The Slow Home Project Wrap Up – Vancouver

Posted on: September 7th, 2010 | 4 Comments

Welcome to our Slow Home Project results week – today we are looking at Vancouver! Vancouver did very well overall. We reviewed over 572 floor plans and a very high 79% of them met the minimum design quality threshold of 13 out of 20 points on the Slow Home Test!

To look at the results graphs for Vancouver in more detail, click on the links below.

As always, we look forward to your comments about what you think of the Vancouver results. Put down your thoughts and let’s have a discussion!

Also, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Slow Home Awards as voted by you for Vancouver.

The award for “Best Apartment/ Loft Project” goes to “Woodwards District – W32 – Plan A” developed by Westbank Project Corp. and designed by Henriquez Partners Architects.

The award for “Best Townhouse Project” goes to “The Hub – Townhouse A” – developed by Liberty Homes and designed by NSDA Architects.

The award for “Best Single Family House” goes to the “Shore House” – developed by Surfside Developments and designed by Kerschbaumer Design.

We are also awarding and “Editor’s Choice” award for innovation in housing design to the “Laneway Loft House” which was designed and built by Smallworks Studios.

Congratulations to all the winners! John and Matthew will be traveling to Vancouver in the near future to meet the winners and tour the projects. Join us tomorrow for our next results city, Philadelphia!

  • Terri

    Pretty good results from Vancouver. I had thought that many of the floorplans were following a simpler trajectory–less of the duplicate dining/living space and more separate garages. Vancouver has space challenges, and the highrise has become a big part of the solution, so it’s good to see that these towers are leading the way to a more sustainable housing market. Both major university campuses also offered more environmentally sensitive housing options, including townhomes. And the laneway house is also a good option for the space challenges that Vancouver’s location presents.

    John & Matthew,
    Any chance of meeting up with some of us West Coast Slow Homers when you’re out this way? There are three of us, for sure, I think (Franco, Steve in Van and moi). But there must be others…

  • Matthew North

    Terri – we would be happy to meet everyone from the west coast chapter of the Slow Home movement when we are out there! We will keep you posted – after all fair is fair – we already had our east coast get together!

  • Steve in Van

    Looking forward to a West Coast visit already!

    I wasn’t present for the Vancouver portion of the SH project but can easily see why these plans were favourites. The Woodwards project is a big idea, and it’s beautifully turned-out in the same German kitchen/bath furniture as the Olympic Village. Friends have already moved out, however, due to noise from its rooftop fans and the echo-chamber which is the courtyard.

    And Congrats to the Laneway houses designed for Smallworks! Vancouverites have big hopes for these creative, well-designed, small spaces.

  • Terri

    Steve in Van,
    Interesting to hear about the real experience of living at the Woodward project. It’s also too bad that noise is such an issue. It’s not something that’s easily fixable either.