Everybody knows what sustainability is, but we have been stripped of common sense and seduced by the virtues of competitive consumption. Beyond the opportunities furnished by new technologies and the necessary benefits of density with respect to infrastructure and energy, a return to sustainable practices will be nurtured by the considered provision of space. Public spaces, shared spaces, spaces for exclusion, spaces for small organizations, spaces for incubator businesses, and residential spaces need to be allowed and encouraged to reassert their complex and changing patterns across our cities. Simple and static divisions of space lead to analagous ways of thinking. Flexible spaces offer an unpredictability that is inherently open to negotiation and learning.
Architectural interventions need not be complicated to support complexity. Simple construction methods, the use of readily available materials, and passive strategies for heat and ventilation contribute to an affordable scheme that can be adapted and customized. Density is a catalyst to the development of complex social relationships and creativity. Instead of attempting to introduce complicated mechanisms to control the kinds of uses on the site, complexity is invited by providing a simple platform upon which innovation and change can be driven by its inhabitants. The elegance of any solution is found in its ability to acknowledge the complexity of the ecology it attempts to facilitate.
To combat the speculative commodity driven experience of today's Vancouver housing options, it is necessary to create spatial platforms that support human relationships at various scales. Individual relationships, partnerships, families, communities, and societies exist in a myriad of complex and nested formations. Their commonality lies in their tendency to change over time. Housing that can be adapted to changing human needs and wants can serve as impetus to the long term social investments necessary to establish communities. Simultaneously, it can avoid the sameness born of static, single purpose development, and offer a productive space with difference that looks outward and informs the broader community. This scheme attempts to move toward desired densities, while providing a flexible framework for the development of dynamic creative communities.
(From competitor's text)
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