3nd annual laneway house tour hosted by the vancouver heritage foundation took place on october 20th 2012.
it is interesting to note that there is so much similarity to many of the laneway houses, and this is probably due to the stringent zoning bylaw that accompanies each laneway house design. the one major thing that ends up guiding each house is excluded floor area under sloped ceiling rule, hence why there are next to no laneway houses with flat roofs 😦
so sad to see these popping up this way. why the city insists on building houses that look like they were designed for the 19th century when clearly we are living in the 21st century. in order to reiterate what has already been said check out BuildLLC’s blog post ‘the black hole of design’ about this issue which drives me nuts!
ok. now that I got that rant out of the way, let’s get back to the laneway houses on the tour , worth mentioning :
the most spectacular laneway house by a long shot was the one at 2692 east 19th avenue by lanefab.
the view of the laneway house from the street
the back of the laneway house facing the yard of the main house.
the high windows along the yard side. it seems that lanefab really does try to do the right thing by employing prefabricated construction and using triple-glazed fiberglass windows. the interior finishing was well detailed with touches such as stained interior wood sills, jambs and trim around the windows, polished concrete floors.
the folding doors open up the living room out to the deck. hot tub in the living room!
the garage doors to the laneway house. interesting to note that none of the laneway houses were using their garage as a place to store a car (officially). which means that now there is 0 car parking ons0te for the house or the laneway house. could this be a problem? who needs a car anyway?
the only other interesting laneway house is 128 north kamloops street. see some images on the builder urban lane homes website.
looking forward to see how d’arcy jones’s laneway house turns out. this one looks really cool and no sloped roofs!
modern vancouver houses 
Grrrr, missed it! Talked with the owner of the Ron Thom House on Glenview yesterday. He said it was quite the project to expose the house to daylight – had to remove something like 23 trees! The overgrowth had completely taken over!!
thanks for the post! there are so many lanehomes around us as we are near the canada line station (cambie & 23rd). did the tour visit any lanehomes around here? i think one of them is even pretty modern and design by an architect. i wish more were! im not sure if i should be more concerned about garages not being used for cars, or about there still – in these “green” and “ecodensity” days – being a requirement to provide a valuable floor area as vestige to our beloved automobiles. let them live in the street, i say!
orson pelle, none of the laneway houses were located close to cambie and 23rd though the modern one you mention does intrigue me. please tell me more. is it under construction right now?
the garage becoming living space in the laneway house makes sense as otherwise there is very little room in the house to really spread out since the kitchen ‘eats’ up a lot of the living area. good news is that less people are driving to work. current statistic is that 9% of vancouverites work from home.
my post was biased as I would like to see the trend towards less cars continue! i think the laneway house i mentioned is still being completed because sometimes i see them doing work, but i think it has been occupied. it’s on the east side of cambie. maybe 22nd or 23rd? OP
Lanefab has been quite successful finding clients who are interested in contemporary designs. To date we have completed a number of full flat roof projects along with many that incorporate a low slope shed roof/ flat roof combination. This gives us the ability to have vaulted ground floor portions and a full heigh upper floor while still being under the 12′ back yard height restriction