to be honest, i'm sick of the attention given to trite suburban developments that are held up as models of new urbanism. here's an example of new urbanist (or maybe that should be just plain "urbanist") principles applied to a big-city downtown context: downtown vancouver.
first, some background. in the 1980s, the city of vancouver established an urban design review panel that had to power to veto any development. comprised of urban planners rather than politicians, it insisted on slender residential highrises that would allow a maximum amount of light to hit the street. those highrises must sit on podiums, some comprised of retail and offices, others made up of apartments and townhouses with a variety of entrances onto the street.
these strict new guidelines coincided with a huge and ongoing property boom, fueled in large part by the influx of hundreds of thousands of middle-class and wealthy hong kong chinese to vancouver in the 1980s and 90s (more than 100,000 hong kongers settled in vancouver, along with many similarly wealthy taiwanese). in 1986, the world's fair was held on a former railyard next to false creek, an inlet on the south side of the peninsula on which downtown vancouver sits. after the expo, the land was bought by a hong kong developer who proceeded to turn it into one of the most successful urban developments in north america. far from completion, it is already home to some 20,000 people and is well-integrated into the existing downtown neighbourhood of yaletown.
since the residential boom began, the population of vancouver's downtown peninsula has tripled to nearly 100,000. the number of supermarkets has increased correspondingly, with five new supermarkets opening downtown in the late 90s (two high-end, two mid-range as well as a branch of the large asian supermarket T&T).
lest you think this kind of highly urban living appeals only to the young, wealthy or childless, consider this: so many new families have moved downtown over the past 10 years that, for the first time in decades, a new elementary school has been built. the city requires 20% of all units to be priced below the market rate, which has resulted in a fairly balanced socioeconomic mix downtown. in the west end, an old downtown neighbourhood that saw a residential boom in the 50s and 60s, most of nicest prewar apartment buildings are social housing.
in yaletown, a new public park was recently opened, paid for entirely by developers. thanks to a booming real estate market, the city has been able to pressure developers into building cultural amenities and neighbourhood institutions (like schools and community centres) in exchange for increased density.
the glassy tower on the far right includes a cinema and offices that will be leased to the vancouver international film festival.
on false creek, adjacent to the seawall is the large david lam park.
another new waterfront park, which was still under construction when i took this photo (i shot it through a chain-link fence), has opened at the end of richards street.
pacific boulevard runs through the heart of the yaletown area, predating its redevelopment. last i heard, there are plans to run a streetcar along the median (part of a route that will loop around the peninsula) and tame the traffic.
pacific soon intersects davie, yaletown's main street. it runs up into the west end, where it forms the heart of vancouver's gay village, and then spills down a hill to english bay.
at davie and pacific is an old roundhouse which has been converted into a community centre and exhibition space.
where davie street meets the seawall and two residential streets, there's a small traffic circle.
new development makes for an appealing backdrop to the old industrial streets of yaletown.
the vancouver public library, designed by moshe safdie and completed in 1995, shares the vancouver vernacular and is located on the edge of yaletown.
you can just make out the library from chinatown, a mile and a half away:
the old expo grounds were master planned, but most of the new residential development in downtown vancouver takes the form of infill. here are a few examples from various locations.
in chinatown, this late-90s building consists entirely of social housing.
new condos as seen from granville street.
the impact of all the highrises is subtle but striking: see how the ones under construction in the upper left-hand corner give this scene a bit more bulk. at street level, though, their impact is minimal, thanks to their podiums and tiny footprints.
some podium examples from the fringes of yaletown:
this is an office building at the corner of granville and broadway, about a 20 minute walk south of downtown across the granville street bridge. it isn't a residential project but i thought it was a nice example of the kind of streetscape-oriented modernism that is so prevalent in vancouver.
--
many of the condo projects in vancouver are far, far from perfect. they generally suffer from cheap materials and i really wish the podiums were more than two or three stories. still, i think it's a good example of large-scale urban infill that is unabashedly urban and modern yet also pedestrian-oriented and street-oriented.
Quote
LOL
Originally posted by christopher dewolf
