VC09 - Postcard — All Together Now

There’s a 20-second walk between the struggles of the Downtown Eastside and Vancouver’s touristy Gastown (dotted with sexy eateries and vintage lighting). For decades, travellers have happily wandered the cobblestone streets until some instinct (or crack pipe) made them turn back.

But this year, all that may change. Architect Gregory Henriquez, asked to design a 736-unit reinvention of the Woodward’s site (at Hastings and Abbott), has delivered a kind of hinge joining the city’s two solitudes. Market and non-market housing share space with a contemporary art school, a grocery, and the many nonprofits. Locals are on guard against gentrification, but the Vancouver model insists that viable neighbourhoods can never be mono-cultures.