An exhibit last fall at the Art Gallery at Evergreen gave Chris Dunnett an idea.
A multidisciplinary artist who had a tough time finding studio space in Port Moody, where he lives, Dunnett toured the Home Made Home show at the Coquitlam venue in which Germaine Koh made a tiny living unit to highlight the current housing crisis and approaches to modern living.
As a member of Port Moody’s arts and culture committee, Dunnett brought the concept to the group’s July 29 meeting as a means for the municipality to offer more artist, musician, theatre and writer studios to alleviate the crunch in the City of the Arts.
Now, a subcommittee is studying his proposal and, among other things, will look at costs, designs and potential locations for the committee and city council to consider.
Here’s Dunnett’s pitch: With the waitlist long for the city-run Esplanade Artist Studios and public land scarce, micro studios can be dropped into neighbourhoods or parks where bigger accommodations can’t fit.
Dunnett envisions a group of them in an area where there’s a lot of foot traffic, such as Queen Street Plaza or Rocky Point and Old Orchard parks — and services for water and power hook-up — so passersby can stop in and talk to artists.
And if the city can’t fill the units for artistic purposes, they could be used instead as base for entrepreneurs to launch new businesses, he said. “It allows younger folks a place to test out their ideas.”
Dunnett gave an example from Nomad Micro Homes, an eco-friendly design and fabrication company in Richmond that makes DIY kits to build 12-foot-square structures for primary residences and offices; prices start at $50,000.
Dunnett said Port Moody could customize its studio cubes with a design to reflect the city’s rail and water history, and add programming around them.
“Right now, it’s very much pie-in-the-sky but it’s something the city should look at.”
