tried to artificially create a cultural heritage, often end up looking like theme parks. Take Barcelona, I believe it has some of the coolest architecture in its downtown core, but in return it has also been depopulated of locals and has become a tourist attracton intermingled with one of the worst ghettos in Western Europe.

    And while I love Amsterdam, it is not a model for a city, but has always been more of an anomaly. It can't support high density towers because of the low lying water and is supported for commerce by more Vancouver like cities uch as Rotterdam and the Hague. The same with Paris and London, as tourist you see the old city but they've build parallel cities nearby to them. The old cities would utterly collapse if they weren't economically supported by denser new areas.

    While I think there is a need for more mixed usage buildings in Vancouver, I don't really think this should be tied in with the aesthtics of the city or a debate on the height of buildings.

    Until the completion of the Wall Center, and the installation of the Shangri-La, Vancouver had a very aesthetic skyline and we will only have two in the downtown core that buck that trend and we don't have any monstrosities like the CN tower, to remind people which way is East.

    I agree that midelevel mixed usage building are preferable to straight out suburban sprawl, but highrises are quite reasonable provided that commuting can be done without cars. (Downtown is very walkable, and with the Canada Line, Yaletown should be tied into the rapid transit grid) Skyrises generally are not cost effective after a certain hight except for business usage except where property values and demand has risen to that seen within Vancouver.

    Just because affluence invokes envy, doesn't mean its wrong. And yes Vancouve has a ways to go in its community in the downtown core, but thats because so much is new and community can't be bult overight. Vancouver has plenty of Vibrant communities even if the lack of pubs with rooftop patios makes me wine even to this day!

  • dbarefoot

    5 years ago

    I haven't heard anybody cite any numbers. It's easy to bandy about ideas, but does anybody have any studies explaining how many people any alternative strategy can accomodate?

    And incidentally, I checked out Unité d'Habitation, and I'm not sure it's any more attractive than Vancouver's condos:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Unit%C3%A9_d%27Habitation%2C_Firminy_%28rucativava%29.jpg

    It's also unclear how many people such a strategy could manage.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Assuming that the point of the article is: how "USER FREINDLY" are the latest housing projects?

    I gotta say that from the street they are not making any grade: FAIL
    Would be my grade on them.

    Sure they clump all kinds of folks into small space (that's a plus) but they do not aknowledge any adjustment in the future.

    What ifs abound.

    This is not a sustainable, ongoing situation.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Of course its not. It's just where all these crazy ideas got their start.

    Neither is Brasilia - they were all spectacular failures - more a success as pieces of enormous sculpture than as residences for people.

    You might want to check out Hellmuth and Yamasaki’s Pruitt-Igoe Project as well for another example of a spectacular failure (designed and promoted by experts and visionaries), or Corbu’s project for the Unter den Linden in Berlin. Or Sert and Wiener’s project for Chibote, Peru.

    There’s very little that’s new in False Creek and very little that won’t end up as a horrid failure in 20 years or so. As I already said, there are all kinds of examples of successfully integrating housing and commercial usage with enough green space and community oriented facilities to sustain community in ways that will work without resorting to the high-rise option. If you’ve ever travelled in Europe you will have seen what I mean.

  • Step easy

    5 years ago

    as someone already mentioned, if it wasn't for the natural surroundings of Vancouver, the city would be just like any other cold-heared, bland, uninspiring city. Culture? Give me a break.

    As has been mentioned, there are many other alternatives to densifying other than going way up. What about spreading out the density a little bit? All along many busy streets, such as that horror show Kingsway reveal run down one and two level structures that could theoretically be rebuilt just a few levels higher (two or three) and with some inspirational architecture for once! And a tremendous amount of living/mixed use space could be created.

    And on another note, if developers insist on building as many units on a single lot as possible, why not at least make the building unique in some way? Cheap, misguided, soulless people.

    Even today, ancient cities like the old parts of Rome and Avignon draw tremendous tourist attraction. I hate this industry, but as it is, it is an important one for this province. My question to the developers, what are you building today, that people will fly thousands of miles to see twenty, thirty, or say five hundred years from now?

  • Step easy

    5 years ago

    on another note, culture, i beleive, cannot be created at whim, it must necessarily evolve on its own, directed in part by lifestyles, in part by language, religion, and custom, and also, at least in part, by the way cities are constructed. If the architecture in Vancouver is any small indication, what kind of culture are we creating?

    There are so many possibilites! Why always square? Why not round? Why always grey? Why not a vibrant burgundy? Vancouver is grey enough in its own natural environment, lets add some color to our structures!!!

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Stepeasy:
    I took a day off each week some decades ago and took a socialogy course at the local (MalU) College. The main thing I was interested in was the day off!

    But what I saw in the course was a lot of need for "neighbourhood".
    Some of the (mainly ladies) who were in the course lamented the lack thereof.

    We are talkin' 1978

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    or was it
    1988?

    Who cares?
    This ain't news

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Brasillia:
    I spent a night or two there.
    Weirdest place I've ever been and I have been some places.

    The architect was a madman (and may still be) but there are lots of "green spaces":.
    There are also lots of kids and cops under the overpasses

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I think Niemeyer is still alive doggone - although he's long in the tooth now.

    Let me check it out and I'll get back to you. There was a long article about him in the New York Times Magazine not so long ago.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Yep, he's still alive. Just turned 99. I can email the long article from the Times if you're interested.

    It's about 5,500 words so it wouldn't do to post it all. I twas published May of 2005.

    Here's a little paragraph from it:

    Niemeyer's own office is a modest room in the back with a couch and a desk pushed up against a wall beneath heaving bookshelves. Niemeyer, at 97, still arrives at work every morning at 9:30, eats an early lunch in the studio, sometimes with friends, then stays into the evening, even on weekends. A driver shuttles him back and forth to his apartment in Ipanema. His wife, Annita (they were married in 1928), died last year. She was 93.

    Needles to say he hasn't been living in Brasilia all these years!

  • G West

    5 years ago

    In fairness to Niemeyer, he did the buildings - and strange things they are too, but although he gets all of the credit/blame for Brasilia, it really ought to be shared with
    Lucio Costa. It was Costa, not Niemeyer, who mapped out the futuristic city, as a kind of anti-Rio. Costa envisioned the huge blocks of government offices, distinct areas or sectors for banks and for housing with everything carefully positioned in a kind of matrix of boulevards. Niemeyer, was a member of the jury that picked Costa, who then enlisted him to design all of the major buildings - the things you describe as weird. Moreover, I think you're right.

    I think, if I'm not mistaken, that most of the people who work there today actually live outside the perimeter in hodge-podge human scaled outskirts as unlike Brasilia itself as night is to day. Yes?

  • BC Mary

    5 years ago

    Somebody please talk about the Sydney Opera House, and was Canada Place an intentional copy?

    Enormous controversy and construction difficulties accompanied the prolonged building of the eye-catching and now-iconic Australian structure which, in real acoustical terms, was a failure.

    I'll paraphrase a famous builder I once knew, who would probably say: "If you want a sailing ship, build a sailing ship -- don't try to tell us it's an opera house."

    All I can remember about the origins of Canada Place is that it had something to do with Grace MacCarthy. So, is it a good building? Or another attention-getting gimmick?

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    G West:

    Re: alternatives

    Thats why I qualified my comment with " given the status quo".

    The Planners mantra is build up not out. They are also up against Nimby-ism with other NON High rise options. Our City is looking towards densification along arterial routes as are other cities...where existing single family lots are split into two...to create 2 new lots, or condo projects are also being entertained here as well . These would back onto existing neighbourhoods, but many of these people are into NIMBY mode.

    My view is most people would prefer to live in a detached Single Family home, at least at some point in their life ie pre retirement years. However, that "choice/option" is taken away in many Urban settings. Their choice, based on affordability , is either say a $400,000 + City condo....or move 50+ miles outside of Vancouver to acheive that single family house.

    I agree with your other points....all these High Rises will lead to soul-less "lack of community" socieities,....Planners are gods unto themselves . A neighbour of mine has a family member that works at our City hall, and she told him that the growth has far execeeded original expectations and they are scrambling....but haste makes waste and poor planning. I've viewed the new OCP in draft form , and its aimed at tripling the number of people in our City core.It was started last April, and if not for a major glitch, it may have been passed. However, the planning model is mini - villages...amenities close by...very idealistic in my view.

    Overall , I don't see this changing, this will simply a planning model that will form the basis for much of the future. PS Remember your old psychology crowded- rats experiments.

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    The Sydney Opera House was designed by the Danish architect Jorn Utzon. It went way over budget, more than ten fold, and was taken away from Utzon before completion. Nevertheless, it is being considered as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and has become the visual icon of Australia.

    Canada Place was designed by Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership; Downs/Archambault Architects and the Ziedler Roberts Partnership. It is probable that Sydney's Opera House was considered during design. This multi-use building has become the most iconic of all Vancouver buildings. Canada Place also serves multiple purposes, hotel, offices, theatre, convention centre and cruise-ship terminal. Total cost was cheap at a round $130 million, and nothing was demolished to make way for it. Is it a good building? It does allow cruise-ship passengers incredible convenience right smack downtown. Compare that with Los Angeles and Long Beach (Calif.). It serves well too as a medium sized convention and meeting centre. The hotel seems sucessful. The fabric 'sails' that form its roof are a bit silly but the building is generally well liked.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    In my own estimation, approx 10% of Canada's population lives or will soon live WEST of Hope BC.

    This will continue to increase, maybe we have't seen anything yet. The secret is long ago OUT.

    The densification has a dark side,...It is promoted as minimum " eco footprint." ..some UBC profs latest hip eco term. We " assume" these condos are synonymous wirth satisfying domestic population growth needs.....in my view they are not. They are simply catering to an international investment market which wishes to purchase REAL estate as a historically stable REAL investment.

    The domestic demand (local residents, NON- recent immigrants )admittedly purchase " some " of these densification projects, but not all. Domestic demand is pushed to the periphery of the boom's balloon, the eco- footprint thus has an even greater shoe size.

    Of course, the market can't limit the sales to Canadian citizens only...but lets not fool ourselves this" maximum density" actually minimizes " eco footprint"...most models are based on assumed /qualified variables.

    There are 3 Sewage treatment plants near Vancouver, NONE within Vancouver...nor Burnaby..nor within many GVRD cities. 2 of these are located near the mouths of the Fraser River, another literally at the mouth of the open ocean. HIGHLY CONCENTRATED Density will impact water quality, and isn't there a legal case pending ?

    Vancouver's DENSITY PIG OUT will force the "GVRD CO-OP" into more costly sewage treatment....which we ALL pay.
    Other GVRD members are feeling more and more obligated to "ca$h in" as well ....or be left behind in Vancouvers dust.

    Vicious circle

  • Moat

    5 years ago

    Grump, I cannot believe that you let Skytrain dominate your outlook on life so much. Really crazy man.

    The statement that you make below is totally BS, and you know it...

    "I note with intrest that the two cities he likes, Amsterdam and Portland have extensive light rail networks. Maybe the dreadful condo malaise that affects Vancouver is conditional with building a metro (SkyTrain or RAV)?"

    Really, Grumpy. Does Calgary with it's light rail network that you continually advocate for serve as a beacon for architecture? And really, I have been to Portland several times, perhaps de Botton did have the time to visit the plague of outlet malls and big box stores that surround downtown Portland.

    Enough of the "one issue" BS. You are too knowledgeable for that kind of silliness.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Like Viljo Revell's Toronto City Hall, the Sydney Opera House has become iconic as a symbol, if not as a functional success. I once knew Barry Downs quite well and I don't think he felt that Canada Place ever really achieved the high status for Vancouver that that Utzon's or Revell's buildings did in Sydney and Toronto. Revell

    Some of that has to do with siting or course as well as the disjunction between the two elements of Canada Place - the pier-anchored convention hall with its attenuated march of ersatz sails and the strong and seemingly unintegrated verticality of the hotel.

    Like Viljo Revell's Toronto City Hall, the Sydney Opera House has become iconic as a symbol, if not as a functional success. I once knew Barry Downs quite well and I don't think he felt that Canada Place ever really achieved the high status for Vancouver that that Utzon's or Revell's buildings did for Sydney and Toronto.

    Some of that has to do with its site of course, as well as the disjunction between the two elements of Canada Place - the pier-anchored convention hall with its attenuated march of ersatz sails and the strong and seemingly un-integrated verticality of the hotel.
    As a civic space I’ve always felt that Revell’s City Hall was by far the greatest achievement of the three. One wonders what else Revell would have produced if he hadn’t died at, I think, just 54 before the building was finished. So many of the greatest architects don’t hit their stride until their fifties and sixties.

    Utzon spent some time with Frank Lloyd Wright and seemed to have absorbed some of Wright’s late ideas about organic architecture. In a way he provides a bridge between late Wright designs like the Marin County Civic Centre (where the movie Gattaca was filmed) and the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.
    Not to forget the almost contemporary Guggenheim, New York – also by Wright.

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    If you are a city with a small block of land with 4 houses on it you can expect to exact, say, around $12,000 in property taxes per year. If a high-rise condo is built on that peice of land then you can expect property taxes to now be, maybe, close to a $1,000,000. As a city you have to now provide services to perhaps 500 people instead of perhaps 15 people, fire department and police services and a larger sewage system. The street maintenance and cleaning remains the same as before. There are now more potential users of the transit the city pays part of, so that becomes fuller per vehicle and therefore more viable. Neighbouring shops, restaurants and services receive more patronage and become more sucessful, so you can increase their taxes. Now you can build community facilities and parks. It should be a good deal all round.

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    One of Wrights nicest building is the samll Circle Gallery in San Francisco.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Except, as so many urban examples show, the idea of community is not just a product of putting a lot of similar people into a space. In order for Vancouver to succeed it has to be a place where families can find a level of comfort that is just not going to be forthcoming in False Creek. Although the few green spaces along the water seem well-used in decent weather, it's notable that there are virtually no children in the area. Over time the night life and the usual gentrification of the area will destroy what little street life exists during the day and the place will go to seed…in some respects this has already begun if my last evening stroll along the waterfront is any indication.

    There is nothing wrong with a lower rise (maximum 5 or 6 storey) more linear growth pattern using infill and commercial/ light industrial bases at street level. Such alternatives are commonplace and highly successful in Europe and they will work well in Vancouver once the masters of the universe recognize that they have ridden the condo craze from its zenith (about now) to its ridiculous nadir. Jane Jacobs is still the best readily-accessible authority on what makes a city livable as a community.

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    5, 6 or 7-8 stories seem to work well in the European cities like, Paris, London, Lisbon, Brussells, Athens, etc. that I've seen. As well as the frequently smaller (4 -6) ones like Amsterdam and Rome, etc. Much of Vancouver is single storey close to the city centre.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    If not mistaken, Vancouver limited its High Rises to around 40 stories.

    I seem to recall it being reported that one is being built in the 60 storey range,

    Wanna " gentlemans bet " a 100 - storey building will be in the works within our lifetimes ?

    Then more...

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    Barry Downs may well not have felt that Canda Place acheived what was possible. Barry's work with Fred Hollingsworth produced some of the best and most interesting examples of the development of what should be recognised, and continued, as Canada's west-coast style. Barry himself has described it as "organic modernism". Since there was a team of designers on Canada Place it is likely that compromises were made. In many ways Canada Place is typiical of Canada's and Vancouver's penchant for commitee driven consensus to acheive approval from a variety of interest groups, in as much as it is a multi-purpose building. The Sydney Opera House is solely a performing arts centre.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    realisticman:

    Re: your post of growth and City services.

    The problem is that this densification model never keeps pace and likely never will.

    Our Local Gov't had a criteria of X acres of park for Y number of people. it recently redcued the re

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I think Wright had a project on the boards in the mid-fifties for a mile-high skyscraper didn't he? It was part of a theoretical city plan he called Broadacre City that he’d been playing with since the 20s. I’m sure if it had been built the whole thing – especially given his monomania about the car – would have been as absurd in its reality as Niemeyer’s Brasilia. I must pull out my Henry-Russell Hitchcock.

    There's a tiny jewel by Wright’s son along the seacoast in California – called the Wayfarer’s Chapel that I always liked too – have you seen it?

    As to a 100-storey building – I wouldn’t bet against it. I think there was some serious consideration to moving the height limit to 750 feet when the Wall Centre tower was being planned, wasn’t there?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Did you ever see the little house Barry built on the south end of Dunbar for himself?

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    ( SORRY>>>>>> hit the wrong button, didn't complete the previous post...)

    CONTINUED : Our own Local Gov't recently HALVED its own parkland requirement in the City core. Reading between the lines it can't afford to fulfill the OLD requirement, given land cost approaching $100 per sq .ft. ...approx.$ 5 million acre.

    Other services are simply acquired cap- in -hand to higher levels of Gov't for funding ie hospital beds. Vancouver densifies, then BC foots the added health care costs ..correct ?

    Same goes for added schools. However, BC education ministry rules state a minimum of 8-10 acres per NEW school. TOO EXPENSIVE....thus one can foresee additions to EXISTING schools. Add to this the fact that school enrollment is declining, esp. in expensive urban centers,...and school boards will be forced to make decisions on school's viability. If one is familiar with the BC School Act...that can result in a whole new variable about future plans for closed schools and " your local school/ public park".

    In our City, the City has a devil's bargain with the school district...the new schools often provide the new local park..ie it overlaps the City requirement..but now the school board is fighting back RE: the new city densification plan. The new required land is Unavailable and too expensive. "BAD expeditious Planning"..the norm all over it seems.

    Police...yes, their will be a so-called proportional need for more police, though I personally think added police is a waste of time...crowded courts and wrist- slapping laws.

    In the end, I see this densification as a Local Gov't Ca$h Grab. .....lots of property taxes revenue...very few returnend service....in fact less.

    Same services delivered to an increasing number of citizens = DILUTION .

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    I've been to Palos Verdes but I didn't know the Wayfarers Chapel. Next time. Haven't seen the Dunbar House either.

    Frank Lloyd Wright did have a plan for a mile-high building. Exploding growth Dubai is almost reaching a kilometer (950m):
    http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/

    maestro, sounds like you have a valid complaint. Make sure you get your figures and facts known to those who want to be voted in again. Become involved.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    realisticman
    Don't know when he moved out. He was living there with his wife and kids when I spent some time there with him. I imagine it's still there: on the right side when you're going south toward the Fraser down Dunbar - not far after crossing over Marine Drive.

    Just a single storey - flat roof - post and beam - almost hidden from the road in those days by bamboo and other plantings. Lovely little place - I hope it hasn't been bulldozed.

    I think the Wayfarer's Chapel is a Swedenborgian Church - I'll bet they have a website too.

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    Quote:
    Until the completion of the Wall Center, and the installation of the Shangri-La, Vancouver had a very aesthetic skyline and we will only have two in the downtown core that buck that trend and we don't have any monstrosities like the CN tower, to remind people which way is East.

    Whatever do you mean? The Wall is one of the only truly striking modern buildings in downtown Vancouver, and I could give a twiddle if it spikes out of the controlled, hedge-trimmed old skyscraper skyline. The Big Uglies are the bank towers, the Hydro building, the Harbour Centre (our bad copy/knock-off of the Husky and CN Towers, which themselves are knocks-off of Seattle's much more graceful, even inspiring, Space Needle). And then there's those two atrocities by Denman and Georgia, on the Coal Harbour side of the street, with their bland plazas and overall inhumanity, on the doorstep of Stanley Park and the amazingly vibrant Denman Street social/commercial strip. I welcome more skyline-piercing elegance like the Wall and the crystal tower, whatever it's called, that's going to be built above and incorporating the old Georgia. The pretense that downtown Vancouver's skyline should emulate, but not challenge or block, the North Shore Mountains is poppycock. The result is a low-rise pile of unremitting blandness, spiked by bank towers with glaring neon corporate logos on top; no inspiring angles, no eye-catching sweeps of sky-scraping; and that citywide blight of grey-green glass, some of which was imposed on the top 1/3 of the Wall Centre (Center? did they use American spelling there?), which partly ruined the overall effect of its mirror-black design.....unlike the matte-black of the TD Tower and other Pacific Centre black boxes, which were meant NOT to reflect the sky. And speaking of atrocities, the TD Tower and the "public urinal" design of the Eatons/Sears white turd, squatted down on Granville Mall where the Egyptian-deco Lyric and British-Italianate old Hotel Vancouver used to be.

    And mentioning the Lyric, and in the same breath the Strand (where the Scotiabank Tower is now) and the Coronet (where Holt Renfrew is now), the bland, blue-walled and fast-food-joint-cluttered lobbies of places like the Paramount are horrific by comparison to the old theatres' plush intereriors and escapist designs; interior architecture here is even worse than the exteriors, IMO. That's the fault of the theatre chains' taste in new design, rather than part of Vancouver's general malaise, and the loss of the old escapist cinematic environment is continent-wide, but a great loss. I remember the tastefulness of the old Capitol - which had been home to the symphony in the old days - with its wide, comfortably padded seats, and cream-toned cameo ceilings; so much less garish than the Orpheum, which was in its day meant as gaudy and rather tacky in comparison to the more tasteful Capitol and Lyric (although the Lyric - originally named the Orpheum - had this problem with columns blocking the view from parts of the orchestra....nice boxes/loges, though....instead of regular balconies as were also once common in movie theatres).

    To BC Mary about Canada Place: I think McCarthy's involvement was not with the choice of artchictecture - it was a federal gig afte all - but with the brokering of the conversion of the A-B Pier into a major complex. The design was veritably a knock-off of the Sydney Opera House, in the sense of being intended to be as memorable and harbour-defining, and visually it worked; but like the SOH it's not really part of the city, and its plazas are more populated by visitors than locals. McCarthy's more responsible for the ugly space-frame crap that's the Plaza of Nations (big-box/space-frame was the iconic model for most temporary pavilion designs at Expo '86, as you will all remember) and that other atrocity that used to be named Science World, whatever it's been corporate-rebranded as now, the Telusphere or whatever; clearly a bad-taste and kitsch rendering of the wonderful US Pavilion at Expo '67.

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    Speaking of Expo '67, I'd say it established standards for all following worlds fair architecture - Tsukuba et al. Futurism taken a further step or two; I always like the matched hexagons of oen of the "Man and his..." Pavilions, and despite its in-utility the Quebec pavilion was pretty neat. The interesting story about Katimavik, the main Canada pavilion, is that the architects were stalemated after designing the lower flowers/portions, which by themselves are incredibly dull concrete blocks - representative of federal architecture overall. So, when heading to coffee break, somebody put on of those big glass ashtrays on top of the model......et voilÃ* that became the design. True to form, this most striking of all Expo '67s buildings was torn down after the fair.

    I disagree entirely with de Botton about Vancouver's concrete and wood-beam stuff, and its taste in grey roughness, and agree entirely with the idea of introducing colour - big colour - into building design (not just heritage houses in gaudy colours...). Likewise the reintroduction of human form into design, or at least of some curves and some elegance, isntead of unremitting utilitarianism and internatoinalism. I've got some pics of building facades in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest that range from baroque/romantic neoclassicism to art-deco evocations of same, so maybe I'll post them somewhere to link them here....

    One thing I think that would go a long way to making Vancouver's streets more liveable, by the way, is the reintroduction of big awnings and also the introduction of Mexican/Latinate style arcade-porches; like the ones in Oaxaca's zocalo it's not so convenient to go hang around in right now. Typically such buildings, which I saw in Mexico City all over the place, have upper floors that extend right over the sidewalk, from the third floor up, while the first and second floor levels are big arched facades, typically stone, underneath which are cafe and restaurant tables and/or vendors. Bern, Switzerland is entirely built this way, the old downtown anyway (as conceived of by one of its ruling honchos a few centuries ago), although the Swiss don't favour the sidewalk cafes so much as the arcades being a way to keep out of the snow, ice and slush.

  • Moat

    5 years ago

    It is simply a lack of imagination and an irrational fear of towers that leads to condo malaise. New Westminster is a perfect example of that. It is only in the last few years that New Westminster has had a forward thinking mayor.

    Look at what a crappy job was done with the New Westminster waterfront. Leaky condos for everyone, junky colors, and a lack of retail with within the residential portion. In fact, the walkway at the quay becomes a dead zone at night.

    Until people recognize that towers are part of city living, and that noise from people at night in cities is a healthy thing, we are be going to be given what the short term market wants - again and again.

    Cities could reward developers who buy other properties, and donate them back for green space. Imagine this, a developer wants a building to be five stories higher that present zoning allows. The site is favorable, and a taller building would fit. In exchange of zoning, the developer buys and donates a corner lot in a residential area that is two blocks from a commercial area. This land can then be turned into green space by the developer and the city. Two years later, another developer with a similar issue suggests doing the same thing. S/he pays above market value for the lot (with a house on it) adjoining the green space that was donated a few years ago. You have now created more green space, and density. The developer gets a larger, more attractive building to sell.

    The problem is though, councils are not willing to be creative enough and the “cookie jar” may get too tempting for some as well.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Realisticman;

    Thanks,... and yes, " more than involved" currently.

    I think that is one thing that many on THE TYEE can agree on, regardless of what part of the political spectrum we tend to lean towards ( though I think most of us tend to aim to be centrist sans extremist ).

    We share views , experiences and ideas etc. and many of us appear to have a Pro-Active follow - through in addition to our TYEE posts.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Maybe someone else can comment on this...

    My understanding is that Honk Kong , which is very land scarce, tends to tear down buildings less than a couple of decades old and build newer ones again on the same site.

    Given much of the Honk Kong culture has established here in BC, and that Vancouver ain't Holland and can't create any more land...and is increasingly land scarce, will we be seeing this Hong Kong phenomemenon increase HERE as well ? .

    I attended the blasting demolitions of a few West End highrises over the past few years, some built in the late 50's and 1960's. Seemed pretty solid, and quite a waste , and I don't recall it was a density change either.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Skookum1:
    What'd you think of the Gehry's ‘Ginger and Fred’building ( I know that’s not the official title which I’ve forgotten), just by the corner next the Jiraskuv Bridge? It was still behind hoardings when I was there so I didn't really get the feel of it on the street.

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    West, I'll go down Dunbar and have a look. Yes, Wayfarers have a web site. Thank you.

    Lisbon demands that downtown residential high-rises are stepped back as they go up, allowing for more natural light to reach the streets. A combination of glass overhangs and arcades would be a good for Vancouver.

    Cesar Pelli designed the Eatons/Sears building. The Howe Street side has to be one of the worst of the downtown streetscapes and right across from the VAG!

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Now I gotta say that despite it's funny looks Brasillia works fairly well. We found an hotel and the attendant took us less than a block to find food and a car rental. The car was parked in our hotel lot. We drove about for a week or so (amazing area - Goas I mean, not Brazillia) and easily found our way back to the hotel, dropped the car and flew away. Looks great on the plan view (Brazillia) but we were not attracted to touring the city though we did wander through a mall close to the hotel. This Neimeyer fellow is also culpable for a number of town square skulptures which turn your stomach in other places - Rio if I recall.

    I don't know architecture (Did take one course at UBC: 300 with what's her name? She loned me a copy of "Steppenwolf" which I assumed at the time to have to do with a rock band I liked) but I know what I don't like: Bland.

    This visitor from England with the de Botton name seems to have sussed the problem

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I'll second that, realisticman....bloody awful...I tried to find my old address book - which would have had the street number of Barry's old house - no luck; as far as I can remember it's not too far along Dunbar from its intersection with Marine Drive.
    Hope it's still there.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    doggone:
    You might appreciate this, from the Kimmelman article I mentioned yesterday - about one of Niemeyer's sculptures - maybe one of the ones you remember:

    "On a bright South American summer morning, the first blinding view inside Oscar Niemeyer's sun-bleached penthouse office above Copacabana Beach is of round mountains abutting the Atlantic Ocean and Coppertoned tourists in vanishingly small bathing suits. The room's white walls are covered with Niemeyer's breezy drawings -- his graffiti -- of buildings he designed (the cathedral in BrasÃ*lia, a museum in Niterói across Guanabara Bay from Rio) and of women. ''Form follows feminine,'' Niemeyer likes to say.

    Other sayings by him are scrawled like ribbons around the drawings: ''The most important thing is not architecture, but life, friends and this unjust world that we must change.'' ''The dispossessed never get a turn.'' And ''When misery multiplies and hope escapes from the hearts of men, only revolution.'' That one is next to a drawing of a poor family, the mother carrying a basket of laundry on her head. A sculpture he did based on the drawing towered over the beach across the street until the mayor of Rio ordered it removed a few years ago, which makes Niemeyer fume even today. The style -- of the drawing, the sculpture and for that matter of the sayings, with their whiff of Bolshevik sentiment -- is Picassoid, circa 1955.

    In the middle of the studio, three rows of stadium seats are lined up before an easel, with a painting by Niemeyer on it -- of a voluptuous longhaired woman on horseback -- the setup like a miniclassroom. Every Tuesday, following Niemeyer's pronouncement that all architects, to be useful citizens, should read Sartre, there is a philosophy class for anyone who happens to turn up."

  • RickW

    5 years ago

    Don't much care where or how people in the city live, as long as ALR land is not compromised, and as long as residents thereof take care of their effluents, without shipping them off to....wherever.

  • rac

    5 years ago

    Give it up Grumps. Just about the only interesting buildings in the last ten years have been the Millennium Line SkyTrain stations. Brentwood in particular especially from the inside. Hopefully the Canada Line stations will be as inspired although I have my doubts but I will reserve judgement until I see them.

    The only interesting building that is not a SkyTrain station is Surrey's Central City (or whatever it is called). Ironically, it is right at Surrey Central Station. It was designed by Bing Thom and won some awards.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    sometimes I log in first and try to imagine what I want to say NOW:

    I have built architect designed buildings. I have also designed and built (much more modest) buildings.

    To date I'm not impressed with the Canadian architect. In fact I built a couple of houses designed by a local lady and at some point sought out her advice regarding whether I should go back to school and get a degree in architecture.
    Since my BSc is from UBC and I did do the course there with Wisniky I thought that was a fit: I know building maybe I could qualify. She thought for a moment and then she said:
    "Not architecture and not UBC."

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Thanks G West
    These cement sculptures are scattered all over Brazil
    and in my estimation they are butt ugky

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    sorry: UGLY

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I was wondering if it was Catherine Wisnicki you were talking about whe you mentioned Steppenwolf doggone. She took the bunch of us on tours of the Iona Island sewage treatment plant one week and another time we spent most of a day on a Red Chinese freighter that moored in Coal Harbour. We all got nice little English editions of the Thoughts of Chairman Mao and a lovely shiny plastic button (about 5 cm in diameter) with a bust of Mao on it. Shiny and glitzy.
    Priceless.
    I went back east the year after that.
    Draw your own conclusions.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Well I'm still in love with Catherine. She took our bunch up to the top of some of the old buildings in Downtown and brought in some fairly good philosophers to talk to us.

    Not only that, she introduced me to Hermann Hess!

    There is no conclusion so far

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    I sure hope I returned the book

    At that time I lived with two other "boneheads" from the interior. We had a stereo but no headphones so we would take turns lying in the middle of the floor with speakers leaned together over our ears. "Course there may or may not have been some smuggled hash involved. The best part was watching the brother "bonehead" writhing about as you rolled the controll for amplitude on the speakers left and right
    'Member that?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I've still got the Mao button somewhere - question is where and when to wear it.

    She was a fun person, no question. I guess she's retired since her title is professor emeritus now. I remember one guy from my class that year who wore a suit and tie and a beautifully-tailored double-breasted raincoat to every class. What the hell was with that? I think he was channeling Frank Lloyd Wright. Did you ever see that little interview Wright did with an unbelievably young Mike Wallace. I think it's on the web somewhere - the great man was quite a clotheshorse too.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    You're not talking about Santana's Abraxis are you?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    All I could afford was the earphones!

    Used to head over to the listening room at the Sub and just plug 'em in. There always seemed to be someone with a new LP I just hadda hear.

    You could make a hell of a drafting board out of a single slab door suspended from the ceiling on one edge and hinged to the wall along the other. With a couple small pulleys it was easy to just pull it out of the way when you needed some extra space and there was that unfinished furniture story on west 4th that had nice pine stools just the right height.

    Moreover, not a damn computer in sight.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Opps.... 'store' not story - what was the name of that place?

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    As a matter of fact: Yes
    Also Jefferson Airplane, early Rolling Stones and the magic carpet ride

    Danged if that was not a lot of fun, eh?

    First time I saw what's his name's SFU I had to chuckle.
    Now I don't think it's so bad

    Just find it odd that some bonehead (read Erickson/Neimier/wright) imagines that the issues from his pencil are worth building.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Fer cryin out loud!
    We probably sat next to each other and listened to the LPs.
    I used to switch to other channels and once picked up on a Frank Zappa album. I was living on east 33rd and we also got a BCTEl bill in the name of Frank Zappa for over a thousand dollars.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I'm sure I saw both The Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin (her last performance with Big Brother and the Holding Company before going solo) in performance at the Agrodome - separate concerts of course - during those years.

    And that was a time when you didn't actually have to have a joint of your own to enjoy take advantage of the atmosphere either...

    Most important attribute for a successful architect - my opinion - is an ego..

  • G West

    5 years ago

    That's enough to make a Frank Zappa Crappa - which brings to mind a poster we had on our wall. West 2nd Avenue near Blenheim - upstairs suite in a 1920 vintage Edwardian house - there was a man and his wife living in another suite behind us - they were both drug addicts and we used to find their fixings in the bathroom we shared with them. Can't say I was sorry to move outta there...sad.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Ah Yes:

    Two old hippies reminiscing.

    PS I thought the old saying was that if you could actually remember it you weren't really there?

  • realisticman

    5 years ago

    I think I saw The Jefferson Airplane at the Filmore West in SFO. That would have been around March 1968. I'm pretty sure Grace Slick sang White Rabbit and later we went up to the office to meet Chet Helms, he was doing the light-show, I think. Maybe it was at The Avalon where I met Chet. Should have kept our diaries.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    realisticman:
    I was never sure, at shows like that - especially with the Agrodome's ‘ventilation’ and acoustics - if the light show created the atmosphere or the atmosphere enhanced the light show! Gracie did make a meal of White Rabbit though didn't she? And watching Janis slug back Southern Comfort neat from the bottle for an hour and a half was quite an experience too. She carried off excess so much better than today’s divas.

    maestro:

    Not at all. I was much more what you'd call a Bill Clinton type if you catch my drift.....you had no choice about inhaling when you were in those places in those days. But otherwise. Not at all. Reality has always been enough for me without the need for any enhancing.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    G West;

    Uhmmm .... errrr ....I would choose an inspirational " icon " other than Bill Clinton.... Ol' Bill often tap - danced while he waffled.

    Such a model may affect your future in politics...may cost you crucial votes on the right side of the political spectrum.

    P.S. N/C.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I was only referring to the irony of his remark about 'not' inhaling. I'm sure you'll figure it out - I'm no bubba fan either and politics, well - I leave that to folks like you who try to talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time all the time. You couldn’t ‘not inhale’ at the Agrodome at those functions unless you’d brought your own air supply..

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Beentheredonethat

    Anyone who didn't understand the term " it smells like someone smoking a banana " certainly found out the hard way when attending any Rock Concert, especially 10 - 20 years ago .

    A friend of mine ( who is older than me) claims he used to book a lot of those acts....at UBC......and pointed to an old beer fridge in a garage he rented which he says that Janis Joplin and a few other famous 60's icons delved into .

    I hope he still has it.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    So any new venue for concerts should include a special "Smoking" area?

    From what I gather the modern drug of choice is some desiger amphetamine or crack. Pretty hard to police this stuff but it won't affect you if you don't take it yourself (unless someone big and clumsy happens to do a bit too much and notices you staring dissaprovingly). I think the modern music is a bit pale compared to that mentioned above so I will not likely be attending any pricey concerts.

    Near the peak of Doy Inthanon, highest mountain in Thailand, are two astounding Stupas, one honouring the King and the other the Queen. These were both built in the last couple of decades and far surpass any structure I have visited anywhere in the world (especially on the North American continent). The two places that do compare are the Egyptian Pyramids and Angkor Wat but they were built a while ago.

    I think the interviewee above has it right when he says it takes supreme power (financial or political) to produce something world class. Quite often even that is not enough (example Brazillia and Yamasoukro, Cote d'Ivoire). Probably helps if you actually have a number of spectacular buildings scattered about your country (as the Thais do) to get used to the notion. We really have very few structure of grand scale that should be emulated.

    --wait a minute: what about the "Ice Palace" hotels in Sweden? WE have Canadian engineers building indoor "ski hills" in Dubay. What's wrong with a huge Igloo in the recently cleared spaces in Stanley Park?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    I like it. ......Maybe the Parks Board is listening!

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Happy New year!
    Can't leave this site without trying to imagine a solution to the Bland architecture problem: Export it to North Nanaimo. I was driving through there today --

    Somebody figured it out a few years ago and did it so successfully I'm surprised there is still a problem on the lower mainland.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    LOL
    Happy New Year!!

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    Quote:
    What's wrong with a huge Igloo in the recently cleared spaces in Stanley Park?

    Shouldn't that go next to the Inukshuk on English Bay?

    The "architecture of happiness" theme of the original article/book brings to mind Vancouver's many old "follies", which were decorative-architectural bits of nonsense on the friezes and points of various buildings, even small ones; where the Jamaican cafe on Cambie, just north of Hastings is nwo - the building with the big octagonal bay windows...that used to have a conical roof, something like a French chateau; the Petrina Block's apex at the alleyway at the foot of Homer at Cordova used to have a thing that looked like vase on top of it (there's a proper name for that, can't remember what). This kind of stuff was all over the place; the Homer Cafe at Homer and Smithe used to have copper dome-roofs on a smaller scale than something like the Dominion Building has at mega-scale, and so on. Then there's the old CPR station at the foot of Granville; our version of Chateau Gothic and a lot more elegant as well as fanciful than either the current Waterfront Stn (which was meant to look like Union Stn) or the Hotel Vancouver, which is the only real representative of Chateau Gothic in Vancouver now.....McLennan and McFeely's hardware store in the 00 block of 100 block Cordova, somewhere around the Woodward's hole, was one of hundreds of buildings in the city, also, that were adorned with Glasgow/Edinburgh style iron filigree/tracery lining its roof-frieze (McLennan and McFeely made a fortune selling the stuff to house-builders and other commercial buildings...); all that got taken down during the Great War to be melted for bullets....sigh.

    The one building that looked really "happy" was the original Exhibition Pavilioni at Ex Park, about where the Forum or the Food building is now; California Spanish-Italianate with four mission-style belltowers on its corners, with Spanish-style cupolas and a glasswork conservatory dome in between them. Not structurally sound, it began to collapse and got torn down soon after it was built. And instead we got the Forum and Food and Showmart Buildings...art deco at the most basic level, almost a pre-saging of the Ericksonian love of concrete. Mind you, it might have had something to do with the politicians of the day having concrete companies (is it Walkem I'm thinking of?)

    One building that

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    oops. That was a double-start, gone back, forgotten about, sorry.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Speaking of Mayan temple cum Art Deco masterpiece, what about the Marine Building?

    It's still one of the very few buildings in Vancouver I think is 'fun'. Done by McCarter and Nairne, I think, and finished just about the beginning of the Depression as I recall.

    The lobby is still quite something, as are the elevators - at least they were the last time I saw them.

  • Latarnik

    5 years ago

    Plague of condos started when NDP took power in early seventies. Rent controls were instituted. Private insurance companies were kicked out of BC for ICBC. Nobody was writing Performance Bonds. This was a best protection against poor workmanship. Anybody who was caught cheating at the exams, would not get a performance bond. Contractors needed to have experience and enough financial resources to even bid for big project. Buildings from the sixties are still standing and do not leak!
    Honest General Contractors moved out and crooks started to built leaky condos, co-ops and office buildings. Together with faulty federal laws 10 billions of losses are still incurring.
    This is what usually happen when half baked utopian ideology is being forced down the throat of unsuspecting public. Good intentions are not good enough, it takes experience and good business practices, which we are still lacking building and selling fast ferries at scrap prices.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Latarnik
    So 3 years of NDP government in the 70s caused leaky condos. I don't think so Latarnik and, anyway, that isn't the subject of this thread.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    G West:
    In fact Catherine took us through the Marine Building. This was probably '67.

    Don't be too hard on Latarnik: as a builder I have always wanted to know the exact cause of the disaster and the "Barrett Comission" has yet to leak (no pun intended) any usefull information. Ugly seems to go hand in hand with Leaky don't you think?

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Interesting. The Marine building IS wonderful (It was Catherine who first introduced me to it as well) ...you were there a few years before I was.

    I always thought there were some fundamental design issues behind the leaky condo thing. Tied mostly to contemporary California/Florida pastel stucco (treated in a very smooth and plastic fashion) designs that seemed to reach here and land on every drafting board in the province by the mid-eighties: Straight parapet walls from grade to building roof-line with inadequate flashing treatment at parapet-top instead of an overhang and generous soffit and completely separate fascia treatment at the roof line.

    Such designs just aren’t appropriate in a climate where we get the amount of wind-driven rain we do here. Plus the smoothly articulated wall where the windows read as cut-outs are also big problem areas that require regular and diligent attention to caulking issues. I also think some of the acrylic stucco finishes like Dri-vit http://www.dryvit.ca/residential_details.asp?country_id=1&system_id=76
    were often applied poorly by traditional stucco contractors who weren’t properly aware of the specs and installation issues.

    We did a building where some of these issues showed up almost immediately – before occupancy – and we brought the contractors back to correct deficiencies and upgrade the caulking and flashing treatments right away. That was 1986. There have been no further problems but the owners have been very careful about keeping up with maintenance issues. I’m not suggesting that’s the only thing involved of course but I honestly think it is a big part of it

    My verdict.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    G West:
    I assume you have seen the "Best Practices" handbook for Buildings in the Climate of S.W. BC.

    A number of the boneheads I trained in construction went on to become building inspectors. Some of them (including my brother in law) are still "aparatchik". He attends these "building Inspector" conferences and I asked him just what the hell happened to create the massive mess. The conclusion of one of the early ones he said was:

    "A dry house is a cool house."

    By the way your thing about overhangs (or lack thereof) is right on!

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    and the other part of "Dry/cool" is (as mentioned in the "Best Practices") is the requirement for plastic vapour barrier.

    One simplification went like this:
    Moisture will get in to the building envelope - it must be allowed to get out.

    Caulk as we might (and sometimes the almost perfect outer caulking will be part of the problem) moisture WILL get into the walls and roof structure.

    Therefore it has to dry either out of or in to the building.

    If some bonehead has taken the required care to seal the walls to "R2000" standards you have a real problem: the moisture can not migrate in - it has to migrate OUT!

    The better your outside seal is the harder it is to dry out.

    The only recommendations I agree with in the latest Handbooks (notice these are no longer referred to as "Building Codes") are:

    1) Rain Screen outer shell
    2) Face sealed Drywall

  • Latarnik

    5 years ago

    Commenting on Doggone posting:
    Don't be too hard on Latarnik: as a builder I have always wanted to know the exact cause of the disaster and the "Barrett Comission" has yet to leak (no pun intended) any usefull information. Ugly seems to go hand in hand with Leaky don't you think?

    In fact I made a presentation to the Barrett's Commission which infuriated him when I mentioned that he was one of the authors of WAFFLE MANIFESTO, rejected even by NDP Convention. That documents proposed prohibition of private ownership of real estate. We would have all be tenants, and faceless beaurecrat would have been telling us where to work, live and when to die in a happy Socialist paradise a la Soviet Union or National Socialist Germany! Fidel castro kept saying Cozialismo o morte (Socialism or Death). I can not wait for that solution for a poor Cuba, deserted by US and Soviet Union with all its sattellite countries footing the bill

  • G West

    5 years ago

    doggone
    There's no doubt that code approved practices that are appropriate in the rest of Canada are not going to be adequate for South West BC and ventilation issues are certainly pertinent as well. If you're going to try and seal the external envelope and not let air circulate adequately (as the Rain screen remediation most contractors are now doing does permit) then you have to pay an inordinate amount of attention to detail and R&M. It can be done, but not often and never on the cheap.

    Most condo corporations just weren't up to that - they thought they were getting new buildings with little need for maintenance and remediation for at least 5 - 10 years. Of course, once the moisture got into the wall spaces it was game over because there was no air circulation at all.

    I didn't much like the appearance of the damn buildings anyway. In-board balconies are also a huge drainage problem and I've almost never seen a building that handled the deck transitions and wall/floor intersections well - especially in 3 - 4 storey frame and stucco construction. By the time the contractors get to balconies they usually want the hell out of there and couldn't care less about the quality of finish.

    Best Practices often Ain’t.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Latarnik:
    You have piqued my interest with the item that you testified to the commission. I have a bit of trouble understanding what the next point is.

    G West:
    I gotta agree - I do try to keep focussed on the details myself but a few months on a particular job and all I want is to call in the painter

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    Quote:
    Speaking of Mayan temple cum Art Deco masterpiece, what about the Marine Building?

    Then there's the old Lyric Theatre (the original Orpheum), which was built by the CPR as an adjunct to the wondrous second Hotel Vancouver; "Egyptian deco" is how I saw it described, and half-remember being in it before it was torn down to make way for that "big white urinal" of the Eaton's buildingk, as I think Allan Fotheringham described it (or Denny Boyd or another local wag).

    Quote:
    Plague of condos started when NDP took power in early seventies. Rent controls were instituted.

    That's hogwash - blaming the socialists for what the capitalists had come up with as a way to soak yet more equity/capital out of people needing to have a place to live. Rent controls had nothing to do with it; condofication was a North America-wide tide that started in California and New York; the problem may have been enhanced here because of rent controls, as landlords were looking for ways to be able to get people to pay more - way more - for the same dull box-apartment they'd been used to paying fairly reasonable rents for until then. And "then" was the onset of the huge jacking of real estate prices/markets, which was anything but the fault of the socialists and also a North America-wide phenomenon. But I've learned one thing about you NDP haters - you'd blame them for the weather if you could.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Just came across this:
    http://www.architectureweek.com/2007/0103/building_1-1.html

    Which is a little bit interesting - particularly for anyone familiar with Safdie's Habitat in Montreal. At least I thought so.

  • Lavida

    5 years ago

    Good to hear from so many well travelled, well heeled, well read people. However, no one has talked about a need for, or defined a "healthy home", Are all these building materials good for people's health. beyond name dropping and easthetics is a far more serious issue than this self indulgent article by the British architect Yes, condos are ugly, but we must look at issues far more urgent than aaesthetics and an idealized vision of "community."

    Health should be the first concern. Form will follow. What about the space around the condos? Maybe the building materials are causing health problems? There are effects from wireless networks, radio frequencies, micro wave pollution, electro magnetic pollution, industrial pollution. What invisible dangers are we being subjected to in the name of progress?

    We cannot talk about communities without first looking at what is healthy and examining dangers that we don't even know about, but have had thrust upon us through clever marketing and lack of discussion about negative effectsa.

    Forget the narcisstic British architect and the drivel about aesthetics. Find some knowledgeable writers who will courageously inform us and lead ust to more indepth thinking and practical solutions.

    It is predicted by researchers that in the next few decades children growing up expioed to cell phones, etc. will exhibit signs of Alzheimers in middle ag3e, more brain cancersn DNA damage, etc. will surface.

    Really folks, let's move on past aesthetics and time wasting articles on architecture. We need to have more important information to build healthy thriving communities.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Lavida:
    DId you miss this:
    Except, as so many urban examples show, the idea of community is not just a product of putting a lot of similar people into a space. In order for Vancouver to succeed it has to be a place where families can find a level of comfort that is just not going to be forthcoming in False Creek. Although the few green spaces along the water seem well-used in decent weather, it's notable that there are virtually no children in the area. Over time the night life and the usual gentrification of the area will destroy what little street life exists during the day and the place will go to seed…in some respects this has already begun if my last evening stroll along the waterfront is any indication.

    There is nothing wrong with a lower rise (maximum 5 or 6 storey) more linear growth pattern using infill and commercial/ light industrial bases at street level. Such alternatives are commonplace and highly successful in Europe and they will work well in Vancouver once the masters of the universe recognize that they have ridden the condo craze from its zenith (about now) to its ridiculous nadir. Jane Jacobs is still the best readily-accessible authority on what makes a city livable as a community.

    And this:

    commentor: G West
    posted: 1 Week Ago
    “…condos are extremely environmentally friendly”.

    I'm not sure this is an accurate description.

    There were lots of other ways to absorb the population growth of the last 15 years without that hodgepodge of anti-human crap. At least at Brasilia, where the ideas Le Corbusier formulated in the Unite de Habitation and which Oscar Niemeyer created on a massive scale in Brazil, there was a provision for a lot of green space.

    20 years down the road people won't be singing the praises of Concord Pacific's blight on the shores of False Creek. Mark my words, it is only a matter or a very short handful of years before the same problems that are tearing Toronto apart will have started to destroy the ‘planners’ dream’ that is False Creek. There is no community there and there never will be.

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    I have other responses for Lavida but before bed:

    Quote:
    Forget the narcisstic British architect and the drivel about aesthetics. [/QUOTE[They don't have to be British. I knew a guy back in the late '70s who worked for Erickson, and actually it was him and the other interns/articling architects who did all the design on Robson Square. We used to walk around and he's wax aesthetic about such vulgarities as the VCC building (the Bauhaus older part, I don't even think the newer black-glass thing was there yet) and was always raving about "function". I'd say "what about liveability?" What about beauty?" and he'd give me a disdainful look.

    Give me the Hofburg, the Louvre, or the Escorial any day.....over nearly anything that's been built in Vancouver in the last 50 years. I know that's asking a lot, and it would require architects who are, in fact, also talented artists, rather than graphic designers with obsessions of grandeur and too much reading in architectural theory.

    Bing Thom? Erickson? Where's our Imhotep, our Inigo Jones, our Sinan?

    At least Rattenbury had style, if not actually class.....

  • Skookum1

    5 years ago

    Ed. Tyee - can you fix those screwed up quotes? Wouldn't be necessary if the buttons on TyeeBooks worked.....(although I know I hand type them on regular forums also....)

  • Lavida

    5 years ago

    Thanks G West.
    I did read your quote, but i don't thik you understand my point. We must first define liveability and community in terms of health issues and these health issues must be named - building materials, radio frequencies and EMF pollution are way beyond what Jane Jacobs was talking about. Psychological space and well used space are important. However, a liveable city has to look at all toxins, not jusyt car pollution and eye pollution.

    i appreciate a beautiful building as much as anybody else. i have livec in Europe, studied city planning and architecture to some degree. But we must move on from these old models. What is in the community and unseeen could be killing us and future generations and there is no regulation or attempt to educate the public that their cell phone and wireless connection could have detrimental effects on our health.

    Did you ever hear of sick building syndrome? Who knows what effects the gassing off of formaldehyde and other toxic materials are having onn ourselves and our children. Young bodies absorb so much more than alduts,

    What I am talking about goes beyond good looks and feel good green spaces. What good is that beautiful building if the plastics, formaldehydes, concrete, etc. is gassing off and emmitting low level radiation and whatever?

    The priotiy for creating any building should be health and safety in choce of materials, location and finally a consideration of aesthetics and psychologicall space.

    Before this can happen there is a need for an educated publlic with a sense of social responsibility to seek out healthy spaces, speak out about toxic po;;ution, dangers of nuclear power plants and toxic emiisiiions from indusry , Then we can worry about how the bulding looks. There are many maverick green architects, designers and engineers out there plus organizartions committed to a healthy environment, plus research on environmental issues. And of course all these issues require a good understanding of politics and economics. Comments by an arrogant architect who is outof touch with reality and only spent a day in the city are just space fillers that do nothing to advance our understanding of serious issues..

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Lavida:
    I understand what you're saying exactly. I don't care who comes to Vancouver and points our how unlivable the city is becoming. It is essential that someone do it, loudly and often.

    All we get from local worthies and their paid flaks is lies about how Vancouver is creating a new urbanism for the 21st century. It’s utter garbage. You’ll note I mentioned Pruitt-Igoe and Unite de Habitation as well if you’ve read all of the commentary – those were the nonsense dream factories for people that have been proved nightmares during the 20th century and surely, the shores of False Creek will number among the nightmares of Vancouver’s past too some day.

    I think the problems that Alain de Botton mentioned are as ‘real’ as the things you referred to though I’m happy to agree with much of what you say as well. The fact that someone from away had to come and snap their fingers to try and wake up a lot of people like Dan Grice and a bunch of real estate hacks and their pimps in the planning department (his comment is up there too) is sad. Nevertheless, it is necessary too and I thank him, and the Tyee, for printing what he had to say. I believe, had he stayed a little longer, he’d have been far more critical and rightly so.

  • Lavida

    5 years ago

    Well said G West!!! And these comments go for all Canadian cities. What a mess from St John to Vancouver. Seen Toronto lately? Whatever happened to the study of urban planning at universities? What happened to those who seriously studied Jane Jacobs,etc.? Are any of these "graduates" working on city councils or are those courses a joke and scummy developers run the show.

    Unfortunately, these are not local issues. That is mistaken thinking. These problems have their roots in globalization and the idea of mega cities all economically run in the same way to control money and people. Profit uber alles. Although the issues appear local you will find these problems world wide. We need to go further and think globally to find solutions to this ugly stuff. Unfortunately it is all connected and we need to stop it. Youre right G, any in your face criticism is necessary to get things rolling. We have to look at everything to make people more important than money.

  • doggone

    5 years ago

    Lavida:
    Your spelling is almost as bad as mine and your notions also challenge the variety of things I worry about: the background of radiation due to human activity. I do not know of much in the way of reseach on the effects of the transmission of both electrical power and communications devices of all forms but we do have reason to worry. I found a russian publication in the Woodward Libray on large transmission power lines but absolutely nothing from the west.

    I live with a 250KV line about .5 km away. In certain weather conditions (foggy or low cloud) I can hear the 60 herzt hum. Very likely the worst threat to my health (beyond smoking and drinking too much) is sitting here with the monitor glaring and the CPU humming away.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    Hmmm.

    Go away for a few days, look at what you missed:

    To Doggone:

    Your comment 5 days ago "A dry house is a cool house..." I don't get the " cool " part of it..could you explain more?

    I also sat through one of the Barrett Commission hearings. One person stood up who was an architect and said the architects association was going to fine him for speaking out...criticizing one's colleagues is apparently a BIG no -no.

    These Commissions end up as vacuums to suck away the Public attention. I acquired a copy of the Commissions findings when it wrapped up. Probably helped to some degree, a bit of tweaking here and there , but has anyone accepted liability?

    What I have noticed is that Local Gov'ts are more and more placing the onus on the Private Sector, to a point the Building Inspector/s may end up simply looking at paper trails.

    Condo / multi -family construction has improved, ....one can walk through the pre-sales offices and the rain screen system is shown via a constructed cut away example. Its quite clear that stucco is rather extinct in many multi -family units. Shingles, vinyl siding, cement board, cedar brick etc are the exterior sheathing materials of choice.

    Overhangs, of course, are important, but then again, in Marpole, etc there are low rise apartments built 50+ years ago with stucco , almost ZERO overhang, seems to hold up fine...with the orignal stucco...topic for another day.

    However, one still sees single family homes using the same stucco systems that created leaky condos, no rain screen, the subtlety is that Single Family home is ONE owner versus a Strata, and that perhaps the Gov't (ie via building code) etc. chooses to ignore this facety of single ownership. ..SOL?

    My view is that the condo industry picked up its socks via no choice, it received enoiugh of a black eye with the leaky condos ...and that the Gov't has done squat, for to move very much would be an admission of guilt.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Law of unintended consequences, Maestro - easey-peasey. That and, in a lot of cases, cut corners. Doggone's point about sealed buildings (I think they called it Energy 2000 standard) is a very important clue to the whole exercise. Things promoted as sales features – especially in multiple occupancies – aren’t always such a good idea in practice.

    Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings are/were notorious for being leaky - you can look it up.

    When you use housing and financial and tax boobdangles like MURBS to promote anything there are bound to be victims.

  • maestro

    5 years ago

    G West:

    There are all sorts of subtleties and idiosyncracies in past and present buildings, whether it be design, materials used etc. etc.

    It is both a huge topc , but then again can be relatively simple.

    As one person summarized "THINK LIKE WATER" ....ie what is the nature of water...which is what this is effectively all about.

    You made good comments about uncovered porch areas..often an afterthought but should be a forethought.

    Many MURB projects were built during the cedar -clad fad era.....many still stand without restoration.

    However, I tried to cut NOUVEAU stucco slack, ie a case -by -case basis for any multi family unit built. say, post Expo 86, and avoid a "tar them all with the same brush." ..but it's now gotten to they aRE all tarred with the same brush....and maybe if they were tarred literally (besides just figuratively), they wouldn't leak LOL.

    Almost any 20-25 year old stucco clad strata unit that hasn't been fixed YET is one I would stay away from..as the longer they leave it the worse it will get... most exhibit the same basic design flaws, its only matter of time before the scaffolds go up, if they don't collapse first.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    Flush to the envelope window treatments in thin plastic (in the sense of character) synthetic stucco are also big problems. A slight reveal around the window and an old-fashioned sill with drip-cap can be a big help as well. Attention to detail and extra care in caulking - along with regular maintenance and vigilance could have prevented many of the envelope failures I've seen.

    The big advantage to cedar siding is the fact that it permits air to move within the wall cavity. I don't really think it's just a design problem although design 'innovations' combined with several other factors - most of which have been mentioned above are important causative factors.

    Another point about the first and second - generation murbs grew out of the fact that almost none of them were properly finished - having been developed as investment and tax loss vehicles more than anything else - the attention to detail was showered on a demonstration suite and a lot of promo bumpf and sales staff and very little on supervision and quality control. The sales staff was more interested in chasing down dentists and doctors with spare cash than in ensuring that the product was a quality one. Then, when things went pear-shaped many of the investors (often headed by the contractor himself who was nearly always the managing partner) were up to their navels in financial difficulties that further diverted their attention.

    In the end, I blame the Federal Government for this more than any other party…but municipalities have to hold a lot of the blame as well. On small projects such as many of the leaky condo developments were, (2 – 5 million at the time) you have no idea how badly squeezed things like design services can be. I know from personal experience that many designers and architects were paid off when the working drawings were complete and never invited back on site for compliance inspections. I don’t know if that came out in Barrett’s hearings, but it is certainly true. An awful lot of that design work was done on an ad hoc or hourly basis. The professionals who were careful and concerned with their reputations almost always took the precautionary step of advising the client in writing what this meant in terms of down-stream responsibility.

    Any time, as with Income Trusts and other tax avoidance schemes designed to encourage investment more than they are to ensure proper governance and final results, that the government comes up with a policy that seems to good to be true it almost always is – too good to be true.

  • G West

    5 years ago

    errata: last line should read 'too good to be true'.

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