Larry Beasley on Vancouver, density, and aesthetics

[Prince George]

From greatergreaterwashington.org, some notes from a talk given in D.C. by the former chief planner from Vancouver, Larry Beasley. Mr Beasley is now consulting with the city of Abu Dhabi, the more staid (and solvent) twin of Dubai. Here, he presents the outline of how Vancouver has approached their own version of density and up-zoning. Notice that he doesn't just talk about the economics, but also the aesthetics

Tall buildings transformed Vancouver into a world-class city, attracting tourists, knowledge workers and financial investment and accommodating many people comfortably on a small peninsula. It's created a beautiful skyline, with elegantly sculpted towers piercing the sky, but also walkable neighborhoods and active streets.

Vancouver has achieved this through their own breed of tower-building, "Vancouverism." This involves giving great care to all three parts of a tall building: the base, the tower, and the top. The base must directly address the street, filling space at a modest height compatible with other buildings.

In residential areas, they places townhouses in the base, while in commercial areas maximize the transparency of ground-floor windows. In all areas, they put as much retail into the base as the area can support. As Beasley put it, the base must be "gently giving to the street, rather than harsh, brutal, and awesomely out of scale."

The tower itself is then set back to limit its impact on pedestrians, to make it "float out of consciousness." It must slim down as it rises, rather than blindly duplicating each floor plan on successively higher floors. And the top is where some extra artistry comes in, to avoid the bland flatness of many modern buildings while also not becoming "clownish."

Vancouver also clusters the buildings into "constallations," in an artistic "composition that makes a statement" and also ensures views of the sky through the cluster. Vancouver's clusters of towers seem to point into the sky, but not blot it out.

In essence, Vancouver is what the mid-century modernists like Le Corbusier would have built if they had the benefit of decades of experience. They thought widely-spaced towers beautiful and believed they would enhance the quality of life. Separated by acres of empty land and interconnected by high-speed expressways, they did the opposite, but in Vancouver, this basic aesthetic lives and succeeds because the towers are only a small piece of the puzzle.

Vancouver does not simply permit tall buildings. They extract significant public amenities from them. Developers can only build if they offer these amenities, and a system of bonus densities along with a more discretionary approval process that gives officials leeway to shape projects has helped Vancouver wring nearly every amenity they could think of out of developing their city in recent decades.

He goes on to say that in Washington D.C.'s case, their lower profile is a differentiator that they shouldn't give up lightly, it makes them different to other cities of a similar size. Mind you, in D.C. low means 4 storeys rather than our massive plain of bungalows. The effect is more like Paris, dense by being tight rather than tall.

After the talk, he then had a chat Q&A session on the Greater Washington site. There, he stresses Vancouver's principle of demanding good design in return for the height and density they were allowing:

[Comment From Ken ArcherKen Archer: ]
You mentioned last night that height with density, and not just height, is what matters. Given that, did Vancouver also revise anti-density zoning to allow for greater density (e.g. eliminate minimum parking requirements, eliminate minimum acreage requirements for new buildings, etc)?

Larry Beasley: Yes, absolutely. We carefully calibrated heights and density and we carefully created, above the outright allowable, extra viable heights and density that could be enjoyed as a bonus or incentive if people provided identified public goods and qualities like great design. You are right to notice that without density, variations in height are of only marginal economic interest - they become only a design interest for alternative forms.

...

[Comment From miss ohio: ]
There is a sense that DC's new buildings are boring and that it is a result of the the height limit. How can we keep the limit but get cooler, more inspiring buildings?

Larry Beasley: Good architecture comes from good architects that are supported by a regulatory system that facilitates good design and forces it to be a development priority. One of the easiest things you can do is implement design review and to put peer review in place. In every city that I have worked on to make that happen, the quality of architecture has gone up. The height of a building that is allowed is not relevent to the quality of the architecture. If your town accepts mundane architecture by approving it, then that is the type of architecture your town will get. Government has to be an ally of the architect against all the other things that homogenize design.

There's a lot more little snippets there - parking, transit, affordability. I want this guy on our side.

[Wayno]

and a system of bonus densities along with a more discretionary approval process that gives officials leeway to shape projects has helped Vancouver wring nearly every amenity they could think of out of developing their city in recent decades.

I wonder if this is implied or explicit in the Vancouver development plan?

In my discussions with the ACC, they indicated they have flexibility with non-complying developments (e.g. they can relax building height limits, etc) where higher architectural standards are involved - but it's only implied in the dev plan and hence there remains significant "whimsical ACC decision making risk" from the Developers perspective, which probably often translates into dollars lost if not approved - thus perpetuating a why bother mentality.

[SRW]

Larry Beasley: Good architecture comes from good architects that are supported by a regulatory system that facilitates good design and forces it to be a development priority. One of the easiest things you can do is implement design review and to put peer review in place.

I wonder, is this something that the Integrated Design Commission is meant to do?

[Prince George]

and a system of bonus densities along with a more discretionary approval process that gives officials leeway to shape projects has helped Vancouver wring nearly every amenity they could think of out of developing their city in recent decades.

I wonder if this is implied or explicit in the Vancouver development plan?

In my discussions with the ACC, they indicated they have flexibility with non-complying developments (e.g. they can relax building height limits, etc) where higher architectural standards are involved - but it's only implied in the dev plan and hence there remains significant "whimsical ACC decision making risk" from the Developers perspective, which probably often translates into dollars lost if not approved - thus perpetuating a why bother mentality.

Probably explicit, at least in terms of things like the public goods that they want to promote. Many places have "incentive zoning" schemes that run something like this:

• The maximum size of a building is defined with some combination of a ceiling height and a maximum floor-area-ratio or FAR (total floor space divided by the area of the base)
• The starting maximum limits for these criteria (generally the FAR rather than the ceiling height) are only modest.
• Bonuses to these limits are then offered for providing various desirable features.

For example, amenities on the street, bike parking, features on the facade might all be worth increases in the FAR that's permitted. Or, if we decided that we really didn't like seeing the blank walls on the sides of new buildings because they've been built out to the plot boundaries, there could be bonuses for not doing that. And, taking that idea further, there could even be bonuses available for satisfying an independent review panel a la Prof Lee's IDC, indeed they could be the group that decides if the design should be awarded the various other bonuses.

The trick to getting this to work is to "make the game worth the candle" - the starting points should be low enough and the bonuses significant enough that it's worth the developers time to make this extra effort. For example, in the case of the Washington Mutual Tower back in Seattle, the bonuses allowed the developer to go to twice the base maximum height.

[JenniferFrey]

Vancouver is one of my favorite cities. I think the city is designed really well but the location also lends itself to be very pleasing. The fact that the sea is at your front door and the mountains at your backdoor would make any city great. There's also plenty of greenery within the city like Stanley Park.

[chrism4549]

I just went to Vancouver a couple weeks ago. I thought it was great. Regarding density, Canada is willing to invest in pulbic infrastructure and people will want to live near that which means developers will build more buildings on/near it. The other is that the ocean and mountains sort of physically force the density. All those high rises also add to the supply of housing in the city proper- it's pretty expensive there.