Vancouver Special

English

Noun

A block of Vancouver Specials.

Vancouver Special (plural Vancouver Specials)

1. (Greater Vancouver, architecture) A style of detached two-storey residential house widely constructed in Vancouver, British Columbia from the 1960s to 1980s, characterized by its large and boxy shape (often occupying most of the width of a lot), low-pitched gabled roof, and a front balcony spanning the entire second floor.
   • 1993, Harold Kalman, Ron Phillips, Robin Ward, Exploring Vancouver: The Essential Architectural Guide‎^[1], page 202:

     The 'Vancouver Specials' are unique in that they quickly achieved widespread unpopularity for their boring flat fronts, boxy shapes, and low roofs.

   • 2014, John Punter, The Vancouver Achievement: Urban Planning and Design‎^[2], page 116:

     There were campaigns waged by neighbourhood groups against boxy “Vancouver Specials” in the 1980s and highly eclectic “monster houses” in the 1990s.

   • 2019, Alex Bozikovic, Cheryll Case, John Lorinc, House Divided: How the Missing Middle Will Solve Toronto's Housing Crisis, unnumbered page:

     Our design proposal is a mash-up of the Vancouver Special with Brooklyn brownstones and Chinese courtyard houses, resulting in a typology we call 'Extra Special.'

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Vancouver Special.

Further reading

• Vancouver Special on Wikipedia.Wikipedia