The Vancouver Urban Model: A New Typology for High-Density Urban Housing

Author: Robert M. Walsh

Dissertation School: University of Michigan

Pages: 59

Publication Date: 04/2010

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Access Number: 10865

Abstract:

The city of Vancouver, British Columbia, is of interest for research into higher density approaches to urban development because an apparently new approach to high-density urban development has taken hold there, rapidly transforming the downtown peninsula into an urban environment now frequently cited as one of the most livable in the world. Originating in innovations in planning, development, and architectural design, this urban phenomenon has come to be known by several names, including the Vancouver Style (Gordon Price), The Vancouver Model (Trevor Boddy), and Vancouverism (origin uncertain).

In brief, the Vancouver Model combines advantages of low rise street fronting row housing and shops to create a streetscape of pedestrian scale and appeal, and then intensifies the density of usage and inhabitation through the inclusion of separated, well spaced, small footprint residential point tower highrises. Also playing a significant role in the Vancouver Model are regulations and policies specifically intended to enhance the public domain, including special mechanisms for protecting desirable public views of nearby mountains, special developer incentives, and requirements that increase the availability and quality of local community centers, daycare facilities, low-cost housing, and public park space, and finally new methods of influencing the architectural quality of proposed buildings through the replacement of some zoning regulations with a more flexible negotiated planning process guided by a design review panel of local design experts.

As an approach to high-density housing incorporating highrise buildings, the Vancouver Model is of interest because the results appear to defy prior negative assessments and predictions of highrise housing, such as Jan Gehl's landmark book, Life Between Buildings, which attempted to demonstrate that low rise developments and their urban contexts are inherently more successful and livable than those which incorporate taller structures. Instead of fulfilling these negative predictions, the addition of new high rises to the downtown peninsula appears to have helped transform Vancouver into a city that is frequently ranked at or near the top of several surveys and rankings of the most livable cities in the world. The apparent success of the Vancouver Model has led to a wide range of imitation throughout Canada and abroad, while at the same time apparently encountering difficulties when attempted within the United States.

It should also be noted that the Vancouver Model as it is being applied in this paper is a fairly recent phenomena, beginning roughly in 1980. Beginning in 1959, a prior wave of residential highrises began in the West End of Vancouver, resulting in non-distinct boxy towers and slab buildings, which were not in any way unique to Vancouver, resulting in a claim that Vancouver was "a setting in search of a city" (Gutstein, 1975). These earliest towers and slabs underwent an evolution that was at least in part almost accidental in the sense that by responding creatively to abnormal local conditions peculiar to particular land parcels, a newer and more successful strategy evolved that revealed several key principles of the eventual Vancouver Model. Prior to the emergence of this new model, the highrises of Vancouver would not have contradicted the insights offered by Gehl, but instead would have tended to confirm the drawbacks he had observed.

In approaching this material, as an American architect, my interest is in learning lessons that are relevant in an American context, and in particular, for cities in which the desire to increase both livability and density are seen as worthwhile goals. At present there appear to be two fundamental obstacles to the application of the Vancouver Model in the United States. The first is that several local conditions that differ fundamentally from those found in Vancouver and the rest of Canada make the direct application of the unchanged model questionable, even though this is being attempted in a few locations. The second problem, which is related to the first, is that while there has been a substantial and growing body of research examining the Vancouver Model from a range of perspectives, the overwhelming tendency has been to study Vancouver as the actual embodiment of an abstract ideal unto itself. In essence, the Vancouver example has been seen as an idealized form that can be best utilized by attempting to recreate these same forms in new contexts, in the belief that this ideal is somehow universal. The result of this situation is that the lessons learned from the Vancouver Model at this juncture appear to amount to fairly superficial attempts to make copies of the forms found in Vancouver, instead of understanding how these particular forms have arisen in the specific intersection of principles and context, which in the case of Vancouver is actually quite unusual. My research ultimately is aimed at conceptualizing and evaluating the Vancouver Model in terms of flexible principles, principles that are embodied in Vancouver, and have potential application in other contexts.

The general plan of the dissertation research effort of which this document is a precursor is to examine these two fundamental questions: to first consider why the Vancouver Model encounters difficulties in application in an American context, and then secondly to develop a clear set of morphological principles that help to explain why the Vancouver Model is successful, as a step toward developing more general principles that can help lead to solutions in other contexts, including American cities. In the dissertation these issues will be examined through a combination of techniques, theory, and measures, drawing from examples of recently built projects in Vancouver and other recent project in the United States that have either attempted to implement or have violated the principles seen to be at work in Vancouver.

As a pre-dissertation grant report, this document has two essential goals: to situate this research effort within the larger body of existing knowledge; and to report on the research as it has progressed to this point.

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