The Project
Small Housing British Columbia is a non-profit organization dedicated to solving BC’s current housing crisis by promoting and developing “gentle density” homes in Vancouver and other centers. It does this through research, technical advising, advocacy, and capacity building efforts with government, industry partners, and like-minded community organizations.
Kalamuna engaged Small Housing BC in building a gentle density toolbox, an online WordPress-based repository of resources aimed at community planners, designers, builders, citizen developers, and professionals in related industries. Such resources include sample housing designs, case studies and stories of practice, municipal policies and regulations, educational resources, and how-to guides.
The Big Goal
Small Housing BC’s vision was to create a resource that would enable gentle density housing solutions across rural and urban municipalities across B.C., thereby helping relieve the province’s ongoing housing shortage. These gentle density housing solutions can range from backyard cottages, laneway homes and secondary suites to houseplexes and infill rowhouses. Our goal in supporting them was to create a standout digital property that would showcase the organization’s extensive resources, expand their reach to new audiences, and popularize the concept of gentle density in the province.
One of the primary goals of the Gentle Density Toolbox was to provide a well-organized, easy to navigate repository for Small Housing BC’s plethora of resources. All their valuable resources made for significant challenges in terms of taxonomy; we managed by outlining systematically reviewing their content. After having in-depth conversations with our collaborators, we categorized each content piece by audience type and how it would be used by the different user types.
We created an interactive map feature for the site so community planners and citizen developers could easily find gentle density success stories close to home and abroad. This feature showcases existing gentle-density housing developments in BC and elsewhere (including in the United States and New Zealand) and allows visitors to browse the site’s resource catalog in an interactive manner according to geographic location. We explored two different types of technology for creating the map, one that would require a lot of customization and eat up much of the client’s budget, and another option that required less customization but had fewer bells and whistles. In the end, we arrived at a solution that comprised elements of both, built using FacetWP, that the client was happy with and fit within their budget.
All the design work was done in house at Kalamuna. This included the site’s eye-catching logo, with which we aimed to capture the spirit of the gentle density concept. We developed several different iterations of the logo, with differing designs and accent colors, and workshopped the designs with the client. This process culminated in a blue and yellow logo shaped like a house made up of multiple smaller houses, with friendly, easy-on-the-eyes colours designed to evoke the idea of gentle density housing solutions. We presented the logo to the client at the end of the design phase, and they were thrilled with it.
Final Thoughts
Together with Small Housing BC, we created a groundbreaking digital product that seeks to revolutionize the single-detached family neighbourhoods. Not only does it stand out significantly from the majority of infill development housing websites, but it succeeds in providing community planners and citizen developers with relevant materials in a well-organized, user-friendly fashion.