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