Neil Salmond loves mid-rise buildings from four to eight storeys, with a mix of uses. So much so that he created a Tumblr site with examples from all over the world:
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Vienna:
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Tunis:
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Guangzhou:
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And of course Vancouver:
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Dozens more here, with comment.
(Mixed-use Mid-rise is) the most popular urban form in history, but sadly rare, difficult to finance and often illegal in North America today.
Many contemporary American developers love to pretend this building type is innovative.
Environmentalists like their inherent energy efficiency (“squat” shape, when compared to towers or detached buildings) and urbanist placemakers like their compact human scale.
The Vancouver example is Pulse; 72 units, completed in 2009. On Broadway at Maple, two blocks west of Burrard. Greens Grocery is at grade.
If you want a viable, livable city, That is IMOEO the way to go, as long as there is also room for some green space
Mid-rises that form a continuous streetwall are barely allowed in Vancouver outside the downtown. C2 zones following some arterials permit up to 4 storeys, which doesn’t really qualify as mid-rise. C3A zones in South Granville, South Cambie, and Mount Pleasant permit up to 3 storeys, more after meeting some conditions, but with the floor area maxing out at 3 FSR. C7 and C8 zones near Arbutus/Kits are so small they might as well be CD zones, and besides are nearly completely developed. RM-3 zones are an abomination, requiring squat towers that are hostile to the street, and besides don’t permit retail.
C3A zoning comes closest to allowing a continuous mixed-use mid-rise streetwall, but squat towers with podiums are more common given the floor area limit and the fair views in Fairview. This zoning is not very extensive anyway, covering maybe 1 square kilometre overall.
Except for the tiny and already built-out C7/C8 zoning at Arbutus/Broadway, there isn’t a zoning district outside the downtown that combines a low height limit – 6 or 8 storeys – with a high floor area limit – 3 or 4 FSR.
A project I want to see someday soon is the formal rationalization of Vancouver’s code patchwork into a true calibrated-smartcode form based code. Sounds like your code knowledge would be handy. Can you get in touch @neil21?
The design of the Vancouver example is sadly boring in comparison to Tunis and Vienna. It’s like there’s no character at all, it’s so sterile.