DESCRIPTION:
This thesis is a response to life in high-density cities. It proposes a building, conceived as a generic framework, where public and semi-private functions are combined: a dense, highly functioning system. The idea is to create something greater than its parts, experienced by the whole city.The structure is a set of small, private, rentable units, which take the self-storage industry as their model: it is also a pedestrian off-ramp, from a bridge above. These two programs combine, the building begs to be interpreted, taken advantage of.
Vancouver, while one of the world's most livable cities, has experienced the pressure of developer-driven condominium towers that contain the most compressed possible domestic space. This building offers respite. It tests the viability of so-called urban “flex space”, where people may supplement their living space with a rented surrogate space. Such units become economically feasible when a building occupies a bad, cheap space: an abject downtown site, alongside bridge off-ramps and overpasses.
The project borrowed from the operational logic of the self-storage facility, but developed into something else that can no longer really be called self-storage. It attempts to identify a next step in mixed-use space. It is a response to increasingly frequent blank, windowless downtown storage buildings. The formula: it metaphorically wraps this dead-use with another more active version of the storage model. It puts storage - dark and inactive - at its core and a light-filled active space on the perimeter: it wraps self-storage in a dynamic, engaging, and profitable skin.