Heritage champions looking for your dollars for guide revision

‘Exploring Vancouver’ publisher, co-author seeking $100 donations for fourth edition in 35 years

BY FELICITY STONE, SPECIAL TO THE SUN | APRIL 24, 2010

If there is an icon in Vancouver by which to pose Hal Kalman and Diane Switzer as publisher and writer prepare the fourth edition of Exploring Vancouver for press, it is the downtown Woodward’s. The store was a destination for Vancouverities for 80 years. The retention, and restoration, of the original Hastings and Abbott facades was financed under a city hall program that gives developers and builders extra salable square footage if they take on preservation projects.
Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG, Special To The Sun

We know them to see them. When we pass them in the street, their faces are familiar, possibly even their names. They are the iconic buildings and houses that contribute as much to Vancouver’s character as do the ocean and mountains.

“Buildings tell stories about the city’s development, history and personalities,” says Hal Kalman, a Vancouver-based heritage consultant and authority on the history of Canadian architecture. Kalman has been telling these stories since 1974, when he wrote the first edition of Exploring Vancouver, a guide to public and private buildings of historical or architectural significance. As the city changed, two more editions followed, and a fourth is in the works, to be written this summer by Kalman and former Vancouver Sun architecture critic Robin Ward, who also co-authored the third edition…

Read the full article at vancouversun.com.

Xtra! Canada’s Gay and Lesbian News Features West End Project

Shauna Lewis / Vancouver / Wednesday, April 21, 2010

…Developers presented a revised rezoning proposal at a second open house April 20.

The revised proposal allocates space within the site to be shared between two community groups: Gordon Neighbourhood House and Qmunity, BC’s queer resource centre.

Gregory Henriquez of Henriquez Partners Architects says his company decided to revise its original proposal to address concerns of affordability and the need for community space.

The revised proposal includes 3,500 square feet that will be held in trust by the city to be jointly shared between the two West End non-profit organizations.

The revised proposal also features six units of seniors housing, offered under BC’s Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters [SAFER] program…

Read the full article at xtra.ca.

Designers Challenged to Get Creative About Housing Homeless

This Thursday, take part in Architecture For Humanity’s ’superchallenge’ to find quick, affordable and green housing solutions for the city’s growing homeless population.
By Monte Paulsen | 14 Apr 2010 | TheTyee.ca

Henriquez’s “Stop Gap Housing” are the same type of modular units that mining companies provide for remote workers.

“I think we should start from the assumption that what homeless people need is a home, and a meal, and to be treated with dignity and respect.”

That’s part of the advice that housing manager Janice Abbott will share with architects, designers and planners at tonight’s kickoff of the Quick Homes Superchallenge, organized by Architecture For Humanity/Vancouver.

Abbott, whose firm manages about 20 residential hotels in the Downtown Eastside, will be among more than a dozen experts offering advice to volunteer teams exploring how modular housing might be adapted to provide affordable green housing for Vancouver’s growing homeless population. The design charette will consider the potential for housing crafted from reused shipping containers, such the projects described in The Tyee series, Green Homes, Out of The Box.

“Architecture For Humanity believes that adequate shelter is a basic human right, and that housing the least privileged provides an opportunity to demonstrate both creativity and social responsibility,” said Linus Lam, who directs the international nonprofit organization’s Vancouver chapter…

Inspiration sought

Other speakers on tonight’s roster include Vancouver City Councillor Kerry Jang, Street to Home president Barbara Grantham, container home pioneer Keith Dewey, as well as architects including Michael Geller, Gregory Henriquez and Oliver Lang.

The Quick Homes Superchallenge has been organized by the Architecture For Humanity/Vancouver in association with the Design Foundation of British Columbia, and has been co-sponsored by the Tyee Solutions Society.

“I think the homelessness issue is not something we can simply throw money at even if we have it. It is a complex issue and requires constant effort from professions, as well as periodic bursts of inspiration from the community,” said organizer Linus Lam.

Read the full article at thetyee.ca.