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  #181  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2016, 7:17 PM
Sheba Sheba is offline
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We get a lot of rain and we've been getting more severe windstorms. It may not be necessary to have enclosed connections but it sure is nice sometimes. It doesn't really matter though as it doesn't look like they're building any.
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  #182  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2016, 7:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon View Post
Except that it's a confusing garbage connection that gets closed before transit does.
Exactly - and the Skytrain signage doesn't even acknowledge that the connection exists. Personally, I didn't find it until ten months after the Canada Line opened, and non-locals probably won't find it ever.
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  #183  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2016, 10:18 PM
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How does it compare with Toronto's PATH system?
Hard to say, it's been a long time since I've been in the PATH system in Toronto. I want to say Montreal's is bigger, but to be honest they're both pretty similar in nature and in my opinion nothing to get excited about.
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  #184  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2016, 7:08 PM
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Toronto's skyline is about to join the big-leagues

While the first section is very Toronto-centric, the rest of it is an interesting read.

Quote:
Skyscrapers, in important ways, are the modern equivalent of medieval cathedrals, says University of Toronto philosopher Mark Kingwell.

“They have the same kind of effect on those of us who love them,” Kingwell says. “They are a human-made thing that has this kind of soaring ability to rise above and transcend everyday life.”

And like their medieval counterparts, which towered over European towns for centuries, they can broadcast a city’s pride and aspiration, Kingwell says.

...

But skylines can tell tall tales, Greenberg says. He says impressive skylines in many cities belie bleak realities down on the pavement.

“Dubai is a place that has one giant building after another … but no one could accuse it of being an exciting or wonderful place to be,” he says. “It’s a bunch of highways down below.”

The expansive downtown skylines of Atlanta, Calgary and Los Angeles cast shadows over fairly listless streetscapes, Kingwell adds. Ideally, “the tower grows out of the energy from the ground beneath it,” he says.
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  #185  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2016, 10:50 PM
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BobLoblawsLawBlog BobLoblawsLawBlog is offline
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The expansive downtown skylines of Los Angeles
lol what? Downtown L.A.'s skyline is like ten tall towers huddled together.
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  #186  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2016, 11:17 PM
trofirhen trofirhen is offline
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lol what? Downtown L.A.'s skyline is like ten tall towers huddled together.
You got it !!
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  #187  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2017, 10:51 PM
retro_orange retro_orange is offline
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A Harvard researcher invented these $139,000 stackable homes that can be built in under three weeks
Quote:
  • Mar. 15, 2017, 11:30 AM

A rendering of eight stacked Kasita units.Kasita

Jeff Wilson spent one of his two years as dean of Huston-Tillotson University in Texas living in a dumpster.
The experience made him embrace minimalist living, and inspired him to launch a tiny housing startup, called Kasita, in 2015.
"While the experiment was extreme, the experience I gained by living small and simple made a big impression," Wilson says. "At the end of the year, I left the dumpster with the concept for a new category of housing — a beautiful, small footprint home designed as a solution for the growing housing crisis."
Based in Austin, Texas, Kasita offers housing units that can sit by themselves or stack to form apartments. The pre-fabricated homes can be assembled off-site and delivered in two to three weeks, Wilson says.
The startup is now selling its first units, which measure 352 square feet and cost $139,000, across the US. There is currently a waitlist for preorders — $1,000 holds a spot.
Keep scrolling to check out the units, which will likely be ready for delivery in June 2017.
View As: One Page Slides




Kasita (a startup that gets its name from "casita," the Spanish word for "little house") sells tiny housing units that encourage a minimalist lifestyle.


Kasita

The interiors have a modern look. At 352 square feet, white walls help the units look larger than they are. (For comparison, the average one-car garage measures about 260 square feet.)


Kasita

The main, open-layout space functions as both a living room and bedroom. In the model unit, a bed pulls out from the sofa (though the units come unfurnished).


Kasita

Across from the living room, there's a sleek kitchen.


Kasita


There are electric stovetops, full ovens, and dishwashers, too.


Kasita

Around the corner, there's a bathroom with a shower.


Kasita

Since the units are so small, they are designed with space-saving storage. Drawers are located inside stairs.


Kasita

Each home also features tech integrations, including glass windows that adjust their transparency depending on the amount of natural sunlight.


Kasita


Kasita units can also stack on top of each other to form a complex ...


Kasita

... or they can sit on rooftops.


Kasita
The first batch of stackable units, which people can also pre-order online, will be delivered in December 2017.
"We want to take the noise out of buying a home. Imagine how great it would be to be able to buy a home as easily as you buy a product," Wilson says. "The long-term plan would be that you could just put in your address and credit card number and we would care of the rest."

Wilson, who is a former postdoctoral researcher at Harvard and IBM project manager, got the idea for Kasita after living in a dumpster for a year in 2014.


Sarah Natsumi

Owning a lot of stuff felt burdensome, so he sold the majority of his possessions and moved into (and renovated) the small, empty dumpster in Austin, Texas.


Sarah Natsumi


He says that the Kasita is both "a product and a home." The way that his team designs future Kasitas will evolve, depending on owners' needs and wants.


Kasita

"The way we build housing (and even skyscrapers) hasn’t changed substantially in over 100 years and a lot of that lag is because we haven’t updated the way we approach building," he says. "A house is built once and it’s only improvement will be a marble countertop replacement in 30 years. A Kasita product can iterate version upon version and improve based on user experience."


Kasita
http://www.businessinsider.com/kasit...st-lifestyle-1

I would prefer these over the already dated looking oil-sands type housing that was built across from Main st. station.
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  #188  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2017, 11:00 PM
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No thank you.
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  #189  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2017, 11:01 PM
retro_orange retro_orange is offline
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No thank you.
Didn't ask you.
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  #190  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2017, 11:32 PM
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That's still around $400 per square foot for a glorified shipping container. Why would we want to encourage that?

Lift density caps and allow developers to really get the most out of available land. Allow rowhouses and townhouses in all RS1 zoned areas and you could easily fit 5 units where there currently is a single SFH, for example.
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  #191  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2017, 11:35 PM
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I'm suspicious of anyone who boasts of having lived in a dumpster. But hey, who knows, maybe the crackhead down in the alley has the next big idea in affordable housing.
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  #192  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2017, 11:38 PM
retro_orange retro_orange is offline
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Having more options is the idea. I'm sure there's ways of not only making it cheaper but making larger units available.
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  #193  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2017, 12:08 AM
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Originally Posted by retro_orange View Post
Having more options is the idea. I'm sure there's ways of not only making it cheaper but making larger units available.
Increasing density does both.
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  #194  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2017, 10:53 PM
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https://www.biv.com/article/2017/4/r...ld-baby-build/


RED Talks to Vancouver: build, baby, build

Build more housing faster. That was the chorus from a trio of speakers at the recent RED (Real Estate Development) Talks in Vancouver that addressed solutions to Vancouver’s high housing prices.


San Francisco pro-development advocate Sonja Trauss said it doesn’t matter what kind of housing is built as long as there is more of it, and soon.

Truass, who founded the upstart, 500-member San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation two years ago, said that, as in her high-priced city, Vancouver’s mandatory public hearing process used to decide density “is broken.”

“The people who live near a proposed new development are the last people who should be asked if they want higher density,” Trauss told the March 30 meeting. “You are guaranteed to get a ‘no.’”

Instead, Trauss, a renter, former math teacher and self-styled anarchist, tries to pack such meetings with those who will benefit from more housing: young people from other neighbourhoods who will actually buy or rent the new homes.


Her group has even sued San Francisco suburban communities that have failed to approve the housing they said they would.

Trauss said more supply is also the answer for Vancouver, whether it is luxury homes, highrise rentals or low-income housing.

“You have to support building, even when it’s a type of building you hate,” she said. “You really need everything right now.”

A recent RentCafé international survey found that San Francisco has the second-highest housing prices and the second most expensive rent in the U.S., at US$3,360 for a one-bedroom. The city also has the country’s second-highest homelessness rate with 795 homeless per 100,000 residents.

As a comparison, RentCafé, a subsidiary of Point2 Homes, ranked Vancouver at No. 24 out of 30 global cities for rent levels, with average rents of US$1,400.
(See also: Vancouver rent is expensive, but it’s reasonable for a financial centre, argues new report)

Vancouver has 2,100 homeless people, according to the newly released 2017 survey, representing about 30 homeless people per 100,000 residents.

Vancouver’s obsession with a “housing crisis” might be overblown, said RED speaker Steven Levitt, author and partner in Freakonomics.

“High housing prices because it is a beautiful city that lots of people want to move to is a pretty good problem to have,” said Levitt, who hails from Chicago. “In my city, the current crisis is the highest murder rate in the United States.”

Increasing the inventory, which should start by reducing the regulatory costs of building new homes, would likely be a simple fix for Vancouver’s housing problem, Levitt suggested.

Paul Kershaw, a University of British Columbia professor and founder of Vancouver’s Generation Squeeze, a lobby group for millennials and gen-Xers seeking affordable housing, said some progress has been made.

He cited the B.C. foreign-buyer tax, Vancouver’s recent vacant-home tax and the city’s proposal to allow older houses to be converted to multi-unit rentals as steps in the right direction.

Kershaw urged young people to “create a critical mass to provide political cover” for those advocating higher-density residential development.
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  #195  
Old Posted May 3, 2017, 7:32 PM
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The verdict is in!


Vancouver's the worst place in the Lower Mainland to build a home due to red tape

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vanco...g-construction


A tedious approval process and regulations mandated by the City of Vancouver could be exacerbating the municipality’s dire housing affordability crisis in a self-inflicted way.

According to a new report by the Fraser Institute, the largest city in the Lower Mainland region had the longest building permit approval time with an average of 21 months, with West Vancouver and Surrey trailing behind at 18.3 months and 13.2 months, respectively. In contrast, the City of Langley had the shortest approval time with an average of less than two months.


And more troubling is the finding that Vancouver’s regulations add $78,000 for every unit of housing built, which is over five times more than the compliance costs of neighbouring Burnaby at $15,000 per unit. The municipalities with the next highest costs were Surrey at $52,000 and Richmond at $41,000.

Such approval processes are delaying the creation of new housing stock, and the cost of construction and design regulations that must be adhered to are passed on to the consumer.

“Increasing housing supply in Vancouver could help lower prices, but unfortunately there are a lot of confusing and costly regulations on the books that deter new homes from being built,” said Kenneth Green, a senior research director with the Fraser Institute, in a statement.

Other factors that present a barrier to new housing development revolve around the uncertainty and ambiguity in the uses of land before rezoning and development applications. For major development projects, approval is tied to community amenity contributions to support the construction of new community centres, libraries, and public art, and such costs are also passed on to homeowners.

As well, a preference from Vancouver for less dense, mid-rise developments adds to cost as such types of development do not have the same economies of scale as highrises.

For such reasons, several of Metro Vancouver’s largest real estate developers refuse to work in Vancouver, instead focusing their efforts on other neighbouring municipalities particularly Burnaby.

“If municipal councils in the Lower Mainland, especially in Vancouver, really want to increase the supply of housing, they should consider more sound regulatory regimes that encourage – not stifle – residential development,” Green said.

Local opposition to developments from neighbourhood residents, commonly referred to as ‘NIMBYs’, are another challenge, particularly for dense projects with verticality.

Earlier this year, for instance, a proposal in Kerrisdale that would be considered relatively modest in the Eastside area, Broadway Corridor, and downtown Vancouver was met with fierce local opposition. Residents were against an eight-storey redevelopment, with rental and market housing, proposed by Dunbar Ryerson Church over fears it would cast a shadow over the area.
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  #196  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2018, 12:36 AM
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Hey Vin, I don't necessarily agree with the articles but I appreciate that you posted some good insightful ones, thanks!

More density for Vancouver!
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  #197  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2018, 9:49 PM
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Great looking home.

All you need to do is park it down by the river and you're good to go.

What's the next housing "solution"? A port a pottie?
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  #198  
Old Posted Aug 16, 2018, 12:10 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by misher View Post
Hey Vin, I don't necessarily agree with the articles but I appreciate that you posted some good insightful ones, thanks!

More density for Vancouver!
Thought-provoking is always good!~

Perhaps this one is more of an effect of what's described in the former article:

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/west-...ail-future-ubc
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  #199  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2018, 4:39 PM
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Interesting CBC Video on Moscow Urban renewal (with a bit of a take on Vancouver party way in).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUliiuP6Tdw
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  #200  
Old Posted May 24, 2019, 4:52 PM
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I figured this was the closest place to post this - Stronger than aluminum, a heavily altered wood cools passively

Quote:
Most of our building practices aren't especially sustainable. Concrete production is a major source of carbon emissions, and steel production is very resource intensive. Once completed, heating and cooling buildings becomes a major energy sink. There are various ideas on how to handle each of these issues, like variations on concrete's chemical formula or passive cooling schemes.

But now, a large team of US researchers has found a single solution that appears to manage everything using a sustainable material that both reflects sunlight and radiates away excess heat. The miracle material? Wood. Or a form of wood that has been treated to remove one of its two main components.

...

The researchers estimate that covering an apartment building with the treated wood could save about 35 percent of the energy used for cooling. In a dense urban setting, that number goes up to over half. Plus, it also has the strength to handle some of the internal structure of the building. And while forestry can create environmental issues, it is certainly possible to manage it in a way that is sustainable.
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