Vancouver

The Vancouver of 2100 still has a very mild climate; as the world’s population shifts poleward, it is ideally situated to become an international hub and breadbasket for the Northwest. Any city located in a viable environment will have increased in density by 2100 in order to house the millions of new climate immigrants, in this case from points farther south.

Urban densification in compact megacity Vancouver will have employed a combined strategy: newly dense districts will be built on previously unused or underutilized sites along the route of the pre-existing Skytrain rapid transit system that runs through Metro Vancouver, and “clip-on” interventions will have been surgically implemented to increase the density of the pre-existing city.

Our case study examines a site, Burnaby, that employs this pair of strategies. In 2100, a visitor to Burnaby, a municipality to the east of the city center, finds a series of megatowers which incorporate hybrid functions, blending farming and residential, and public and commercial spaces. Shaped to maximize sunlight for growing crops, the buildings recycle their own agricultural waste by converting it into biofuels for power.

[Algae Powered Building]
Huge water filtration cascades at the base of the towers cycle rainwater through the buildings, collecting, purifying, and generating energy from it. The increased rainfall brought on by shifting weather patterns has mercifully compensated for the reduction in Vancouver’s potable water caused by drier, hotter summers. Still, many buildings incorporate water collection strategies, as water is an ever more valuable resource.

Nevertheless, the climate story in 2100 Vancouver is not entirely positive. Occasional floods occur because of the city’s proximity to the sea and the accelerated melting of the ice cap. Key areas of buildings in the flood zone—residential, critical services, and the city’s food supply—are thus elevated for protection. There are farming pods within the storm-surge sector, just beyond the towers. In the event of flooding, they float and dock along the bridge buildings that span the flood zone.

[Farming pods]
The farming pods maximize agricultural productivity through a vertical hydroponic system: plantings at the base consist of saltwater vegetation such as water hyacinth, which can be used for phytoremediation, while the freshwater plantings on the levels above, which are higher than the six-meter flood line, are protected from contact with brackish water.
Clip-on interventions also bring much needed green space, public space, and greater vertical density to the more closely packed neighborhoods of the pre-existing city. Some of these strategies include the Veggie Skirt, a canopy over a public space that houses fruit and vegetable gardens, as well as the Park scraper, and Highway, which are retrofits for parking lots and highways (typically low-density areas).

These combine their existing function with parks and a variety of programs designed to increase their vertical density. Vancouver’s clip-ons also address rainfall filtration through interventions like Clip-on Cascades and Sponge Stacks, which filter rainwater and floodwater, respectively. These urban strategies allow the residents of 2100 Vancouver to meet the city’s drinking-water needs and overcome the loss to flooding of two of the city’s most productive farming areas.