As usual, the hipsters had it figured out before the rest of us. The urban bohemians started claiming Mount Pleasant and its sub-neighbourhoods (SoMa, Uptown, et al.) in the late '90s, and within a few years the curiosities of Antique Row gave way to artsy cafés, cutting-edge boutiques, and indie record shops. With the area fast becoming a hub for a certain stripe of savvy urbanite, it wasn't long before new residential developments started popping up.

Fastforward to 2011, and new developments continue to dot the map of Mount Pleasant and adjacent areas—and as you might expect, none of them looks like your average downtown condo tower. In fact, the area has become a hub for innovative design.

Inventive projects currently under way include Rize Alliance Properties' four-storey OnQue at West Broadway and Quebec Street, Concord Pacific's Uptown at Kingsway and East 12th Avenue, and Bastion Development Corporation's 3333 Main. That last one, located on a lot that was most recently a car dealership, has no doubt caused its share of double takes as it has gone up. The five-storey building, designed by the Vancouver architecture firm DIALOG, boasts an exterior clad in what at first glance appears to be gleaming tile.

“It's a mosaic of glazed brick, actually,” explains Bastion vice president Kim Maust. “And we ended up doing sort of a different colour on the front from the rear. The front side has got some browns and oranges, and the rear has got some blues and greys in it.

“When designing the building, we wanted it to fit well on Main Street as well as be sort of a statement of how Main Street is moving forward,” Maust notes. “So it's very modern in its design, even though it has some elements that hail back to its beginnings—the long, linear look of the building is reminiscent of the Palm Dairy, which was the original use for that site.”

Maust says many of 3333 Main's buyers won't have far to move once the 98-unit project is completed. She claims they fit the youthful profile you might expect, given the location. Mind you, with prices starting at $410,000 for a one-bedroom townhome, the average Biltmore Cabaret denizen might have to hock his fixie and put his vintage LPs on eBay to make the down payment. “We've got local neighbourhood buyers, mostly, and they range in age from about 25 to 40,” says Maust. “They're first-time buyers, and there are a lot of families who are excited about the project.

“There is a love for that neighbourhood and a loyalty to that neighbourhood that we haven't really seen as much since, I guess, Gastown or Kitsilano days,” she continues. “So there's an energy in that neighbourhood where people are becoming dedicated to staying there. They're looking for opportunities to have homes for their families on an ongoing basis.”

Maust says Bastion took input from area residents for 3333 Main's design. “When we worked on our development-permit application and held our public hearings and our public open houses, we had a lot of input from the neighbours on their concerns,” she notes. “And we addressed their concerns with some traffic-calming strategies and locating the entrance to our parkade. So we worked very closely with the neighbourhood to put together a design that they felt would work. And the community residents' associations actually came out to our public hearing and spoke in favour of the project. So I think as long as developers work closely with the neighbourhood and respect what the neighbourhood stands for in its look and feel, I think you'll find that more projects will go ahead with neighbourhood support.”

The building's green features no doubt won it much of that support; 3333 Main boasts a high-efficiency water system partially powered by solar energy, and residents will have access to their own garden plots.

For architect Foad Rafii, finding innovative ways to incorporate ecofriendly features into the buildings he designs has become a top priority. In a telephone interview, he says that it's an ongoing challenge. “I don't 100 percent believe that everybody has been successful, including ourselves so far, in the thing that is happening, but nevertheless, that is the goal: to make a more sustainable architecture.…This is now the first thing in every project you want to do.”

With one of his most recent undertakings, a 170-home development at East 1st Avenue and Quebec Street called Meccanica, Rafii is looking at making a long-term positive impact in a part of the city whose character is still emerging. He has his sights set on transforming a place that people tend to drive through on their way to somewhere else into a more livable, walkable neighbourhood.

“The area is sort of very isolated now, and as such has not become popular just yet, but I'm pretty sure in a very short period of time, that it will become a trendy area,” he says. “This area of Southeast False Creek will become the connection between the rest of False Creek and Mount Pleasant, I believe—before you know it, it will get connected together.”

Rafii's firm has designed buildings all over the Lower Mainland but is perhaps best known for its projects in downtown Vancouver, which include Paramount Place at 900 Burrard Street and the Mondrian on Richards Street. The Tehran-born architect is a believer in the potential of Southeast False Creek, however, and this is borne out by the fact that developers (such as Cressey, which is behind Meccanica) are beginning to make a serious investment in the area: “This is our second building in that neighbourhood, and actually we have another three projects under way, so we will be very shortly into a big number of projects in that area.”

Rafii, who established his firm in 1983, has firsthand knowledge of how new construction can revitalize once-maligned parts of town. His portfolio includes developments in the former warehouse district of Yaletown, and his own business was a pioneer in its neighbourhood. “The building that my office is in, which is at 1600 Howe Street, we designed this building in 1984, on the north shore of False Creek,” he says. “And everybody thought, ‘Who'd want to live there?' This was the wrong side of the tracks. There was nothing here. It was all industrial areas. And now, of course, sitting at the foot of Howe Street, with C Restaurant and everything else around it, it is one of the most desirable areas to live in.”

As for Meccanica, it's being built in a spot that many Vancouverites know all too well: a former tow yard. “Everybody has the bad memories of their car being towed to that location,” Rafii jokes.

In keeping with its history and that of the surrounding neighbourhood, Cressey has been touting Meccanica's look as “four walls inspired by four wheels”. As Rafii notes, “The area has always been automotive, and the city also had the intention to keep the character of the area sort of semi-industrial as it is. And we used some materials like metal grate and stuff for the edges. It's sort of edgy design. Very simple architecture, that's what we tried to do.”

If Rafii's vision of the future comes to pass, and everything between False Creek and Mount Pleasant is transformed into one big interconnected neighbourhood, we might need some new terminology. After all, you can't keep referring to it as South Main if it extends all the way down to 1st Avenue. Whatever you call it, though, don't expect its allure to fade away in the foreseeable future. Speaking of 3333 Main's more immediate vicinity, Maust notes, “There's an appeal to that neighbourhood to the hipster market. They're looking for opportunities to buy in that neighbourhood, and there are not many. So I would say it's a neighbourhood that developers are focusing on—simply because that's where people want to be.”