Vancouverism is, as Wikipedia defines it, an urban planning and architectural technique named (obviously) after the city that pioneered it. It is “characterized by mixed-use developments, typically with a medium-height, commercial base and narrow, high-rise residential towers to accommodate high populations and to preserve view corridors.” An exhibition by the same name opens tomorrow at a university space in Woodward’s, one of Vancouver’s newest mixed-use building projects. Created by architecture critic Trevor Boddy, Vancouverism has travelled to Paris and London and is now back in Vancouver for the Olympics. If you’re going to be in Vancouver, it’s worth taking a look, or you can visit the websites. View of a component of the exhibition at Canada House in London below:
More from Wikipedia:
“Vancouverism developed as product of Vancouver’s context. Wedged between the sea, mountains and the border with the United States, the Greater Vancouver Regional District partnered with the area’s municipalities to encourage controlled development. Early recognition that British Columbia’s farmland would be engulfed by sprawl led to the establishment of the Agricultural Land Reserve in the 1970s. This assisted in containing and intensifying development throughout the Vancouver metropolitan area and the Fraser Valley.
Architect Arthur Erickson is credited by some with developing the concept that became Vancouverism in the mid 1950s, in a never-realized development called “Project 56″. Many of the principles were incorporated into the development of the [downtown] West End, which became the highest density neighbourhood on the west coast of North America by the 1960s. The city’s planning department, under the direction of Ray Spaxman in the 1980s, began to expand on the concepts, many of which were brought into fruition with the development of the former Expo 86 lands along False Creek and Yaletown.”