The Communitarian Capitalist

The key to successful residents buildings is in the social interactions the common space offers. One local builder is experimenting with new forms

by Michael McLaughlin

Who's winning the Warm War?

Capitalism is positively beaming at the urban development boom that makes Vancouver property the most expensive in Canada. City planners have embraced high-density development as the blueprint for the downtown core, and so the high-rise thrust, led by Concert Properties, Concord Pacific and Henderson and Sons, is reshaping not only Vancouver's skyline, but its ambience as well. Stephen Hynes wants a different result.

Hynes is from Hillside Developments and is certainly a capitalist and he likes the skyline. He constructs high-density buildings and sells or leases the units. The difference with him is that the projects he develops promote “architectural communitarianism”, as opposed to what he labels “the anonymous box”, meaning the isolating tendency of most modern architecture.

According to Hynes, “ In most high-rises, people are propelled up an elevator, regurgitated into hallways and shut away into cubicles, cut off from their neighbours. These are anonymous boxes, these are cold buildings.” Stephen Hynes is waging his own cold war against other capitalist developers who put profit above the warmth, inviting quality and social context of their creations.

So far, two striking examples of Hynes' approach to construction are on display. Arthur Erickson's award winning Waterfall Building, a fifty-unit inspiration at 1540 West 2 nd , is the first. The second comes with a nickname: the “Copper Building”, a 90-unit edifice designed by Hynes himself, sprawls over 1529 West 6 th . Both boast flexible live and work suite layouts to accommodate uses as diverse as hair salons, film production companies and people who just want to live there. And both pivot around central courtyards that serve as public space and a social focus point for the inhabitants. This mix of uses in a socially conducive setting animates the buildings night and day and encourages the village in the sky ambience that Hynes aspires to.

Recognized as one of the most innovative developers in the city, Hynes is also considered by at least one observer to be eccentric. The Waterfall Building went on the market in 2001. The initial attempt to “sell” was, Hynes admits, a failure in marketing. “The suites were marketed as standard condos in an unusual architectural setting. Suites were being sold to condo people who didn't understand the concept behind the building”, he says. This led Hillside, on its own initiative, to buy back suites and then lease them to maintain control of how the building was used. At present, ten of the forty live and work units are privately owned. Now, as leases come up for renewal, Hillside is putting the suites on the strata market again. There are two reasons for the change. First, Hynes believes the building's reputation will now attract clients who will appreciate the Waterfall's unique environment, and second, he is raising capital for new developments.

Human architecture

Hynes says he cares about the life of the communities his buildings create, and not just about the revenue they generate. A former philosophy instructor turned property developer, Hynes grew up in privileged circumstances in West Vancouver. His father is a property developer and former owner of Cypress Bowl Recreations. As a self-styled radical egghead, Hynes hated West Van's Sentinel High and moved on to board at St. George's in Dunbar. After a tempestuous relationship with the headmaster in his first year there, he was not asked back and completed high school at the International College at UBC where he took an amalgam of high school and university level courses. He graduated from UBC with a major in philosophy in 1985. From there he set off for a Masters at SFU, dabbled in property development, and taught a course in logic.

It was on the Burnaby Mountain campus that Hynes experienced a rather innocuous incident that fused his passions for buildings and philosophy. He was walking along the concourse of the Academic Quadrangle with an armful of books one day when someone opened a door for him. This led Hynes to ponder what would prompt such an act of random kindness, and his answer came from the layout of the university itself. He found an intimacy in the way the terraced buildings follow the incline of the mountain, in the horizontal, land-hugging orientation of these buildings and in how they were designed to house several departments and classroom spaces under one roof. The design encouraged interaction! This revelation prompted Hynes to seek out Arthur Erickson, the lead designer of the campus. So began a collaboration that has continued for close to twenty years and which has deeply influenced Hynes work.

Another turning point came in the course of his first development project, a standard design high-rise in New Westminster. Hynes began to feel that everyone in the building hated him. “They were sold a bill of goods. They were sold an exciting, sexy lifestyle but were, in fact, being anaesthetised by their surroundings”. Here Hynes segues into a harangue against the marketing used to sell property, and just about everything else: “Sex is always the lever. It's demeaning. You're promised that if you buy this condo, your sex life will be great. That's crap. Why not focus on something uplifting?”

These experiences led to what Hynes calls “the creation of experimental buildings that encourage people to cooperate in urban space,” The Waterfall and the Copper Building. His next project will be the result of another collaboration with Arthur Erickson. Jokingly called the See Through Building, this experiment will carry the idea of communitarian living one step further: it will be wrapped in see-through glass. In his quest for environmental sustainability, the 25 unit venture will include a data centre for business co-location (that's where you have a mirror network running off-site in real time to protect your data). The heat generated by the computers will be recycled through a radiant grid to heat the building. Construction begins in the new year on 6 th Ave., between the Copper Building and the Fir Street ramp of the Granville Bridge.

Hynes sees his mission in large terms: “My architecture tries to present an antidote to post modern industrial isolation where computers define social contact.” He argues that more people want to work where they live, and their work most often involves being absorbed by a computer. So, it is important to create opportunities for social interaction and a sense of neighbourhood in the high-density, high tech city of the future. Cold anonymous boxes are out.

In pursuit of his mission, Hynes aims to harness capitalism by demonstrating the financial workability of the live and work design he advocates. When high-density shoppers like his mixed use, socially inviting buildings, they begin to demand a warmer sense of community from their own surroundings. The growing sophistication of the market then encourages other developers to experiment. At that point Hynes ideas begin to radiate into mainstream development practise.

To Stephen Hynes, that would be like winning the war.

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