Vancouver Approves Exterior Single Stair Buildings.

On December 10, Vancouver City Council unanimously approved new space saving designs, including the exterior single egress stair. Approving the exterior single egress stair into the Vancouver Building By-law is a transformative step towards improved and high quality homes.

Vancouver’s First Single Egress Stair Pilot Project on Victoria Drive

AIRstudio is working on Vancouver's first single egress stair pilot project, which was submitted to the city in late 2024. This demonstration project is part of “Single Staircase Alternative Solutions: Design Innovation for Middle Housing”. This initiative received support and funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Housing Supply Challenge. Read more about the single egress stair movement in Canada here: https://singlestair.ca/

We, at AIRstudio, are proud to have consulted the city throughout the process. Most recently, we prepared a report on Alternate Egress Designs on 33’ Lots under C-2 District Schedule. This method enables higher, yet gentle, density, optimizing land use on compact sites while enhancing sustainability, accessibility, and design flexibility.

Map of Villages and Areas Impacted by Single Egress Stairs taken from COV’s Report Back - Potential to Update the Vancouver Building By-law to Enable Single

Egress Stairs

Single egress stairs unlock a new set of possibilities across Vancouver’s emerging middle. A space-saving strategy frees critical site area that can be transformed into a central courtyard, offering cross-ventilated and naturally-lit homes. It has been a lengthy process to get all civic bodies to reach this level of acceptance for the single stair typology. We look forward to the transformation this change will bring to our city. 

https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/new-vancouver-building-rules-dec-2025.aspx

Enable Single-Egress News

“Over the next year, the Province will lead a discussion on enabling single-egress stairs in the BC Building Code.” - Hon. Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Housing.

AIRstudio is very excited to hear the news in prioritizing this topic, as it pertains to the emerging middle housing. 

This is a big step forward in re-thinking the way we build and how it impacts health and well-being.

Read more here: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023HOUS0167-001923

We are particularly moved by this as earlier this year, our office led a petition urging the BC government to “recommend that the building code be changed to enable single stair buildings (with additional fire and life safety conditions) as a measure to address affordability and the balanced supply of housing.”

Addressed to the Hon. Ravi Kahlon, BC’s Housing Minister, this petition was signed by dozens of architects and industry professionals who believe in the catalyst effect that single egress can have on the delivery of missing middle housing.

Hand-delivered at an event to discuss housing affordability, development & construction on May 23rd, this petition was strengthened by every co-signer and has contributed to making single-egress discussions possible. 

We continue pushing for this code change to get implemented by prototyping a six-storey prefabricated apartment building with a courtyard layout. 

In this project, the single-egress design unlocks livability in the small-lot, emerging middle typology by allowing for cross-ventilated units that get natural light from two sides. 

Having a single stair opens up precious floor plate area that residents can benefit from by having spontaneous interactions in the outdoor corridor centered around the courtyard.