City of Vancouver apartment livability study
Happy Cities conducted testing and engagement to inform policy for apartment livability in the City of Vancouver.
Axonometric diagram of an apartment. (Happy Cities)
Overview
The City of Vancouver is undertaking a critical initiative to improve apartment livability, with support from Happy Cities, Perkins&Will, and FLUID Architecture. This project responds to the urgent need for apartment housing by enhancing design standards, streamlining regulations, and ensuring livability for a diverse range of households.
Through technical testing and industry engagement, the project aims to improve and simplify apartment design requirements to support wellbeing, while balancing affordability and regulatory clarity.
Key phases of work
Project setup: The project began with a comprehensive policy review to understand challenges and opportunities. We worked with the City to select case studies and develop an effective and implementable testing strategy to answer core research questions around home size, mix, balconies, amenity spaces, horizontal angle of daylight, and accessibility.
Engagement: We conducted engagement, including:
Interviews with developers and architects working in the City of Vancouver to understand industry context and challenges
Internal engagement across City departments through interactive workshops
A phone survey of 500 residents living in multi-unit housing in Vancouver to understand priorities and how people experience their buildings.
Technical testing: We conducted technical testing through four iterative rounds, working with 12 case study sites across different residential building typologies. We explored a variety of unit size, unit mix, amenity space requirements and measured how potential changes would impact the number of units a building can provide. We also explored research questions related to adaptability and conducted economic analysis.
Recommendations: We prepared final recommendations that the City will continue to develop and operationalize into proposed policy changes.
Project partners: Perkins&Will, FLUID Architecture, Mustel Group
