Michael Mortensen started a lively conversation on the need for a New Vancouver Special. Jeff Olson adds his variation.
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How about an out-of-the-box Vancouver Special: the factory-built move in ready room.
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Modules that can be stacked above each other or plugged into each other side by side. Built in a controlled environment with skilled labour using modern materials and trucked to the home site with zero construction impact on neighbourhoods. Ground-oriented stand-alone projects that are compact and low cost per square foot with no party walls and yielding interior spaces filled with fresh air and sunshine.
No Building Permit required based on pre-approved factory specifications, no soft costs, with the potential for factory financing options.
Such an affordable housing strategy is suitable for RS-1 neighbourhoods on sites as small as 33’x120’ while respecting all required setbacks and height restrictions. No land assembly required. Land costs per unit can be easily reduced by 75% with ownership by land strata.
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Jeff, Michael, good designs, very elevant. Keep up the good work!
Finally, some designs that punch big holes in the standard lot icon.
I wonder, though, if they will pass a mobility test by octogenarian grandmothers.
Really cool, I like the idea a lot. Could be coupled with streamlined amendment for stratification if a house without heritage designation is torn down. Would this be permissible under current RS-1?
Hi Chris,
I would argue that Idea House is compatible with the spirit of residential neighbourhoods on the basis of the design rationale outlined below. While Idea House does respect RS-1 setbacks and height limits in order to fit in to a neighbourhood, it is not conceived in terms of floor area, floor area ratio, density, backyard requirements, or form of tenure. This is the very framework that constrains innovation. While Idea House is not for everyone, as MB points out it does help us to think differently, and it does illustrate a pathway to affordability as well as progress in other areas of social concern.
IDEA HOUSE DESIGN OBJECTIVES
Economic Freedom;
This means low housing costs which facilitates home ownership, it also means less percentage of income spent on housing and therefore more money available for other pursuits such as education, business incubation, starting a family sooner rather than later, extensive travel, or long holidays in the south of France writing a novel about the housing crisis in Vancouver.
Environmentalism;
This means living in the natural world, feeling the biosphere outside your room or through the wall, it means a plot of soil for growing flowers or vegetables or producing grapes and making wine, keeping bees, feeding the birds, collecting rainwater.
Private Outdoor Space;
This means an ethereal wall between the inside and the outside so that the main floor is extended outward to enclosing garden walls, where the front door is actually the front gate. This is private secure flexible outdoor space that can be used for whatever the imagination allows as typically happens in backyards all across the City.
Enable Community;
This means that we can live in a west coast village in a treed landscape and that we are all in this life together.
Living a Purposeful and Meaningful Life;
This means small truly is beautiful. Compact living is a non-materialistic lifestyle. It means
living lightly, walking lightly and shining brightly.
Greening Our Activities;
This means the development of a new industrial housing sector utilizing unskilled labour. This means meaningful employment, thinking and planning to reduce our carbon footprint.
Idea House is a thought experiment. It illustrates that the barriers to affordability are not always economic. In the case of Idea House the barrier is municipal regulation. Given true political will. Idea House could be implemented as a strategy for housing diversification and a means of market entry for a new generation of home owners. Millennials for whom this housing has most appeal might enter this market for as little as $350,000 and thereby avoid a lifetime of rental payments. Idea House represents hope because it is low cost and is likely to remain low cost because of its compact nature.
Townhouses (or these more vertical condos) work well for young families with kids. Not well suited for seniors. But every idea which creates sensible density should be explored. Not everyone likes high-rises, or can’t afford SF homes. This provides a welcome alternative with better land use.
Europe’s big cities (before they invented the elevator in the 1870’s) had dense walkable cities with 5-6 story buidlings taking over an entire block with very similar density to a 20 story highrise. Worth exploring, too.
Thanks Thomas, glad to have you on board with this idea.