Beneath the Tracks

Abstract

As of 2025, Vancouver is facing a worsening housing crisis, with homelessness rising sharply each year and vacancy rates remaining critically low. Given the city’s limited available land, it is essential to explore alternative spatial strategies. One such looked opportunity, lies beneath Vancouver’s elevated SkyTrain tracks - a space in which hundreds of commuters pass over every day yet remains underused. This thesis explores the untapped potential of these areas, reimagining them as prime locations for affordable housing that is targeted at young urban residents such as students, recent graduates and young professionals.

To understand the viability of this housing strategy, four categories of international case studies relating to under-SkyTrain communities are explored: [1] Reclaiming Elevated Spaces, [2] Prefabricated Units, [3] Tiny and Flexible Spaces, [4] Communal and Landscape Engagement. Many of these categories overlap, with the central case study encompassing all four categories being the Chūō Line in Tokyo. It is a project that most closely parallels the thesis vision, which successfully integrates housing with community and commercial life beneath elevated rail infrastructure. As a fully realized and active project, it offers an example of what an under-SkyTrain development in Vancouver could become. Other examples from dense cities like Hong Kong and Paris show innovative responses to limited land, many of which are becoming increasingly relevant in a rapidly growing city like Vancouver. The thesis also examines local cases to see how these strategies might actually play out in reality. By examining the range of both global and local projects, the thesis identifies key design and planning strategies that may be applicable to Vancouver’s own spatial context and housing challenges.

The following section considers how these spaces could be integrated in Vancouver, and what it means to build so close to transit infrastructure. It explores topics such as the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) strategy, historical context of the SkyTrain and sound mitigation.

The research, case studies, and context studies are ultimately synthesized into two design ideas that test how prefabricated housing and community can be integrated beneath the SkyTrain. The first explores co-living and retail near Metrotown Station (a high-density area), while the second looks at live-work housing around Royal Oak Station (a medium-density area). A lower-density site isn’t proposed, since those areas still have room to grow without needing to build under infrastructure like the SkyTrain. This thesis challenges the idea that dense cities like Vancouver have run out of space. It doesn’t claim to solve homelessness overnight, but it argues that under-bridge spaces shouldn’t be dismissed as leftover gaps. With a shift in perspective, they can become seeds for community.