Mixing Middle

Riffing off of their competition title “Missing Middle” in 2018, the Urbanarium has recently announced the winners of their second “Mixing Middle” competition; challenging entrants to think beyond residential density within single family neighbourhoods to include a balance of micro-retail, maker and community spaces. Tracey was a juror for the competition, and was pretty impressed by the caliber of the proposals (44 in all), but was particularly enamoured with the 1st place winner “Lots In Common”.

While she is always a fan of a good pun, this proposal is such a well-rounded approach to thoughtful urbanism that we want to share it far and wide. A key piece to the proposal is their Tenet 1: Be a Sponge, Not an Island - integrating building into larger networks of economy and ecology. We can definitely get behind that idea!

View the full proposal for the North Vancouver site with credit to Nicole Sylvia, Roy Cloutier, Lőrinc Vass of Vancouver.

Shared second place:

Co-Living Quadplex (Coquitlam site) by Altforma Architecture: Cedric Jacques Yu and River Hughes of Vancouver

Mixed Modal (Vancouver site) by Team Via: Re+discover: Anne Lissett, Catherine He, Claire Schumacher, Stephanie Coleridge, Bonnie Vahabi of Vancouver

Third place:

Simple Small Things First (Surrey site) by Cr Design: Taylor Castañón-Rumebe and Vince Castañón-Rumebe of Burnaby

This is such a timely discussion as we head into fall municipal elections that will firmly place affordable housing, the local economy and climate change at the centre of the ballot.