Lore Krill Housing Co-op
Vancouver, BC
Henriquez Partners Architects (Vancouver, BC)
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Redevelopment plans for Woodward’s department store in downtown Vancouver included a 200-unit housing allocation. After the provincial government was unable to secure a joint venture development with private developers, the architects were hired by Woodward’s Co-op to evaluate alternate sites. This led to the selection of a site a block away from the department store, at 65 West Cordova Street in Gastown, Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood, an area with strict design guidelines and significant economic and social challenges.

The architects were instructed to use a workshop process in which the members of the Co-op could become familiar with the issues and make decisions on the design of the building. The program includes 86 non-market units, 20 market units, and a three-level underground public parkade operated by the City of Vancouver. The number of units on the site maximizes the allocation from BC Housing and the budget was based on its standard unit prices. Unit types include studio apartments (365 sq. ft.), one-bedroom (550 sq. ft.), and two-bedroom (750 sq. ft.). More than half of the units were designed using accessibility principles.

The Co-op’s two eight-storey buildings sit on a landscaped podium and remain within the 75-foot height limit. The West Cordova façade emulates the appearance of Woodward’s department store and was articulated as an incremental set of smaller masses to acknowledge the scale of the neighbouring buildings. The front of the building has a continuous canopy that provides rain protection, and the ground floor is set back to accommodate a future streetcar stop. The public parkade is entered from Cordova Street while the Co-op parking has a separate entry from the lane.

All of the units have pleasant outlooks. The rear elevation is set back and its windows are angled for views down the lane. The five landscaped roof terraces have gardens for growing vegetables and decks with views of the city and the mountains. The large courtyard includes a waterfall that masks neighbourhood noise. Bridges across the courtyard link the two buildings in case of elevator failure, and all accessible units are located at the bridge level or courtyard level.

The floors of the building are flat-slab concrete and the walls are either cast-in-place architectural concrete or concrete block with brick veneer. The brick detailing recalls the Co-op’s relation to the Woodward’s store, and the architectural concrete is used to sculpt the surfaces of the inner courtyard, the sawtooth fins on the rear elevation, and the roof decks. Galvanized steel is used for bridges, cornices, and canopies. These materials and details recall the industrial port heritage of Vancouver without literally emulating historical features.

The Co-op is named in honour of Lore Krill, a co-op and poverty activist who worked tirelessly for the residents of the Downtown Eastside and died in 1999.

Jury Comments:

This project encompasses profound social values while defending the notion that urban living can be vital from a sustainable and rehabilitation perspective and still be imaginatively playful with limited finances. The architectural resolution of the internal garden courtyard – a vertical urban living space carved out between two thin volumetric extrusions – is skillfully defined by human scale, angular views and dramatic daylight.

Daniel Pearl,
(Quebec)
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The ability to extend the range of communal spaces in the face of providing public housing is refreshing. To do so in a project with such attentive detail and material resolve is nothing short of extraordinary.

Christopher Macdonald, FRAIC
(British Columbia)
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