Vancouverism in London

The good ship “Vancouverism” - a wooden structure of local design - has been successfully launched in Trafalgar Square, overlooked appropriately by Lord Nelson.  At least according to today’s Sun: “London exhibition puts spotlight on Vancouver architects.” 

Architecture critic Trevor Boddy has co-curated this presentation on the Vancouver Style, as it’s also called.  (More here in Price Tags 64.) 

Hopefully the exhibition will be remounted in Vancouver (how could it not!) if appropriate space is found. 

The origins of Vancouverism alone require a good analysis.  Like any successful child, it has a thousand parents.  Our small lots and relatively low densities required small floor plates for our highrises, particularly in the West End in the 1960s - hence the point tower.  The engineers designed and the building codes allowed so-called “scissor stairs” in the core of the building, eliminating ’slab’ towers.  Our fascination with views eventually resulted in floor-to-ceiling glass on all sides of our condos.  The point-and-podium tower form was first apparent in (choose one) “North Park” (eventually International Village), CityGate or 888 Beach.  Larry Beasley was the catalyst.  Or Stanley Kwok. Or maybe it was Barry Downs.  Or James Cheng. 

Or, as the article suggests, Arthur Erickson: “Vancouverism is a term invented by American city planners, and was started by the early visions of 84-year-old Erickson …”  (It’s true that Erickson did some early West End towers - Sutton Place and Harley House on Nelson Street - but I’m not so sure he should be be credited with the Style.)

Regardless of its origins, Vancouverism has a lot to contribute.  As Boddy says:

“Our city has become a pilgrimage point for urbanists, developers and so on,” Boddy said. “In a climate-change crisis and increasingly in a world context, Vancouver has ideas about how to live in cities, how to live with less land how to use the most sustainable of all materials, which is wood … a building material that takes carbon out of the air and keeps it in.

“I like to think of this as The Empire Strikes Back.”

A Bridge Too Low?

Yet another starchiect - Zaha Hadid - doing yet another pedestrian bridge (or passerelle, as the French call them), this one across the Ebro River in Zaragoza, Spain.

More here in the Independent on the 270-metre bridge which also houses a pavillion for the 2008 Expo being held there.

More than ever, it’s apparent to me that we have to seriously examine the possibility for a ped-bike bridge across False Creek, rather than a widening of the Burrard Bridge.  The obvious location is under the bridge itself, using the cuts that were made through the columns to accommodate an anticipated streetcar line extension.

Yes, there’s a problem accommodating high-masted boats at high tide.  But this should be considered an oppportunity for innovation rather than an intractable problem.  Perhaps a separate structure should be considered - a commission to the world’s best architects and engineers - so that Vancouver gets something practical, beautiful and iconic: a statement that, really, honestly, we do take sustainable transportation seriously.

There are some fascinating politics involved with the bridge widening: Ladner cannot support the use of existing lanes for bike routes, while Robertson must.  Ladner will be able to use the threat of congestion to solidify his west-side base, while Robertson will use Ladner’s position to peel off support from the cycling and heritage communities.

Maybe a serious examination of a separate low-level structure would be something they could both support. 

 

 

Reading List

I always start my week with a dose of dystopia from James Kunstler’s blog.

Really, we’re right back where we were last year about this time, only worse. Oil has doubled, food is outasight, the levees have broken, the people who run things are shitting their pants, and everybody is waiting for a whole lotta other shoes to drop.

Kunstler must be so annoying to moderates: seemingly extreme, fringy and eccentric, sometimes obscene, he increasingly appears to have cast an accurate light on the dark side of the American (and our) way of life - something that, as George Bush the First proclaimed, is “non-negotiable.”   For which Kunstler has nothing but contempt. 

The mainstream media, however, are catching up.

And for transit wonks, Seattle’s Crosscut (their Tyee) is starting a series on “the case against more light rail”:

The recent former state secretary of transportation has been riding buses a lot lately and crunching numbers, and he’s convinced light rail to the Eastside and more Sounder service has no place in a big new transit plan. He thinks an advanced bus rapid transit system is the best way to serve millions of people and smartly manage urban growth

Solstice Sunset

Back again in Vancouver.  Last week, the Car-Free Cities conference in Portland.  Before that, the Planning Institute of B.C. in Prince George.  Reports to come.

But I was fortunate to return on the solstice, to see the sunset from False Creek South.

Toronto Likes Us

Or at least Christopher Hume, the Toronto Star’s urban critic and VIA Architecture Urban Design lecturer for the City Program a few weeks ago.  Here, on reflection, are some of the comparative thoughts he had about our two cities.

Want a new urban model? Go west.

Vancouver’s approach to city-building is now a global export. We’ve distilled five lessons Toronto could learn from the left coast

From Car-Free to Car-Free

I’m preparing for the Car-Free Cities conference in Portland all this week.  Given current events, it should be quite a gab-fest.  What were once fringe issues and ideas have moved to centre stage, and will be taken with a new seriousness.

So, what could be more appropriate to fill in the week when I’ll be gone than some pics of the Car-Free City celebration in the West End last Sunday. 

Denman Street was just one four streets closed to traffic, including parts of Commercial Drive, Main Street and numerous blocks in Kitsilano.   The sun sure helped to put everyone in a good mood, but the unquestioned success of the occasion is just another indication that our city has had a change of attitude.  We’re ready to think differently about how we use our roads.  They’re not just for moving traffic.

They’re also for singing.

And dancing.

Even square dancing.

Local merchants and restaurants spilled out onto the asphalt to display their wares, serve their food and make more moolah than they ever could when the street was full of traffic.  All except the gas station.

But this was my favourite entrepreneur.

The entertainment was great - particularly the chance to hear some local bands.  But the best enterainment was, as usual, people watching and checking out the scene.

A chance, above all, to see ourselves.  The West End is full of the most eclectic mix of people.

And this event was for us - the West End for West Enders.  As much as we may enjoy (or not) the closure of West End streets for fireworks and races, we don’t often get to use our own spaces just for us.  Today we did.

Thanks, of course, to local organizers and volunteers, the city staff and police.  It really was well organized.  But special acknowledgement must go to the inspiration for Car-Free Days - Carmen Mills. 

No matter how great the resistence or oblivious our leaders, Carmen has always believed that society was ready to move towards real sustainability.  This time she may be right.

See you next week.

 

 

Back on Monday

Off to the Planning Institute of B.C.’s conference in Prince George.

In the meantime, some shots of Glen Patterson’s extraordinary roof-top garden at Coal Harbour.

L.A. Traffic: Not bad enough

I have read (though I can’t find the source) that the maximum length of a commute is forty minutes.  Any longer, and people make changes in their lives to shorten it.  And so it has always been, from chariots in Rome to SUVs in LA.

A four-part series on commuting in the Los Angeles Times seems to provide some proof.  Accompanying the articles is a Google map of average commuting times for cities throughout the Southlands.  (The national average is 25.5 minutes.)  Take a look:

I could find only one instance where the average commute time was longer than 40 minutes.  Obviously, an average requires that there must be many Angelenos with times longer than that - but it does reinforce the conclusion made by Rand Corp transportation expert Martin Wachs:

The solutions are not unknown,” Wachs said. (Congestion pricing has worked around the world in about 100 different places, 100% of the time.)  The fact that we are inhospitable to all of the solutions must indicate we would rather have the problem as we have it now than solve the problem.

A Blight on the Weather

Yeah, it’s been bad.  Vancouver in June.

But what a loss for the World Triathlon, held this last weekend on the beaches and streets of the West End. 

I’m sure the organizers were aware of the variable nature of our climate, but they clearly weren’t prepared for the cold. 

It was a great race, especially exciting for spectators who could literally see some of the world’s best athletes mere inches away during the run.

Except, of course, there weren’t a lot of spectators.

And what a shame for both the athletes and the city.  This event could have been spectacular, given the setting, the event and the lead-in to the Olympics.  Watching the cyclists come over the hill on a closed-off Davie Street, seeing Denman filled with uniformed teams of every race, rooting for our competitors in action - just hints of what could have been  a transforming event for Vancouver.

I just hope this won’t discourage the World Triathlon from coming back.

 

Past Tense now present

Just came across Past Tense - a new blog on Vancouver’s history.  A welcome addition, though I’m not sure who the blogger in question is.

Currently there’s an in-depth post on slum clearance in Strathcona - in particular a forgotten report by Leonard Marsh.  Fascinating read, well illustrated.

Proposed redevelopment of Strathcona