The morning after from Victoria Street

Although the Shelter blog hasn’t really  been about news of this nature, this one hit close to home. Somewhere around 2:30 am early this morning (Jan 6), my partner and I were awakened by the phone ringing and someone knocking loudly at the front door simultaneously. What we found out shortly thereafter (from our neighbour on the phone and the Nelson Police at the door), was that there was a fire at the Kerr apartment building directly behind out house, and that we should get out of the house immediately. Fully awake now,this was confirmed by the flames we could see coming out the back of the building, visible from our windows as we hastily got kids up and jackets on. The rest of our night went quickly, first to the Capitol Theater as a sort of staging area, then to the Grand Hotel to get a few hours sleep. We were far more fortunate that the former tenants of the Kerr – a bit of sleep was all we lost. Chris Sheppard posted some more pics of the fire here. The Nelson Daily also posted some the fire department took from atop the boom here .

The morning after from our attic across the alley. If you can make it out, much of the roof is gone.

The Kerr building was built in 1911, and for years now has provided around 40 units with relatively affordable rents to people who in many cases couldn’t find or afford much else. By all accounts and judging by the exterior, it was pretty run down. A run down home, however, is better than no home at all, which sadly is the situation facing the former tenants, many of whom are low income.

There was no loss of human life that I’m aware of, but sadly, there were pets lost in the fire. I spoke with one gentleman who had left his two cats in the building, not knowing when he left that this time it wasn’t a false alarm, and unable to return once he realized otherwise.

There are many local agencies are stepping up to help, and there has been, an continues to be an outpouring of concern and support from many people, both in Nelson and beyond. The Kootenay Network has also set up a support group for the Kerr here. With a vacancy rate of around 1.5 %, finding long term affordable housing for the displaced residents will likely prove to be a more difficult problem to address. Best wishes to them.

Interested in building the Beetle House? Here’s your chance!

A collaborative effort by a team at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, the Beetle House (entry 35), was awarded the Honourable Mention award in the 10 Square design competition. Michael Mehta, an Environmental Sociologist and member of the TRU team, forwarded this article to me. It speaks to the concerns underlying the group’s entry, and makes the offer of free plans to anyone interested in building it!

Entry 35, the Beetle House, winner of the Honourable Mention award in the 10 Square design competition

Beetle killed wood is also being featured in a $28 million dollar project currently under construction for Okanagan College in Penticton, BC. Designed by Vancouver-based CEI Architecture Planning Interiors, it will house the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation upon completion. Read the Vancouver Sun article here.

To my knowledge, despite the apparent abundance of the supply, beetle killed wood isn’t widely available through wood retailers or suppliers. Perhaps with enough interest, that could change.

More from the “Idea Wall” that was installed as part of the Shelter exhibit.

Interesting article here (and video) from the Globe and Mail on the growing interest in tiny houses. Thanks to Cindy Fillion, the Visitor Services Manager here at Touchstones Nelson for letting me know about it!

Tiny houses aren’t for everyone, but are an intriguing option. One of the most compelling aspects of them for me is how much lifestyle could be freed up if a person was able to greatly reduce, or even eliminate what they pay for shelter each month. What would you do?

Jay Schafer in his tiny house, image from the Globe and Mail article linked to in this post.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may recall Dan Phillips from one of my earlier posts. If not, he’s a really interesting guy who has carved a niche building houses using mostly recycled materials. Jim Ross spotted this video and was good enough to send it along to me – thanks Jim! Have a look, it’s definitely worth a watch.

The Shelter exhibit at Touchstones Nelson

Well, for now anyway. Although this blog was never intended to continue indefinitely, I still have more content to share! The pallet house has been given life in a new location, Dora Edelmann (the 10 Square competition People’s Choice award winner) has developed another version of her “Solaris 10″ entry for a Japanese competition, more pics from the Idea Wall and so on. So, keep checking back, and I’ll continue posting periodically over the next month or so before it flies into the wild blue yonder.

Detail of installation showing historic relative house size in North America

Here’s a few more from the “Idea Wall” we have installed as part of the exhibit.

Be sure to check out Jay Blackmore’s blog “Cabin Fever” that documents his efforts thus far in building his own tiny house, which was inspired in part by the 10 Square competition.  Go Jay!

If you haven’t been in to see the Shelter exhibit, we put up a big  “Idea Board” (see image below) so visitors could share their ideas around Shelter. There are some really great ones there, and I thought I’d share a few of them in the waning days of the exhibit (Shelter closes Sunday, November 14th at 4pm).  Here’s one that mentioned something to check out online – the ParaSITE Shelter. Thanks to Addison Lanier for leaving this with us!

the Idea Board

The paraSITE - an inflatable shelter for the homeless that runs off expelled HVAC air

If you’re in the area, you are invited to join curator Rod Taylor at 6pm on Thursday, November 3rd for a tour and discussion of the Shelter exhibit at Touchstones Nelson. Stick around until 7pm, and you can also hear local photographer Fred Rosenberg talk about his work and current exhibit which is on display in Gallery B.   Admission by donation!