Built Here is a Canadian design magazine about places after the render. We look at buildings, interiors and public rooms through the people who enter them with a stroller, a sketchbook, a delivery cart or a wet umbrella. Design becomes legible in use, not only in presentation.
Our stories attend to material choices and municipal decisions, but we do not treat either as isolated. A bench, a canopy, a window line and a zoning clause can all decide whether a street feels passable or closed off. Good criticism starts by noticing that chain.
This issue visits a timber civic building on a wet Vancouver afternoon. Its form is clear. The question that follows is harder: how does the building behave once the rain, the bikes and the unexpected waiting time arrive?