About a month ago, Potentiality Correspondent Steve Sloot and I were having a brainstorm of a chat about his going away party (he’s since left for France to, get this, learn French – what a guy). As we tend to do, Steve and I got to riffing and idea-making as he lamented that “none of our friends own a house, so we’ll have to have the party in a restaurant or something” to which I replied “man, urban densification will be the death of the house party.” Genius. I know.
On many an occasion, friends in Vancouver have crammed upwards of 30 people into their 692 square foot apartments. And a few times since moving to Vancity in 2008, I’ve seen many of those same 30 people party in a fairly spacious household setting, where – throughout the course of the evening – components of the party will actually take on identities all their own: the kitchen might turn into a cauldron of political debate, a guitar-playing sing-along might erupt in the living room, a game of croquet might take place on the lawn, and people might check out wedding photos on the computer in the den.
These things can’t evolve naturally or independently in an apartment. Here are some other differences between parties in houses and apartments/condos:
Party Things Happen |
IN AN APARTMENT |
IN A HOUSE |
Loud Party Noises |
Even infrequent or spontaneous collective belly-laughter can evoke a broom-to-the-ceiling or a loud kick-to-the-floor from other apartment dwellers. This one time, due to our board-game-playing, laugh-riddled-high-jinks, a few of us received a strongly worded – yet hilarious – letter signed by the other seven apartments in the building. | Noises have to be pretty loud and sustained before neighbours get involved. |
Settlers of Catan is played |
Game becomes the awkward focal-point of an otherwise cool gathering. Slowly, people are drawn to the exclusively interesting playing surface – probably the dining room table that you have to pass to get to the kitchen/living room – and, before you know it, this unassuming board game has turned into a spectator sport. The only thing worse than this situation is when people start watching YouTube videos. That’s when you know the party’s over. | Nerds are relegated to the Den/Study, where they belong. |
Food Served |
“Is the table for sitting and eating or serving and dishing? If the latter, then where do we sit? I’m confused and someone just bumped into me with a plate of hummus!” | You might have a table – or a few tables – that function for 30-person grazing, a sit-down meal, or buffet-style serve-and-sit. There’s enough space even when Kurt Heinrich sits himself down at the table amongst all the food and just digs in! |
Game of Bocce |
Your 5×5 balcony is not a suitable or safe place to hurl rock-hard balls. Try the living room… | Front or back yards are great places for the strategic, exciting and community-building game of bocce. Have fun with it! |
Intense Political Discussion |
Begins in the kitchen, but soon embroils and consumes the entire party until someone calls someone else a racist socialist fascist anarchist. The party ends shortly. | Contained nicely in whatever room it begins and people can back slowly away. |
Needless to say, house parties are pretty awesome.
Now, urban densification is an important and necessary thing here in Vancouver. It’s important for people to live where we work (or as close as possible) and to be able to get to schools, parks, stores, etc. by a 20 minute walk, bike ride or transit trip. The future of our communities needs to me more about mixing commercial and service spaces with residential ones, preferably in a way that fits a minimum of 12-18 households into ever acre of urban space. Check out the Portland Plan for more information on ideas like this.
This whole discussion got me thinking about places like London, New York, Hong Kong, 
and Buenos Aires where, for myriad different reasons, house parties are an absolute rarity. The fact that these cities also rank high on the international list of urbanly dense communities certainly has a lot to do with it. According to a study by the Recent Findings Institute, there are several other major cities who have – for decades and/or even centuries – found celebration within small spaces. The study found that Hong Kong (350 square feet), New York (700) and London (650). Through use of vibrant (or ones that are “just there”) public spaces, lounges, bars and restaurants, as well as everything from parks to movie theatres to community centres, these three world class cities know how to make party public.
So, does Vancouver’s path to becoming a greener, closer, denser urban environment mean the end of the house party as we know it? Will myriad-raging gatherings break out in laneway domiciles? Well, as more and more of us make our homes in smaller spaces, celebratory gatherings will change in size, scale and space.
But, hey, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t party.
Great post John. As for the situation in Buenos Aires, Argentinians will always find a way to party. One solution they have found, with great perspicacity, is just not giving to much importance to neighbors. Anyway, most Argentinians are quite tolerant to noise, surprisingly even at 5 in the morning. The other solution is to rent a bar. Many small bars, restaurants can be reserved for exclusive parties, in general for a quite accessible price. So you have place where you can make noise, choose the music and no need to clean afterwards…
Last thing, authorities also tolerate drinking in the streets, so parties sometimes happened on street corners… especially teenagers´ fiestas (or tuesday night as they like to call it) or for people short on cash.
I liked the symbolic text densification in the table. Just reading it made me feel like I was at a rocking party in a 500 sq ft apartment.
Well played Julian. Well played. John, Mike or I need to introduce you to a little HTML miracle called “cell padding”
Kurt
I dunno, fellahs. I kinda like my imported word table. It looks neat.
This “cell padding” thing would probably help the The List, too, champs.
Perhaps it’s time for a 2011 Editorial Meeting. We can bring in Julian as our “man on the street” and “biggest fan/detractor” since Pete/Jim has gone AWOL.
J
Hey, it wasn’t a diss- I thought it was a brilliant example of coyrony.
Formatting issues aside, I think your thesis that “urban densification will be the death of the house party” is only defensible in the absence of … you guessed it… great community. Some of the great house parties I can think of were indeed in houses, but they were houses shared by 4-6 people, i.e., people living at relatively high density, but it all being OK because they were sharing space. So density isn’t a threat to the party where there is community. Think about your great Lambreich-Bornk parties, i.e., spread over multiple spaces, and sometimes spilling out into local parks.
Very well said, Julian.
Kurt, Theo…we should look into a joint mansion-purchase in 5-10 years. Our little Bornks! and Lamrichs could play together while we, um, also play together.
Great post… got me thinking about my lack of house party since I moved to Van, and about alternatives to a good house party…
Firstly, camping. Camping rivals the house party like pie rivals cheesecake. Everyone says yes to pie, until they hear the word cheesecake. Take the party outdoors to a bon-fire and anything goes. From the aforementioned guitar and political debates, to meeting a mountain man named Art who you are sure ate the wrong (or right) bag of mushrooms. From May-long ,to September-long, camp-on!
Secondly…. … … There is no second. Wow. And you know what? I am part of the problem… I haven’t thrown a house party since the house warming. And really, is there anything more vibrant than opening the door to the welcome crowd of a great big house party? I remember in high school going to my first good house party… the energy, the body heat, the new faces and endless possibilities that 3 beer and 2 growers was about to bring! Snap to college, add 20 to the house capacity, drinking games, and even the chance to ‘going all the way’!
I pledge to throw a good house party in Feb or March. Stay tuned.