What is Point Access Block?
Back in August of 2024, the government of British Columbia announced a revision to the BC Building Code (BCBC 2024, rev.3) allowing for small residential buildings to be built with only one means of egress — a single exit stairwell core. Also known as a Point Access Block (PAB), these buildings target small, narrow parcels for residential development, unlocking new opportunities for infill development on under-utilized land.
With compact footprints, units are arranged around or near a single central egress point (stairwell & elevator core). The second egress core is eliminated and connective corridors are reduced substantially, resulting in more flexibility to unit/suite design, and greater number of units/suites with corner exposure. Additionally, this design approach supports high-density living, promotes walkable neighbourhoods, and enhances urban sustainability through the utilization of smaller infill sites otherwise left undeveloped.
In the fall of 2024, Gravity Architecture sponsored a small cohort of M.Arch students as part of a Work Integrated Learning experience in collaboration with the University of Calgary. Over the span of four months, Gravity’s own Noel Heard and Maureen Carrigy oversaw the progress of M.Arch 2025 students in two teams: Gwen Houtzager, Michael Paris, and Pauline Sutherland forming Team 1, and Michael Stellmach and Richard Tsai forming Team 2. During this time, the research teams were tasked with conducting a series of experiments and exercises to discover exactly the potentials of PAB design via the framework of the Buildner Denver Single-Stair Housing Challenge. This competition’s primary goal is to challenge the current building constraints of existing building codes in not only Denver, but North America as a whole.
In this edition of the Point Access Block blog series, we deconstruct the BCBC 2024 rev.3 code for Point Access Block (download our cheat sheet below!) and present our research team’s preliminary feasibility for residential development on a PAB compliant sized parcel of land.
PAB Design in British Columbia
Effective August 27 of 2024, BCBC Revision 3 officially enables construction of Point Access Block in Canada. Currently, PAB design is common throughout most of the world, but is almost completely absent within North America. The exception occurs in Seattle, where in 2021 the Seattle building code introduced revisions similar to BC’s Revision 3 that allowed for the single-egress. Though PAB is currently restricted to British Columbia, it’s not implausible to believe that other provinces will soon follow in adopting these policies.
Our research teams were tasked with comparing three building codes: (1) Denver Building Code and Bylaw, 2021 (does not support PAB design, similar to Alberta); (2) Seattle Building Code and Bylaw, 2021 (supports PAB design); and (3) British Columbia Building Code, 2024, Revision 3 (supports PAB design). After deconstructing and comparing the three building codes, it was revealed that the Seattle and BCBC code were very similar in policy, but with minor differences in flexibility of space. To learn more about the code regulations for Point Access Block design in British Columbia, download our BCBC 2024 rev. 3 cheat sheet below.
What Could a PAB look like in British Columbia?
Our research teams conducted a series of massing and programming experiments to determine the full potentials of the new code policies. Split into two teams, each research group was required to abide by the BC building code for Point Access Block and Land-Use Bylaw requirements of the site in Denver, and any additional requirements outlined by the Buildner challenge. A 14.0m x 37.0m (46’-0 x 121’-0”) project site was chosen for the study, complying with the maximum parcel size requirements for PAB design. The project site is an existing surface parking lot near the downtown core, comparable to many PAB compliant site types that could be utilized for PAB design in British Columbia. Each research team was then tasked with developing their own building program and design rational to implement into their experiments. Finally, each team was tasked with exploring several feasibility studies, to demonstrate how unit spaces could be divided within floor spaces, and how parking, building services, and amenity spaces fit within the overall building site to maximize spatial efficiency. Overall, the result was that Point Access Block provides a greater opportunity to create meaningful, efficient, and high quality design both internally and externally on these small site conditions than a traditional double egress development could ever hope to achieve.
