The office tower is located on one of the main avenues through downtown Vancouver and straddles two distinct neighbourhoods: the business centre dominated by glass high-rises and the cultural and the entertainment district scattered with low-slung buildings like museums, theatres, and sports complexes. The Vancouver Public Library in front and the Centre for Performing Arts next door, both by architect Moshe Safdie, have similar materials and motifs that consolidate their civic character at the boundary with the office district. Their low and horizontal profiles, together with the library’s generous plaza facing the site, offers a relatively spacious urban setting on the cusp of two zones.
Strathcona Village is a mixed-use industrial and residential development that occupies an entire city block on East Hastings Street in Strathcona, one of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods. The $112M mixed-use development, the first of its kind in North America, opened in July 2018 on time and on budget. The 300,000 square foot building accommodates market housing with much-needed affordable housing and job spaces for light industry.
The development stands as a model of revitalization without displacement in a neighbourhood that strives for meaningful development policies that enable economic inclusion coupled with safe and adequate housing. This model for mixed-use projects that retain light industrial businesses is scalable to other urban centres across the country.
Architect Team Members: Daniel Eisenberg (MRAIC), Stu Lyon (FRAIC), Eric Stacey (MRAIC), Theresa Wong, Rod Forbes, Barry Hyde, Emily Milford, Rodrigo Cepeda, Jonathan Toronchuck.
At 18 storeys and 53 meters in height, Brock Commons Tallwood House is a 404-bed student residence building located on The University of British Columbia Point Grey campus in Vancouver, BC, Canada that officially opened for students in July of 2017. The project is the first completed in Canada under the 2013 Tall Wood Building Demonstration Project Initiative sponsored by Natural Resources Canada. Brock Commons aspires to be a model for a future that features extraordinarily ordinary mass wood buildings that are quick, clean and cost effective to construct and which maximize carbon sequestering and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in cities.
This project gutted and re-built a classic split-level house from the early 1980’s. A long angular space was completely opened up, to create an airy sense of volume not possible in Vancouver anymore, since high ceilings heights are not allowed in any new house. Constricted stairs, dropped ceilings and non load-bearing walls between the living areas were removed, but the existing exterior shape of the house was not changed or enlarged. Old window locations were preserved to leave the house’s structure almost completely intact, and then elongated to let more light in. Since the house is on a prominent corner site, corner windows were added to create panoramic views out into the established neighbourhood.
In 2007 when it began providing high quality local organic beef to Vancouver restaurants Two Rivers Meats set up its production facility in a generic warehouse building from the 1950’s situated between the back of the malls and the waterfront industrial area. After becoming a successful restaurant supplier, they decided to start Two Rivers Meats – The Store
Carved out of their ten thousand square foot production facility a space was created to provide high quality ethically raised beef and charcuterie. The concept evolved to include a licensed eat-in kitchen where their meats could be grilled over a wood fire.
In recent years, the City of Vancouver introduced housing policies to address current and future needs for housing affordability and choice in the ever-evolving urban environment. The new policies allow strategically located sites to be rezoned to permit greater height and density in exchange for developers committing to provide and operate rental housing for a period of 60 years or for the life of the building. The Duke responds to these challenges with a new rental building typology inspired by precedents from England.
The Duke is a 14-storey mixed-use development with 12 storeys of residential rental accommodation located above a two-storey commercial podium. The unit mix comprises 25% two-bedroom family units with one-bedroom and studio units making up the balance.
Location: 333 E 11th Ave, Vancouver, British Columbia
Photography: Michael Elkan
Team: Alan Davis Architect AIBC MRAIC, Stewart Child ARB (UK) BArch, Michael Fugeta Architect AIBC MRAIC, Samantha Patterson Architect AIBC LEED AP, Thomas Rooksby ARB (UK) March, Bob Sumpter ARB (UK) BArch, Sergei Vakhrameev Architect AIBC, Kim Winston ARB (UK) MArch
Structural: Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd.
Lead Architects: Russell Acton Architect AIBC AAA OAA FRAIC, Mark Ostry architect Architect AIBC AAA OAA FRAIC
This renovation focused on building a sculptural light-filled liner inside a 106 year old space. With thrift, four layers of old construction and modifications were left untouched. All of the desks are simple glulam beams laid on their sides, all of the fixtures are custom made from raw steel, and the monolithic cabinetry is made from practical and cost-effective plastic laminate. The service spaces feel dark, hefty and crude, to contrast with the glowing, faceted and crisp work spaces.
Last summer, when Tokyo-based Kengo Kuma & Associates received a commission for a 43-story skyscraper in downtown Vancouver, the firm also embarked on a much smaller project for its developer, Ian Gillespie: a tea house. Instead of having the typical garden setting, the 140-square-foot structure sits on a 19th-floor terrace of a residential high-rise owned by Gillespie’s company, Westbank. Gillespie, who has an affinity for Japanese culture, wanted a space where he could entertain while showcasing a cross-cultural collaboration. The design incorporates tradition into a contemporary scheme, says project architect Michael Sypkens: it maintains the conventional tea house veranda, floor plan, and extended eaves—here framing views of the harbor and another Gillespie-owned tower—but features floor-to-ceiling glazing, full insulation, and a painted-aluminum roof. In lieu of customary Japanese cedar for the lattice screens, Kuma opted for local Douglas fir; the moss and stones used for landscaping are also native to the region. “The tea house is a transition from a dense urban environment to this almost spiritual realm,” says Sypkens. “It is a surreal hybridization.”
The Esquimalt house is situated on an steep and unusually wide property with significant views of downtown Vancouver, the Lion’s Gate Bridge and Burrard Inlet. The client’s, who came to Canada from East Africa, requested that their house operate at different scales: as a space for religious gatherings and business, as well as a place for them as a couple. The low-contrast grey and white palette of the house is intended to create a gallery-like setting for the display of artifacts of cultural and religious significance.
Can a home feel spacious through innovative design? Vancouver Interior Design firm Falken Reynolds Interiors opens the doors to their latest modern-home interior design project, the Saint George House, which highlights innovative design strategies to create space and serenity.
Enlisted by boutique builder Moosehead Contracting, Falken Reynolds Interiors and Randy Bens Architect designed a family home to fit on a unique lot size 20 by 200 feet (6m x 60m), which is typically the size of a back lane.
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