‘ Vancouverism’ architecture: It’s style over substance
Local architect Gair Williamson says many in his profession are using classic design solutions that don’t adapt well to changing lifestyles
Style over substance. That best describes what has been troubling me about Vancouver’s architecture for some time now. In a column a few weeks back, I tried to explain my angst with the modern architecture that many in Vancouver have been promoting as a homegrown solution to all of urbanism’s problems.
A number of architects and other urbanists hail the “Vancouverism” — a design trend that has among its key principles residential buildings that are in the form of thin point towers with a podium at street level wrapped with townhouses providing “eyes on the street.”
Other principles of this trend include buildings clad mainly with glass to give the appearance of transparency and a light structure. These sacrosanct design ideas that supposedly define Vancouver have also been translated into planning regulations that prevent substantial forms along arterial streets in order to avoid any conflict with residents in single- family neighbourhoods that they front.
It took friend and local architect Gair Williamson to sum it up for me when we recently discussed the subject.
“The trouble with architecture in Vancouver is that many architects are failing to look at the substance of how people inhabit buildings. They’re looking at how buildings appear. It’s about style over substance.”
Williamson believes that many architects today are reactive instead of proactive, especially the architects who design housing in Vancouver — most of it multi- family housing in standard forms depending in its location. He believes not a lot has changed in the design that responds to how people can live in multi- family housing since the mid- 1960s apartment boom in Vancouver’s West End.
“We’re cladding changing lifestyles in the same old skins. Architects need to ask the questions nobody else is asking. They need to ride the wave ahead of change and anticipate where society is going.”
An architect who has made his mark with many innovative projects over 25 years in the business, nine of them leading his own practice, Williamson has tackled design challenges by trying to anticipate how shifts in cultural values shape lifestyles. He’s tried to apply new ways, based on timeless fundamentals, of designing “places where people can live and work with dignity and respect.” A number of his projects have been in the Downtown Eastside and have involved innovative new in- fill buildings and revitalization of heritage buildings.
“The Vancouverism some talk about is not a new way of living as it is promoted. It is a fashion,” Williamson contends.
He points to an earlier cultural shift in the post- Second World War period, when the modernism movement in architecture reflected the emerging optimism in society with open- plan houses with vast glazing inviting light into homes. He then compares that to today’s digital- driven technological change, in an era of mobile devices, lightning speed computing, vast amounts of data and huge networks.
“These are conservative times, but technological changes are changing values and shaping different ways people want to live and work. Meanwhile, architects are reverting to classic solutions — classic meaning something that is timeless and not adaptable.”
Williamson wonders why architects aren’t designing real prototype homes — apartment flats, for example — that rearrange relationships between people and the space they live in to respond to change.
The generation of first- time homebuyers aged about 20 to 35 “doesn’t care as much about appliances and other material possessions in a home,” he says. “People tend to be more mobile and also more transient, not just physically, but digitally. They pack everything up with them when they move around. Designing a room to allow them to keep Grandma’s dining room table is no longer relevant.”
He sees a need to end compartmentalization in homes, instead designing open spaces to be used flexibly and accommodating walls and fixtures that can move around.
These changes, Williamson suggests, can lead to more affordable homes by achieving construction cost savings. He also believes that shelter should be designed and constructed not for different income cohorts — expensive design for wealthier people and inexpensive design for poorer people — but instead it should be designed and built to meet basic shelter needs that can be adapted by those who live in it based on their individual desires and their means.
He contends that today too much attention in design is paid to the appearance of buildings instead of to the fundamental relationships between people and their environment, including their interaction with other people.
“It seems to be about form and materials when it should be about architects questioning these fundamental relationships and actively influencing the changing social and cultural shifts in those relationships through their work. All buildings have envelopes — what most people call ‘ style’ — but which is simply the visual appearance of a building.”
He argues that visual appearance conceals what should be the real challenges of a curious, investigative and imaginative architect — looking for ways to contribute to new possibilities of urban living.
When I suggested to Williamson that prescriptive planning regulations, restrictive limits in building codes and exhausting design reviews oppress these imaginative and innovative design ideas, Williamson dismisses such excuses.
‘ You can blame city hall, the client, the public consultation process or the project budget, but in fact it is the disinterest of those involved in the design process who, with a few exceptions, fail to challenge the status quo.”