Tag: small-scale apartments

• What rules should we be breaking?

  Here is another great video from About Here talking about how breaking certain rules could make for better apartment buildings.

  The basis for the video is a design competition put on by Urbanarium, called Decoding Density, which asked participants to propose creative solutions for “six-story plus apartment forms in Metro Vancouver.”

  More specifically, the competition asked: How might Vancouver intensify its single-family neighborhoods with small-scale wood-frame apartments?

  The About Here video covers some of the common themes from the submissions and, not surprisingly, the first is single-stair buildings. Requiring only a single point of egress can really unlock small sites.

  Some of the other ideas are, perhaps, a bit more adventurous; but these are valuable exercises. Many rules are dumb. So it’s important that we continually question them and search for better ways.

  2024.07.30

• Front yard setback

  Following yesterday’s post on small-scale apartments, a number of people commented on the 6m front yard setback that was shown on the city’s drawings and that I mentioned in my post. Well, it turns out that I wasn’t entirely correct about the 6m. What is proposed in the draft zoning by-law is the following:

  The modelling has illustrated building setbacks that are appropriate for townhouse developments and small-scale apartment buildings on major streets in a Neighbourhoods context. Based on the review, Urban Design staff recommend that the front yard setback be implemented through use of the average of the existing neighbouring setbacks, or a minimum of 3 meters, whichever is greater. This approach maintains consistency with the existing character of the Neighbourhoods supports protection of existing mature trees.

  As you might expect, the approach with these small-scale apartments is to be mindful of the existing low-rise context. But as many of you rightly pointed out when you saw the 6m, the existing context may not be appropriate or ideal for the planned context, especially if there’s retail at grade.

  This is just one of the many details that we’ll need to be careful with as this initiative moves forward.

  2024.03.03