The Vancouver Special is an

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

of residential houses developed in

Metro Vancouver The Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), or simply Metro Vancouver, is a Canadian political subdivision and corporate entity representing the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver, designated by provincial legislation as one of the 28 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The style was popular in the 1960s to 1980s due to ability to maximize floor space with relatively cheap construction costs.

Background

Vancouver Specials were mass-produced between 1965 and 1985. However, there are examples of homes built in the late 1940s which share the characteristics of a Vancouver Special. The houses were first built in southeast Vancouver in the early 1960s to serve newly arrived immigrants from Europe. However, the mass production of the Vancouver Special is primarily attributed to the South Asian community after a wave of immigration in the 1960s and 1970s prompted many new immigrants to settle in the area and preside over the last large scale residential development in southeast Vancouver. In response to public reaction to the proliferation of this design, the City of Vancouver made changes to the

single-family zoning Single-family zoning is a type of planning restriction applied to certain residential zones in the United States and Canada in order to restrict development to only allow single-family detached homes. It disallows townhomes, duplexes, and multi-f ...

regulations in the 1980s with the intent to stop additional Vancouver Specials from being built. However, other Lower Mainland cities have not substantially changed their housing codes over the past 25 years with respect to this kind of housing design. Thus, it is still possible to build (and buy) new houses (of very similar design to the classic Vancouver Specials) in the Lower Mainland.

Characteristics

Vancouver Specials are front-gabled, 2-storey, boxy houses built on grade (i.e., without a raised foundation), with low-pitched roofs. They contain a shallow

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

on the second floor accessed by sliding glass doors. The front door is typically set to one side of the house, which allows for main living quarters on the upper floor and secondary suites on the bottom. Ground level facades are typically finished with brick or stone, with

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

at the higher levels.

Geographical distribution

Vancouver Specials can be found all over

Greater Vancouver Greater Vancouver, also known as Metro Vancouver, is the metropolitan area with its major urban centre being the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The term "Greater Vancouver" is roughly coterminous with the geographic area governed b ...

due to their mass production. The architectural housing design can also be seen elsewhere in the outer regions of the

Lower Mainland The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05million people as of the 2021 Canadia ...

and other parts of southern British Columbia where the climate is moderate. The housing architecture also can be found substantially in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Comox, Duncan and

Nanaimo Nanaimo ( ) is a city on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. As of the Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census, it had a population of 99,863, and it is known as "The Harbour City." The city was previously known as the "H ...

(on Vancouver Island) but is less common due to the different economic conditions and constraints there.

Design issues

As the greater Vancouver area has not experienced a substantial earthquake (M ~6.5+) in the past 100 years, it is unclear how durable the Vancouver Special is to Seattle- or San Francisco-like earthquake land and soil movements. As there is a lot of built in modularity in this kind of housing design, it is assumed that relatively inexpensive earthquake remediation measures could be taken to increase this kind of housing architecture's ability to withstand earth movement without disintegration.

Evolution

Vancouver Specials evolved into what were frequently derided as "monster homes" in the 1990s that many critics claimed were ruining the aesthetic character of their neighbourhoods. However, the change in house size in the Greater Vancouver area is more closely bound to the rising house prices, and property speculation. Vancouver house prices had increased year-on-year more than many other similarly sized Canadian cities (and regions) in the previous 25 years. In contrast to the earlier Vancouver Specials, monster homes were appearing in wealthier areas of the city, and critics were sometimes charged with being concerned as much about immigrants invading their exclusive neighbourhoods as they were about the

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

of the neighbourhoods.

Cultural references

The much maligned Vancouver Special, however, may yet see its bad reputation improve. Some indications include a locally produced music compilation

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

in 2000, "Vancouver Special," which features several examples of the house design on the cover, and a renovated Vancouver Special that won the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia's Innovation Award for Architecture in 2005. A home design store on Main Street bears the name "Vancouver Special" and Arsenal Pulp Press of Vancouver published ''Vancouver Special'', a book of essays about the city by

Charles Demers Charles Demers (; born 1980), sometimes credited as Charlie Demers, is a Canadian comedian, political activist, voice actor, and writer. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but self-identifies as Quebecois. Writing Demers has published f ...

, in November 2009, showing that the reputation of the homes may have now gained a certain vintage glamour. Local brewery, R&B Brewing, offers a West Coast IPA named after the Vancouver Special.

References

External links and sources

{{commons category, Houses in Vancouver
''Home Improvements'', by David Carrigg, ''Vancouver Courier'' (5 November 2004)

''Vancouver Special Redux'', by Christopher MacDonald, ''Canadian Architect'' (July 2004)

Vancouverspecial.com, a gallery and location-map of Vancouver Special houses

''Vancouver Special'' by Arsenal Pulp Press (November, 2009)

Flickr set of examples
Architectural styles House types House styles Buildings and structures in Greater Vancouver Canadian architectural styles