Under One Roof
Builders Without Borders hopes its new East Side housing project with the Aboriginal Mother Centre could become a model to help ease Vancouver’s housing crisis.
Michael Mccarthy
Special to the Vancouver Courier
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Aboriginal Mother Centre at 2019 Dundas on the East Side is not a historic site. Architecturally speaking, the 30-year-old former school building is an eyesore, but the bland three-storey concrete structure may one day be looked upon as a memorable location.
It’s a first for Builders Without Borders, a Vancouver-based non-profit group of architects and planners that has constructed post-disaster sustainable housing in developing countries around the world for nearly a decade. BWB is partnering with the Aboriginal Mother Centre (AMC) to develop a new “all under one roof” multi-purpose centre in the Grandview-Woodlands neighbourhood, and it’s a radically different model that could have profound implications for how other low-income housing will be built in the future.