Source: TreeHugger.com

I’ve been on this black & white kick lately. Everything I want to design has to have black & white. It’s a struggle, believe me, especially when clients want wood.

Living in a smaller West End space myself, I have to find unique and interesting ways to use space, and one way is with white. You can see from this 185 Sq. Ft. (17 sq. m.) apartment for sale in Gothenburg, Sweden, that the predominant use of positive and negative makes the space feel huge. What it also does, is makes the other colours pop from their background. Not to say that you can’t do this with another colour, say the Black Apartment, but you can see how the white makes you feel fresh and crisp, while an opposite use of black as the primary colour would make you feel sexy and sleek.

I’m off to plan a white shirt rebellion.

Source: TreeHugger.com

Woodwards Building is destroyed September 30, 2006 and only the facade remains. Image source

Vancouver has an addition problem, and I’m not talking about our poorest postal code. It’s addicted to destroying everything that is old and vibrant about this city and building a new multi-residence in it’s place. Property values in Vancouver are so high that most buildings that go up for sale are scooped up by developers for a quick build and multi-billion dollar sale. Every block that once was filled with Mom & Pop shops are being forced out and leased to Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Subway, Quiznos, Cobs Bread, and McDonalds.

What’s left in the wake of the “Excessive Improvement” problem are neighborhoods that are completely transformed and no longer once what they were; and, in the developers hopes, that their efforts will attract the yuppie, the hipster, or the urban professional. But what we’re really loosing here are relationships with our neighbors, our local businesses, and, ultimately, our environment.

Landlords are the epitome of the issue. Property owners are selling their land to bigger corporations, whom evict tenants, replace cabinetry in the exiting footprint, slap on some paint, and charge double. How much longer can this city and it’s environmental people sustain the constant destruction?

You don’t believe me? Take a look at the before and afters. It’s a sickness.

Image courtesty stayingLEVELvia Flickr

In the last 7 years, there has been a major increase in renovation and construction in Vancouver, BC and when Wall Street was dealing with the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, Vancouverites generally didn’t blink an eye. Some larger corporations were affected, and they laid off workforce that worked satellite out of Vancouver (some of these people are still looking for work) but generally the economy dialed up in VanCity. Everyone is still renovating, and they’re always doing the kitchen first. But it’s not all roses, sunshine (HA!), and unicorns in this bubble of a Rainy City and the grass may be green in the coldest of months, but it’s has me wondering if it is greener.

Mayor Gregor has made his promises to become the Green City Capital. He also wants to change major traffic routes, increase public transportation funding, and reward urban density and sustainable developments. We’ve recently been granted Laneway Housing, which basically means you can tear down your garage and build a smaller slab-on-grade home. But the Millennium Water (Athletes Village) has been plagued with construction problems and the city had to downgrade their credit rating and fund the additional $150Mil in budget shortfall. For those who don’t know, Vancouver proper has no where to go but up – just like Manhattan – and there are very few vacant lots or character homes to purchase. This all formulates to a building frenzy and as an Interior Designer in this special market, I can’t help but wonder what happens after the post-Olympic exodus.

Image courtesy luv and revolution via Flickr.

“[T]he victory may be short-lived, with experts predicting the bubble will pop when the harmonized sales tax kicks in on July 1.” writes Raphael Alexander for the Vancouver Sun (February 22, 2010) “Homebuyers will likely advance their demand for houses before the HST is implemented, meaning fewer purchases in late 2010 and early 2011.”

But Paul Jenkins, Senior Deputy Governor for the Bank of Canada, has a different opinion. “I would certainly not say we are looking at a housing bubble,” says Jenkins (Mordant, Reuters, February 22, 2010)

I thought I needed to look at some more concrete economic data and remembered that I sat thru a presentation by Bernie Magnan, Chief Economist at the Vancouver Board of Trade, about a month back, and he’s predicting a reasonable GDP increase over 2010, especially in construction and lumber. The Economist ranks Vancouver the most livable city in the world. It appears that rental vacancies will be going up after the Olympics as a migrant workforce returns home so it looks like they will level off, but real estate sales are increasing steadily. I have a good source in the rental placement industry, and landlords are scrambling this month without monthly tenacy rate reductions. For example, $1,050 for a 450 square foot 1 Bedroom apartment or $5,995 for a 3Bedroom penthouse seem a bit on the steep side for what you’re really getting.

So there may be a vacuum in Vancouver (VAN-cuum, HA!), but I guess there’s really only one conclusion, kitchen and bath sales can only go up from here. So I say, let’s pimp those kitchens and bathrooms like there’s no tomorrow!

As we Vancouverites head into the Olympics next week, some of you are really getting into the spirit inside and outside your homes and workplaces. The city is being visually slaughtered by Olympic advertising, temporary venues, mascots, country flags, and each of us react in our own way. Some of us embrace it, some of us are miffed by the expence while the cities real problems remain, some of us are happy to see some design focused ideas come to reality.

The 2010 Olympics have brought forth a huge influx in construction, so much so that the activity housing slump and poor economy was outside the protection of the Olympic bubble. One such fantastic venue is the Fairmont Pacific Rim.

Developer Ian Gillespie inside the lobby of pre-opened Fairmont Pacific Rim, Image credit: Darryl Dyck for the Globe & Mail

Poetry wraps facade of the hotel. Image credit: Vancouver Sun

It’s not all peaches and roses, take the Canada Pavilion at Georgia and Beatty Streets for example. It’s an ugly white tent. It’s ugly, opening late, and apparently “looks great“, so says Heritage Minister James Moore [Globe & Mail]. Oh, by the way, did I mention it cost $10M of taxpayer money, build by non-Canadian Chicago-based company, and it’s ugly? I wonder if Mayor Greggor will keep it open as a temporary shelter…

Image credit: Ric Ernst PNG for Global BC

“Something happened. It’s embarrassing,” says Bing Thom, ”This is a world event. As Canadians, we all want to put on a good show, and architecture can help. But from the outside, this pavilion is completely uninspiring.” [Globe & Mail]

“This is a missed opportunity for Canada to demonstrate to the world what the country represents,” says Vancouver architect Wayne De Angelis, Regional director of Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. “If we are going to be represented by just a white box that looks like something you can buy online, that’s fine, but other pavilions are doing much more than that. It’s sad.” [Globe & Mail]

 How did this happen? How did such an ugly thing and a beautiful thing get built?

I don’t know why it took me so long to see the amazing Tom Ford’s film A Single Man (novel by Christopher Isherwood), but when I did, it was the house that took my breath way (who cares that it’s being sold for $1.5M, I want it) and that it was complete metaphore for the film. This amazing home features so little by today’s standards, but it’s really about what you have and how you use it. It’s built from redwood, concrete and glass and is invisible.

Shaffer Residence, built 1949, by John Lautner, Architect

Mid-century modern style

527 Whiting Woods Rd., Glendale 91208

Picasa album

Listing

There are so many ways to help when disaster strikes and the quickest and easiest way is to send money. It seems to be a knee-jerk reaction for all of us but it left me thinking about the hard work of re-building and who was going to do that in Haiti. I know that search and rescue/recovery is still going on, and it may be weeks before that is complete, but it’s time to act quickly and for us designers to offer up our expertise in sweat equity.

Architecture for Humanity is our very best option because 88% of it’s funds are directly funneled back into construction projects. I just offered my services for an indefinite amount of time. It’s kind of scary, but I think it’s really what I’m meant to do because I’ve always imagined helping for non-profit rather than profiting from non-sense.Architecture for Humanity is focused on a long-term reconstruction effort and partnering with Yele Haiti, AIDG and more by supplying pro-bono construction work. AFH has set up a Earthquake Reconstruction page, so please, take a look.

Wall Street Journal – Jim Carlton writes that the green building movment is aming for a zero net energy use goal, and I agree that he’s right. Play the zero sum game by clicking the links in the article.

But a bigger shift toward net-zero construction faces hurdles, largely because such buildings often are more expensive to build. To reach zero energy use, for instance, a building needs to produce its own power such as through solar or wind. Rooftop solar panels can cost upward of $10,000 on a three-bedroom home alone.

Some industry analysts say the costs of erecting net-zero homes have declined somewhat as green building has become more mainstream. With energy costs more than doubling across the U.S. in the past decade, energy-savings measures have become more attractive to builders.

Wall Street Journal (12.24.2009) link; Carlton, Jim

Vancouver Island (BC) – John Stewart says the future is small and he wants you to live in it. Twelve3 is a Vancouver Island based company specializing in 12³ or 10³ micro homes and are high-tech and affordable. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Not so! It comes complete with a dishwasher, microwave, oven, closet, bathroom and so much day-lighting that this dreary rain won’t be noticed. All this for around $25,000.

“When I started designing the cube,” John told Small House Style “a conscious decision was made to make it comfortable and practical. Somewhere you could be happy to invite friends over to, somewhere you would be proud of. A home, not just shelter.”

“So I started with a blank piece of paper and concentrated on what I liked about a conventional home and tried to eliminate what I didn’t like. It had to be bright and airy, nothing toxic involved in its construction, and built in as environmentally friendly way as possible.”

Read more at Small House Style.