A disturbing “architectural” trend persists in Vancouver. It is the proliferation of the four-storey wood frame multi-residential form much larger than a house, say like sixty units for example, but nonetheless adopts the character and expression of a traditional Vancouver house. The issue is not a question of modernism vs traditional styles; so don’t misunderstand my intent here. Though I’m a modernist, I have no argument at all with any of the traditional Vancouver architectural house styles, if they are indeed traditional. Vancouver’s genuine character housing stock is beautiful. But if one of those styles or a diluted version of one of those styles, has been shrink-wrapped to fit around a form thirty times as big as a house… in 2008, then I have an argument.

And my argument is this: it’s inappropriate. Housey elements look ridiculously out of place when applied to anything but a house. “See, it’s not really a 60 unit condo project; it’s a house. It’s got gables and barge boards, trim and siding, see? House. Not condo. House.” So then, you ask, if the expression is inconsistent with the form, why does this trend persist? I belive that the answer is that it’s simply the result of the path of least resistance.

i) common social perception of design which incorporates housey elements will be familiarity; we’ve seen these conventional shapes before; we are used to them; they won’t stand out. That which does not stand out flies beneath the radar of popular disapproval. 

ii) it’s cheap to build and easy to market

iii) it passes the litmus test for compatibility with single family house adjacencies. As long as your criteria for compatibility are cursory and superficial, as would be for most folks who are uneducated in architecture or design, then this holds water

My counter-argument for point iii) is that the evaluation for compatibility should go far beyond the most elementary comparison of elements such as fascia boards and cladding materials. I would argue that a single family house and a wood frame condo project that is dressed as a house are actually not compatible. Because one demonstrates a much further departure from internal integrity than the other. The disparity of integrity is incongruent and therefore incompatible.

[Sidebar: I use the term 'integrity' in architecture to refer to a design's internal logic, an self-consistency. Usually I use it to infer that there's no (major) fakery or deception at work. So for example, if a building features exposed heavy timber or glued laminated beams, and those beams are actually carrying the structural loads, then the term 'integrity' can apply to that expression. Conversely, if the same expression were adopted, but the real structure was actually a system of open web steel joists concealed above a fake wood deck ceiling, then I would not use the term 'integrity' to describe that design move. It's dishonest; it's deceptive. The same principle can be applied to obviously any design move, not just the structural expression. Another famous local example is the Shangri-La tower. The issue is that the curtain wall skin on the Thurlow elevation and the Georgia elevation extend a few feet beyond the actual building envelope. On a tour of that project a few months ago, the project architect told us that the intent of this move was for the building to appear like it had a second skin (refer to Renzo Piano's New York Times Building for an example). Well on Shangri-La, it's not actually a second skin. There's just one. So although that project may be understood in many ways as architecturally strong, I would not use the word 'integrity' to refer to that particular design decision. Because of the non-second skin, and simultaneous intent for the buidling to read as if it did.]

The four-storey pitchy-roofed house-emulating condo typology is an architectural embarrassment for this city. And yet we will see increasingly more of them constructed in coming years as they are the de facto solution for the rezonings of assembled multi-parcel sites along arterials and a formula with a proven successful track record through the CIty’s Planning system. See recent developments on Granville and Oak Street for examples.

So rather than creating buildings whose expression may inspire or reflect current technology or even appear to reasonably accord with their mass and use, we are merely building in a way that is intended to offend the least number of people in the name of compatibility. This suburban development import represent a serious affront to a very small group of people and will be largely ignored by everyone else. Therefore it will persist.

Previous article:      James Bond wears 7’s
Next article:     Design by committee