Homelessness is a serious problem throughout the world and Vancouver is no exception.
In 2009, students of the University of British Columbia's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture produced a series of essays that generate innovative design ideas for Supportive
Housing that meaningfully contribute to solving the problem of homelessness, envisioning innovative and exciting new types of design for this serious issue. This book is a collection of their
essays that grapple with the issue of housing the homeless of the Downtown Eastside. As editor Matthew Soules, professor at UBC and director of Matthew Soules Architecture, writes, "they aim
to glance at a future Vancouver in which its model urbanism folds in the ways that architecture can respond to the issue of homelessness with superior social housing."
It is the hope that the essays within this book inspire a real and positive impact for the betterment of Vancouver’s social conditions and built environment. And, taken collectively, it is
the hope that the writing and the design propositions shed a little new light on the topic and the possibilities of social housing for the homeless in Vancouver, in British Columbia, and
beyond.
