York House School, an independent K–12 for girls, has been located in the heart of Vancouver’s heritage Shaughnessy neighborhood since 1932. The forward-looking Institute required a new senior school building with a mandate that included the incorporation of energy efficient systems, the maximization of natural lighting, and the provision of flexible work spaces to accommodate 21st-century teaching practices. The new senior school was also required to unify the 144,721ft2 (13,445m2) campus, which comprised several buildings of various styles that had been added over an 80-year span.
Principal-in-charge: Mark Ostry, ARCHITECT AIBC AAA SAA OAA FRAIC
Project Lead: Susan Ockwell, ARCHITECT AIBC LEED AP
Team: Russell Acton, ARCHITECT AIBC AAA SAA OAA FRAIC; Nathaniel Straathof, ARCHITECT AIBC LEED, AP; Ryan McCuaig, ARCHITECT AIBC, CP, MRAIC, LEED AP; Michael Fugeta, MArch IA; Sergei Vakhrameev, MArch
Collaborators
Structural Engineer: Fast & Epp
Mechanical Engineer: MCW Consultants Ltd.
Electrical Engineer: Acumen Engineering Pte Ltd:
Landscape Architect: PWL Partnership Landscape Architects Inc.
Contractor: Haebler Construction Ltd.
Code: Gage Babcock & Associates Ltd.
Acoustic: Daniel Lyzun & Associates Ltd./ Rowan Williams Davies and Irwin Inc.
Envelope: Morrison Hershfield Ltd.
Environmental: A.C.M. Environmental
Geotechnical: Exp Associates Inc.
Specifications: Padley Consulting Inc.
Awards & Recognition
2014 City of Vancouver Urban Design Award
2015 ACEC-BC Award of Merit for Engineering Excellence
Designed as a prototype in 2012, Shoppers Drug Mart’s new Beauty Boutique concept is now hitting its stride. For this project, Tuxedo rethought the notion of consumer experience in the pharmacy’s beauty department and revisited the existing model within a controlled environment, focusing on architectural design. Results exceeded expectations in Bay view as well as in the Toronto Eaton Center in Ontario. The project was also very successful in 2014 in the Western regions of Canada, notably Richmond, Vancouver, and Calgary. This new year will bring a new pace to the Beauty Boutique with more store implementations in Ottawa and Montreal.
This single family residence in Vancouver was designed both as a home for our Clients, and as a demonstration suite for their sustainable home building and renovation company. The home is the first LEED® Platinum home certified by LEED® for Homes in Western Canada.
Located in the Cambie neighbourhood of Vancouver, the steeply sloping site affords views of the city and mountains beyond. The curved roof allows the mass of the new, modern home to step down the cross slope of the site without resorting to traditional forms, and imparts a sense of lightness and space to the upper floor, without losing the domestic sense of enclosure. There is a sectional split on the upper floor that isolates the master bedroom from secondary bedrooms, and allows for higher ceilings in the master bedroom. The secondary bedrooms have lower ceilings as the section defers importance to the higher ceilings of the living room below. The change in ceiling height on the main floor defines the space in an otherwise open floor plan. The rear roof terrace views the nearby park, while the front terrace has views of the city and mountains. The cross slope of the site positions the terraces above the adjacent neighbours creating a sense of privacy. The garage at lane elevation has a laneway house below that shares the rear yard with the main house. A flexible basement layout allows the owner the ability to adapt to future changes in use.
The York Theatre renovation is the result of a decades long struggle to save a historic community theatre from demolition.
Originally built in 1913 as the Alcazar Theatre, the building changed identities numerous times over its storied 100-year history. Ten years after it first opened, it was purchased by the Vancouver Little Theatre Association, (Canada’s oldest continuously operating community theatre company), which reopened it as the ‘Little Theatre’. Then a major renovation, introducing an art deco style exterior, led to its re-launch in 1940 as the York Theatre.
The project was conceived as a modernist prototype for Vancouver’s ubiquitous RS-1 zoning district. The project explored the development restrictions of the residential regulations as well as the limitations of building within an urban context. The process was meant to generate a set of guidelines for what we have termed a ‘flexible prototype’ that could address the contextual differences of individual sites in a way that allows for a customized integration of passive environmental strategies, the incorporation of exterior space as part of everyday living, and the provision of an affordable and flexible live work space.
Completed: September 2009 by CCA -5 Construction Management Contract
Project Scope: Prototype for affordable modernist housing in Vancouver’s RS-1 zoning district. New wood frame construction, 2550 square feet residence with a 530 square foot garage, studio. Construction budget of $800,000.
This garden shed was designed and constructed in partnership between UBC architecture students and the Woodlands Community Garden Club. This structure is the focal point of the garden.
It acts as a gathering spot for local education programs and provides a practical storage solution. The unique form of the shed was designed to prevent shadows from being cast on surrounding garden plots while at the same time shading the central meeting space.
At the main entrance to the UBC campus along University Boulevard are two strategic insertions into the transit infrastructure that provide covered shelter for the trolley-bus loop. The transit shelters act as a conceptual extension of the nearby line of Katsura trees. Slender steel columns are arranged in a staggered line and hold up an over-sized cellular wood structure clad in glass.
ROAR_One, a collaboration between LWPAC Inc. (Lead Design Architect) and DIALOG is a ten-unit housing complex on Vancouver’s west side. The ambition for the Roar_one project is to create a qualitative paradigm shift for everyday urban living and live-work culture through the introduction of choice, flexibility and spatial strategies.
The design of the new Vancouver Convention Centre West presented an opportunity to fully engage the urban ecosystem at the intersection of a vibrant downtown core and one of the most spectacular natural ecosystems in North America. Certified LEED Canada Platinum, the project weaves together architecture, interior architecture, and urban design in a unified whole that functions as a living part of both the city and the harbor.
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