A few weeks ago, Stephen was invited by teacher Dean Carter to talk to his class at the Calgary Waldorf School about how to create architectural drawings. It was a pleasure to spend some time showing the class how to draw architectural views of a red clock we found in the classroom. But it was a joy to recieve 24 thank you cards from the students a few days later!
Thanks again for the opportunity, Mr. Carter!
Photo by Gary Campbell
Building Permit in hand, Rusch Projects has started framing the Bridgeland House. These guys sure make framing look like fun!
Photo by Gary Campbell
Photo by Gary Campbell
Thanks to Gary Campbell for the photos.
We were at City Hall last week for a public hearing on a couple of redesignations. We were happy to have council's support in redesignating a parcel in Mount Pleasant to R-CG for an eight unit townhouse development.
Some community members thought that this was the thin edge of the wedge to allowing rowhouses in Mount Pleasant, and that the community is going a good job of maintaining their population with current development. As well, Councillor Cabot noted that this would allow the density to double compared to the current land use.
However, Councillor Carra thought it was a great townhouse form, and that this is exactly the kind of lot that the R-CG district was designed to address. Councillor Woolley commented that this project would make living in Mount Pleasant more affordable.
Councillor Farrell expressed that 20th Avenue is the perfect candidate for row housing. The communities of Capitol Hill identified this in their recent ARP. She said that Mount Pleasant has seen significant development of large single family infills and that they also welcomed multi-family on 17th Avenue. What they don't have is product in between the multi-residential and the single family homes (sometimes called the "missing middle"). She said that this street is the perfect candidate for this. She mentioned that Council even discussed this street when they introduced the R-CG land use district.
Councillor Carra doesn't agree with members of the community that Mount Pleasant should hold their population steady. He believes that inner city populations should be increased and sometimes significantly. Carra declared that "twentieth Avenue is the poster child for the R-CG land use". He said that the missing middle is a very important housing type to introduce to the inner city, and that even semi-detached houses are now out of the price range of normal families.
Councillor Chabot noted that there are a lot of single detached homes on 20th Avenue that haven't been converted to semi-detached. He's concerned that the City is trying to densify the city too quickly. He said that he appreciates where the applicant is going with this, but that he doesn't feel comfortable with doubling the current density that is allowed on the site or quadrupling the existing density. He said "It's going a little to much too quickly."
Woolley noted that Council approved the multi-residential infill guidelines and that this lot fits within those guidelines. He said that "It's a prime candidate for our infill guidelines" and it's a very good location. He said "I'm very supportive of this application."
Councillor Sutherland said that this was a perfect location. He noted that the density was reduced from what was originally proposed.
Councillor Farrell reiterated that this is appropriate development. She concluded that "this is a traditional land form that once developed will fit in very nicely with the community."
After discussion, Council gave three reading to the Bylaw amendments and approved the redesignation.
Unfortunately, on another item, a redesignation to allow a secondary suite in Wildwood will not be going ahead.
Over the last week, our Bridgeland House has had it's foundation poured. The following shots show the formwork in place, the pumper truck pouring the foundation, the stripped foundation, and the main floor plate almost complete. Thanks to Gary Campbell for the photos!
Hot on the heels of our last post on the subject, Rusch has poured footings and is standing up the forms for the foundation walls. Things are moving forward!
Just an aside, it's great to see keyways in the footings. They're always on the drawings but almost never done in the field. Funny because they're meant to keep the earth from pushing the bottom of the foundation wall into the basement.
Excavation
If you've been following this blog, you may recall an entry on the demolition of an old house in Bridgeland.
Much has been accomplished since then. The Development Permit was approved and the construction drawings have been prepared. The owners, Gary and Heidi, have selected Rusch Projects as their builder and they have in turn applied for the Building Permit. Partial permit in hand, Rusch has fenced and excavated the site and will soon lay out out the cribbing for the footings.
A few months ago, Inertia went on a housing tour of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. The area is in the middle of a housing boom, and we were able to see a wide range of product over the two day tour.
Microsuites are becoming popular in the area, but not where we expected to find them. Tien Sher's Balance project isn't in downtown Vancouver, but rather in Surrey. Many of the units were less than 400 square feet. Because it was hard for people to visualize how to use this tiny space, the smallest units were fitted out with murphy beds from Resource Furniture.
The elevation demonstrates that it is still possible to achieve something engaging while still using basic finishes.
One of our favourite projects from the tour were Mosaic Homes' Freemont Indigo and Freemont Green in Port Coquitlam. These are mid-rise and townhouse developments respectively that are on the Pitt River near the Lougheed Highway. We were impressed by the layouts, landscaping, finishes and attention to detail. They also reminded us of comprehensive developments we've seen in Southern California, both in terms of design and presentation. Like such southern projects, Freemont shares a common private club house that features a lounge, fitness studio, meeting room, community garden, dogwash, gymnasium and a pool.
Hayer's Exchange Townhouses in Willoughby are unexpectedly urban for being almost an hour out of Downtown Vancouver on the Trans-Canada Highway. The back-to-back layout presents the challenge of how to accommodate an attached garage, amenity space, enough bedrooms and bringing enough light into the units. The solution was to sling two storey units overtop of the garage, put a deck on the roof, limit the interior units to two bedrooms and locate the three bedroom units on the corners.
We've joked about the absurdly named Amazing Brentwood project, but its the one project name that we remember without fail. Amazing is an urban development project on a massive scale. In the previously vast parking lot that surrounded a suburban mall, an increasing number of 50+ storey residential towers are being built. In combination with the nearby Skytrain station, Brentwood is quickly becoming a dense urban hub for North Burnaby.
At the time of our visit, the first tower was still just a hole in the ground. That said, at the time of this post, the first two towers are sold out and the third tower is 75% sold.
In West Vancouver, Grosvenor's Ambleside demonstrates what move-down living can look like when money isn't an object. This urban project is aimed at those who are simplifying their lives and who want a lock-and leave-alternative to their West Vancouver house but who don't want to leave their neighbourhood or their furniture.
This James Cheng designed building has units that range in size from about 1,000 SF to over 2,500 SF. Each unit also features private underground parking.
There wasn't much to see of the actual project yet, but their model and sales centre were spectacular.
We toured eighteen projects in two days. Most of them were interesting, but there were certainly too many to fit into this post. After visitings a few new developents near UBC as well as the Shannon Wall Centre on Granville, we finished the second day up at the Residences at the Georgia Hotel. There we were treated to spectacular views of Downtown Vancouver and surroundings.
Clearly there is a lot of choice in the Vancouver housing market whether you want to live 50 storeys in the sky or in under 500 square feet. Issues of a housing bubble or foreign investment aside, we were able to bring back some great ideas that we continue to incorporate into our new designs.
Ten years ago today, Trent Letwiniuk, Stephen Barnecut and Paul Shannon met for breakfast and decided to go to the registry office before the end of the day and start a partnership. It didn't take long for us to become incorporated and grow out of working from our homes. We joined forces for a while with a number of small design firms including Casola Koppe Architects (where Paul is currently plying his skills).
More recently, Inertia has doubled the size of our office, increased our staff to eight, and started a sister company called Gravity Architecture which specializes in multi-residential and mixed use projects.
We're looking forward to the next ten years!
If you have some time over the holidays, feel free to peruse our Singles Gallery. It has a great selection of images of the interiors and exteriors of our single family designs.
Seasons Greetings from all of us at Inertia!
Inertia's office will be closed from December 23rd through to December 27th, and then again from December 30th through to January 3rd, 2016. Our office is open on December 28th and 29th, and we are open and back to our regular schedule on January 4th, 2016.
For urgent after-hours matters, please call Trent at (403) 464-7721 or Stephen at (403) 617-2724.
We've recently posted photographs of our Rosemont Single on Houzz. The house was built by Hillson Homes and the photography is by Real Image Video courtesy of Innotech Windows + Doors. The pictures were taken after the homeowners moved in but before the landscaping was started. Take a look at the photos here.
Gravity Architecture is excited to announce that we have a new website. We invite you to take a look.
Stephen Barnecut and Trent Letwiniuk founded Gravity Architecture in 2014 as a full-service firm that specializes in mixed use and multi-residential buildings. Gravity has since been engaged in a growing number of projects that we will feature on the site as they progress.
Inertia continues to provide design, drafting and consulting services for single-detached, semi-detached and multi-residential buildings with four units and fewer.
Rendering by Inertia
We recently got a mention on the Glascurtain blog. Our client, DWM Developments, was uncompromising in their requirement for large front windows, and Glascurtain offered the solution. From the blog:
Conventional aluminum curtain wall framing would have been too uncomfortable for dinner guests, particularly in the winter months, and punched windows would have been simply too small. [T]he entire front (south-facing) façade utilises our fibreglass composite curtain wall frames with PPG Greylite II glass nestled in between the mullions...
You can read the entire post here.
PS. The blog has an older preliminary rendering. We thought we would treat our blog readers to a more interesting version (above).
Photo by Gary Campbell
We've uploaded photos of the Bankview Pair to Houzz!
This Niklas house was built almost nine years ago, but we finally got a chance to shoot it this summer. The main floor is angled slightly towards the view of Calgary's skyline, and hidden above the Hardie-clad second floor, the third floor rises up to an angled height plane (thanks to the old Land Use Bylaw height rules). With three floors over an under drive garage, this plan was a solid solution to a shallow, sloping site with great views.
One of our favourite features is the skylight above the shower on the third floor!
Take a look at the photos here.
At Inertia, our designs can sometimes be limited by the products that are locally available. This is particularly true with windows. Luckily, we've had the opportunity to work with Gaulhofer Canada on a number of projects. Gaulhofer's windows have significant performance and design advantages, including the ability to have significantly larger windows and sliding doors.
Last week, Inertia had a chance to tour the Gaulhofer Window factory in Übelbach near Graz, Austria. In the gallery above you can see images from the factory, as well as from some projects in Graz that are using Gaulhofer's windows and doors.
Lift and Slide unit with one small door to the left and a larger one to the right.
At one of these projects we saw a great use of their lift and slide doors (image above). On one side was a narrow door and on the other was a wider. This is perfect for weather you just want to slip out to barbecue with the small door, or if you want to invite the outdoors in with both doors.
One of the most interesting discoveries we made was that Gaulhofer can integrate exterior shutters or blinds into their windows. These block out solar gain far more effectively than interior blinds, and also can be used to control privacy and/or security. They can be operated mechanically with rods or straps, or they can be operated with a remote control. They also have retractable bug screens, which are perfect for winter when you don't need them.
Thanks to Gaulhofer, Gaulhofer Canada, Windsor Brunello and Rockcreek for making this tour possible.
The Urban Development Institute - Calgary and the Canadian Home Builders’ Association - Calgary Region have recently put together a video about housing availably that answers many questions about planning and building during an economic downturn. The perspectives expressed in this video are shared with our progressive clients who know the value of preparing for the future, and in particular, being ready for the next time that demand puts pressure on supply.
Our Bridgeland Trio is on 10th Street NE in Calgary. If you're interested in looking at more exterior shots, take a look at our singles gallery. Thanks to Gary Campbell for the photos!
From September 1, 2015 to March 3, 2017, the City of Calgary is offering a Development Permit (DP) exemption for Secondary Suites. This means that if your property is permitted to have a Secondary Suite, you can go directly to the Building Permit stage and avoid the fees and delay associated with a DP application.
The City has a web page for suites, but at the time of this post, the page is misleading. It indicates that Backyard Suites are considered Secondary Suites, but this is not the case. Secondary Suites must meet the following (and other) conditions:
Therefore, Secondary Suites are only those suites that are within a Dwelling Unit, or house, on a property. Backyard Suites, such as those above a garage, are considered discretionary and will still require a Development Permit. That said, the fee for this permit is also waived.
Properties that are eligible for permitted Secondary Suites are those that are zoned R-1s, R-C1s, R-C1Ls, R-2, or R-C2 and meet the respective minimum parcel width, depth and area requirements. For example, R-1s properties must be 15m wide, 30m deep, and have a minimum area of 330m2, whereas R-C2 properties must be 9m wide, but have no depth or area restrictions.
If your property needs to be redesignated to one of these districts to allow for a Secondary Suite (such as from R-C1 to R-C1s), the City is also waiving the fee for that application as well!
You can read more on the City's blog.
For those of you who were following our office renovation on this blog, you might have wondered how it all ended. Happily, everything turned out really well. We now have almost twice as much space, larger desks, a decent kitchen, and a much brighter workspace.
For the curious, the lights in our workspace and boardroom are Elan Fornello LED Pendants in sand textured white.
We would like to thank Alan Miller from Verbatim for contracting the work and taking care of all the big and little details. Also, thanks to Keith Dumonceaux for the kitchen (and the awesome chunky handles). As well, thanks to Steve Spinks for being accommodating as we made a mess of both our space and his.
Thanks to Gary Campbell for the photography.
Post Bowling 2015
This past Friday, the staff at Inertia could barely contain their joy that they didn't have to bowl any more. Well, except Trent who thought if he could just play one more game he would come out on top. Yes, that is the shirt that Stephen bowled in. He doesn't have any bowling wear and found it hard not to come home with the cool shoes they gave him.
