views from an altered landscape Tuscany, Andalusia, Napa Valley North: where’s the Okanagan gone?
landscape | okanagan vernacular by robert mackenzie
vernacular building desert environments rapacious development sensitive landscapes
Pick a dozen buildings from the Okanagan and photograph them. Shake up the photos in a bag, cast them out on a table and feast your eyes at the built environment. What do you have? Okanagan Odd- scape! Youthful, vulnerable and in transition. An array of house-types can be found in British Columbia’s Okanagan Val- ley, many straight from the pages of American home magazines. If you live in the Okanagan, your house style may only be limited by money and how radical you dare be in the eyes of your neighbours. Owning a house of uniform design and colour, on a uniform street, with other people of uniform lifestyle may not bother you, in fact it may help to focus your vision, or illusion, of a contented life. Until you see something different out of the corner of your eye.
After a 100 years of new settlement, the Okanagan remains environmentally, economically, socially and physically vulnerable. Valley architecture is a valley confused. For the past 20 years, the valley has been overrun by a hodgepodge of over-development. I have fond memories of mid-twentieth century Kelowna,Vernon and Penticton — truly eclectic towns. Houses with deep wooden verandahs on orchard hills, similar to Australian settler houses, re- lated to land and life in a simple and honest way. The porch was an extension of the inside space. The hot sun was held back by extended roofs and window aw- nings; rain water was collected in cisterns; they were built with whatever material was locally available and easy to handle. These were original settler structures which responded well to the dry Okanagan environ- ment. The ultimate Okanagan vernacular from the last century may well be the fruit stand. Lean-to’s, A-frames, post and beams, sheds; logical, functional, yet freely formed responses to their place. Then you see something else different from the corner of your other eye. Baby boomers on one hand and twenty-year-olds on the other are moving to the Valley. The pres- sure is on in a big way — they want to live in a really nice place with a unique physical character, a good economy, good environmental quality and a variety of things to do. Lifestyle is Big, hence demands placed on the development of Okanagan cities, the rural and ecologically sensitive space between them, and of course, the lake. Stone and timber wineries with warmth and character are starting to form a cohesive statement despite the Okanagan being called Napa North. More contemporary forms are emerging that respect local constraints on material choices, the climate and energy use. Thinking green is slowly entering into mainstream consciousness as people recognise the fragility of maintaining a healthy life- style over a long period of time. Valley ecology is now
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