urban intensifiation
Rafii Architects, inc. “Vancouverizing” architect models success on threeparty satisfaction by jerri farris vancouver is an incredible city, but it is more than a city these days; it also is a verb and an ideology. To Vancouverize is to create an urban area with a deep connection to natural environment and a high concentration of residents. According to Vancouverism.ca, the term “Vancouverism” means “the maximum power setting for shaping the humane mixed-use city” and “important ideas for a new era of scarce energy and diminished natural resources.” Rafii Architects and its owner, Foad Rafii, are among the firms and people that have shaped downtown Vancouver into a city that inspired a new wave of urban design as well as a new language to describe that design. In fact, in 2001, when the Vancouver Sun named the ten architects who shaped the Vancouver of today, Foad Rafii was on that list. “There is a big, big residential component to downtown Vancouver, which has changed in the past 25 years,” Rafii says. “The number of residents in the downtown peninsula of Vancouver was about 30,000, and now it’s close to 100,000. Although no new roads or bridges have been built, the traffic is even better than it was before. It’s a very successful combination of mixed-use projects, mostly commercial and residential on top.”
The 900 Burrard building was built for Bosa Properties in 2006. It’s a mixed-use, 500,000-square-footbuilding in the downtown core of Vancouver and includes the Scotia Theatre Complex of 9 cinemas and 460 residential units.
Urban design is the most important factor behind the success of Vancouver’s transformation, according to Rafii. “You can live and work and play all within
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