page_title: Architecture of Vancouver
section_title: Leaky Condo Crisis
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of Vancouver / Late 20th and early 21st century / Leaky Condo Crisis
caption_attribution_description: Winch Building/Sinclair Centre, Vancouver. Taken by me on 20 April 2007.
context_page_description: The architecture of Vancouver and the Metro Vancouver area holds a combination of modern architectural styles, ranging from the 20th century Edwardian style, to the 21st century modernist style and beyond. Initially, the city's architects embraced styles and ideas developed in Europe and the United States with only limited local variation.
  In the years following World War II, regional variations of modernism began to emerge, known as West Coast-style. Building constraints in the area led to inventive designs to make construction feasible, as well as to take advantage of the scenery. This led to the development of designs that use complex geometric forms, open-plan layouts, and the desire for natural light, leading to the extensive use of glass. This usage of glass has since proliferated itself into the designs of commercial buildings in Vancouver. Because the region's temperate climate and less-harsh sun makes having large walls of non-heat and sun-reflecting glass feasible, many high-rises in Downtown Vancouver have favoured transparent glass aesthetics. The predominance of glass has led to the city moniker "City of Glass" and "See Through City".
context_section_description: One of the greatest impacts on buildings in the region since the early 1990s has been an ongoing construction, financial, and legal crisis known as the Leaky Condo Crisis, which first emerged in residential buildings in the Greater Vancouver region during a major construction boom. It primarily involves multi-unit condominium (or strata) buildings damaged by rainwater infiltration, causing in B.C. alone an estimated $4 billion in damage to over 900 buildings and 31,000 individual housing units built between the late 1980s and early 2000s, establishing it as the most extensive and most costly reconstruction of housing stock in Canadian history. Similar infiltration problems have been reported in highrise buildings and schools.  Since the start of the crisis it has been commonplace to see occupied buildings draped in scaffolding and protective tarps, sometimes referred to as "B.C. Flags", as the problems were assessed and repaired.
caption: Renovated in 1986, the Sinclair Centre comprises four early 20th century buildings that was restored as an upscale shopping complex.
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