Ashley Ford
Province
Aaron Rosensweet (left) and Jake Fry of Smallworks Design stand in one of their ‘green’ buildings. Photograph by : Les Bazso, The Province
Small, in housing, can be beautiful, functional and affordable.
That message is not only being preached by Jake Fry and Aaron Rosensweet of Vancouver-based design and construction firm
Smallworks — they are also putting it into practice.
An example of their innovative small-housing design is now on display at the dv-Interior Design and Urban Living Expo this weekend at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The expo is the West Coast’s premier design event and attracts great interest from many sectors of the architecture, design and construction industries, and Smallworks’ simple structure hints at where affordable housing in Canada’s most expensive residential real-estate market might be headed.
Fry and Rosensweet — a builder and industrial designer — firmly believe a major part of the solution to the city’s housing problems can be found along the back lanes that lace thousands of city blocks.
Their company has already designed and built highly innovative smaller housing and other types of units, such as studios, that can fit by the lane where you live. Now, it wants to become mainstream.
“We must make better use of the existing land and opening up the lanes and alleys to more affordable and other types of structures,” says Fry.
While he admits that huge debate surrounds the issue, he says it is only a matter of time before the Smallworks philosophy prevails: “There’s no question about it. The model we have created will be followed by others, and city hall will eventually be there as well.”
The pair believe that the challenges of providing adequate and affordable housing can be met in part by some forward thinking from officialdom and greater flexibility of urban thinking when it comes to housing.
And it can be done, they argue, without creating urban sprawl or destroying neighbourhoods.
“We can build a home ranging between 250 and 450 square feet at $200 a square foot compared with at least $325-plus per square foot for conventional housing, and we can have a house up within two months,” he says.
The designs are based on a single or double-garage footprint that fits at the rear of existing properties. Large parts of the buildings are prefabricated at the company’s riverfront shop in Southlands at the foot of Balaclava Street.
Fry says Vancouver is the perfect city for laneway development. He points out the city already has an infrastructure in place to make it work. Most services, such as sewer and power, are already in the alleys and lanes, so it would not require massive disruption to permit such development, he says.
Fry thinks there is a “will” at city hall to make it all possible: “In my discussion with city planners, there was a very positive response to allowing small residences on existing properties.”
The city has already signalled it supports such innovative thinking. Mayor Sam Sullivan, for instance, has launched an eco-density strategy that wants more growth with a smaller footprint.
Various areas of the city, including Kitsilano, Strathcona and Mount Pleasant, are already seeing some laneway development, and the city has a new zoning designation that permits small-lot and laneway housing in certain areas.
Bob Rennie, the marketing face of many a high-rise, high-density condominium tower, is on side.
“I grew up in a lane in Vancouver, and they were the neighbourhood. Density can be green as well, and we must look at all progressive ideas for the better use of the existing land base we have,” says Rennie.
“Of course there will be opposition — there always is — but we have to look beyond that. I think it is a good solution and we are already doing it in some areas of the city, with infill housing.
“We already have the designers and architects to get the design work done. What is needed is a city and planners who are receptive to progressive uses of land.”
There are certainly two distinct camps. Those opposed see any increased density as a magnet for increased crime, traffic problems, questionable quality of construction and destruction of neighborhoods.
The progressives argue the city has really no option and has to do something new. They hold that density is not an enemy of neighbourhoods and in fact makes ecological sense, with fewer people using cars and water and power.
Small Footprints, Big Steps, a study of untapped housing potential in Vancouver, makes a strong case for laneway development.
The study was written by graduate planning students Lisa Brideau, Joaquin Karakas and Karen Trzaska while they interned with the Vancouver City Planning Commission.
Their central theme is: “If we are serious about living sustainably and reducing our ecological footprint, then we need to use our land more efficiently. We cannot keep sprawling our housing out over acres and acres of land.”
Most tellingly, the trio point out that single-family residential neighbourhoods make up 70 per cent of Vancouver’s total land area.
In a two-block section of the Hasting-Sunrise neighbourhood, the study shows, dwelling footprints take up only 20 per cent of the land, public rights of way and so on take up another 18 per cent, while ancillary buildings and undeveloped space, landscaped and sidewalk areas occupy a staggering 62 per cent of the area.
“It is simple math — if the population is going to increase and we recognize sprawl as bad (environmentally, economically, socially and health wise), then we must intensify existing areas, the status quo cannot hold. That intensification can be done with care and style such that it becomes an asset, rather than a burden for the neighbourhood,” the trio conclude.
To which Fry and Rosensweet and those supporting a new approach say “amen.”
© The Vancouver Province 2007
