You probably know what a Vancouver Special is, even if there are fewer of them around every year.

It鈥檚 a two-storey box of a home with a gently-sloping roof, and a second-floor balcony. They were built in the thousands in South Vancouver and East Van, not to mention in the suburbs from the 1960s to the early 1980s.

It鈥檚 one of our few examples of West Coast vernacular architecture.

Our architectural traditions here are mostly borrowed from various European countries, or from the U.S.

For instance, there鈥檚 the vaguely Spanish-style version of the Vancouver Special, with white stucco, arches, and maybe red roof tiles.

There was a trend of building half-timbered mock-Tudor structures, and there are plenty of pseudo-Swiss/German homes, mostly dating from the 1950s and 鈥�60s.

And of course, most housing trends since the 1980s have been influenced by the continent-wide McMansion design 鈥� lots of peaks and gables and big foyers.

But we have had our own West Coast architecture, in fits and starts, even beyond the Vancouver Special.

There are the A-frame buildings that turn up as churches, museums, and Scout camp structures. There are the glass-heavy condos designed to soak up light on cloudy winter days. There are buildings inspired by cabins, or clad in cedar shakes.

But now we might be on the verge of a new vernacular architecture.

The City of Vancouver is about to change its zoning, allowing just about any single-family lot to be rebuilt with four-plexes or six-plexes.

The goal is to finally get builders to create some more of that 鈥渟oft density鈥� or 鈥渕issing middle鈥� housing 鈥� something an average working human being could afford, that鈥檚 not a multi-million-dollar single family home or a condo in a 50-storey tower.

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If it works, it won鈥檛 be the silver bullet to finish off the housing crisis. We still need a huge effort from all levels of government to create co-ops and supportive and affordable and seniors housing, it鈥檚 a big job.

But in the long run, if Vancouver鈥檚 proposal goes through, it could do two things.

First, it will finally take some pressure off the outer suburbs 鈥� Surrey, 91原创, Maple Ridge and Abbotsford in particular 鈥� which have been building like mad over the past decade. Vancouver, where there are already buses and library branches and corner stores, can absorb its fair share of the region鈥檚 growing population.

Second, it will give builders a chance to create a new, regional architecture.

Few other cities are being this ambitious about middle-density development. Which means that Vancouver 鈥� and probably other cities, if Premier David Eby forces through some widespread zoning changes 鈥� will be experimenting with a new urban form, one sized for the standard Vancouver lot, designed for a place where transit and bike lanes and sidewalks are already in place.

It鈥檚 going to be interesting to see what the Vancouver Special 2.0 looks like, when the dust settles.