Earth Sciences Building / Perkins + Will

© Martin Tessler

Architects: Perkins + Will
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia,
Design Team: Peter Busby, Aneta Chmiel, Maginnis Cocivera, Paul Cowcher, Anna Espinoza, Jana Foit, Jeremiah Deutscher, Joerk Gravenstein, Herman Kao, Jon Loewen, Teresa Miller, Soren Schou, Eric Stedman, Julie Wong
Area: 15,794 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Martin Tessler

Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability / Perkins + Will

© Martin Tessler

Architects: Perkins + Will
Location: , , Canada
Design Team: Peter Busby, Martin Nielsen, Maginnis Cocivera, Sebastien Garon, Brian Gasmena, Jörk Grävenstein, Horace Lai, Blair McCarry, Z Smith
Area: 5,675 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Martin Tessler

City Design Panel Endorses BIG’s Mixed-Use Vancouver Tower

Courtesy of BIG

A BIG step forward for Vancouver’s latest mixed-use tower making international headlines, as the 497-foot tall Beach and Howe proposal has received an “enthusiastic endorsement” from the city’s design panel.

Commissioned by ’s real estate mogul Ian Gillespie of Westbank, the Bjarke Ingles Group-designed tower promises to add a foreign twist to Vancouver’s skyline and create a new identity for an undefined section of town at the fringe of the city’s area. The 700,000 square foot complex – which contains shopping, social housing and market rental apartments – was praised by the panel for anchoring itself on a nine-story podium that occupies the disused, interstitial spaces found between the Granville Street Bridge’s entry and exit ramps.

More after the break…

Robert H. N. Ho Research Centre / CEI Architecture + MCMP Architects

© Howard Waisman

Architects: CEI Architecture + MCMP Architects
Location: , Canada
Area: 65,000 sq ft
Year: 2011
Photographs: Howard Waisman

Centre for Digital Media / Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership Architects

© Derek Lepper

Architects: Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership Architects
Location: , British Columbia,
Interiors: MCM Interiors Ltd.
Area: 49,091 sq ft
Year: 2012
Photographs: Derek Lepper

UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences / Saucier + Perrotte architectes & HCMA

© Marc Cramer

Architects: Saucier + Perrotte architectes + HCMA
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Project Architect: Bill Uhrich () / Craig Lane ()
Architectural Concept And Design: Gilles Saucier (S+P)
Managing Principals: André Perrotte (S+P), Roger Hughes (HCMA)
Design Coordinator: David Moreaux (S+P)
Year: 2012
Area: 27,311 sqm
Photographs: Marc Cramer

Re:think Housing Competition Entry / Jessie Andjelic, Albert Dijk and Philip Vandermey

meta Vancouverism

With the aim to generate a broader discussion of possibilities for ’s affordable housing crisis, Jessie Andjelic, and Philip Vandermey submitted their Meta Vancouverism and Vancouver Islands proposal for the Re:think Housing competition held by the City of Vancouver. These concepts are focused on on being grenade projects in response to perceived contradictions within dominant themes of Vancouver urban planning – affordability, sustainability, nature, speculative urbanism, sprawl and the condo rush. More images and architects’ description after the break.

‘Pop Rocks: Soft Urban Boulder Field’ Installation / Matthew Soules Architecture + AFJD Studio

© Krista Jahnke

Covering a full city block in the center of downtown Vancouver, , Pop Rocks is a temporary installation fabricated entirely from post-consumer and post-industrial waste from the metropolitan Vancouver region. A collaboration between Matthew Soules Architecture and AFJD Studio (Amber Frid-Jimenez & Joe Dahmen), the project engages tactically with these materials to produce soft forms that extend the typical range of active and passive social activities, fostering unexpected social encounters and new perspectives on the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Sauder School of Business / Acton Ostry Architects

© Nic Lehoux

Architects: Acton Ostry Architects
Location: , Sauder School of Business, Henry Angus Building, 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z2, Canada
Project Year: 2012
Photographs: Martin Tessler, Nic Lehoux,

Zero Mile House / Yianna Bouyioukou

© Cheng Zhou

Located on an urban corner lot in the city of , the Zero Mile House establishes a relationship between the size of the lot and the size of the construction it supports. Designed by , the architectural strategy is focused on most of the house’s construction materials being produced literally on the specific lot. This way, land is not only the physical support for the human habitat, but also the provider. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Finalists of the 100 Mile House Competition

3rd Prize: Won Jin Park (New York, USA) - Courtesy of the Architectural Foundation of British Columbia

The Architectural Foundation of British Columbia (BC) has announced the five finalists of the Competition. Similar to the well-known 100 Mile Diet, the challenges participants to design a 1200-square-foot home using only materials and systems that are made, manufactured and/or recycled within 100 miles of the City of . Many have questioned whether the 100 Mile House is a plausible solution in today’s modern cities (check out: The 100 Mile House: Innovative ‘Locatat’ or Just Plain Loca?). Be your own judge and review the finalists after the break.

DjavadMowafaghian Centre for Brain Health / Stantec

Courtesy of

Stantec’s design for the DjavafMowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at UBC, in , British Columbia in Canada is envisioned as a translational research facility defined by present and future medical practices that collaborate under research and patient care.  To achieve this, designers considered the intersections within the spatial dynamics of the facility to coordinate interactions between researchers and clinicians. The facility is 134,500 square feet and includes exam / consultation rooms, lab benches, a full conference centre, a brain tissue and DNA bank of samples collected from consenting patients, and patient and animal MRI capabilities.

More after the break.

Beach and Howe Mixed-Use Tower / BIG

Courtesy of

Contributing to the Vancouver skyline, the 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe mixed-use tower by BIG, Westbank, Dialog, Cobalt, PFS, Buro Happold, Glotman Simpson, and local architect James Cheng marks the entry point to downtown, forming a welcoming gateway to the city, while adding another unique structure. BIG’s proposal, named after its location on the corner of Howe & Beach next to the Granville Street Bridge in downtown Vancouver, calls for 600 units occupying the 49-story tower, which would become one of the city’s fourth tallest buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Shaw House / Patkau Architects

© Benjamin Benschneider

Architects: Patkau Architects
Location: ,
Architect Team: Michael Cunningham, John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, Peter Suter
Structural Engineer: Fast +Epp Structural Engineers
General Contractor: Glover Co.
Photographs: Paul Warchol, Undine Prohl

   

Beaty Biodiversity Center and Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory / Patkau Architects

© James Dow

The Beaty Biodiversity Center and the Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory are located on Main Mall, the central north/south spine of the University of . Together they form a complex of related environmental science functions; a new campus precinct organized around a generous exterior courtyard space which is bisected by new cross-campus pedestrian and bicycle connections.

The principal exhibition space of the museum located within the Beaty Biodiversity Center is a glass “lantern” featuring an enormous skeleton of a Blue Whale creating a public face for the complex towards the Mall.  Follow the break for drawings and photographs.

Architects: Patkau Architects
Location: , British Columbia, Canada
Client: University of British Columbia
Project Year: 2002 – 2009
Photographs: James Dow

Michael Green presents ‘The Case for Tall Wood Buildings’

Courtesy of

Driven by the desire to find safe, carbon-neutral and sustainable alternatives to the incumbent structural materials of the urban world, Michael Green, Principal at Michael Green Architecture, has shared with us this highly-anticipated feasibility study, The Case for Tall Wood Buildings. The 200-page document encourages architects, engineers and designers to push the envelope of conventional thinking by demonstrating that wood is a viable material for tall and large buildings and exposing its environmental and economic benefits.

Co-author Michael Green explains, “To slow and contain greenhouse gas emissions and find truly sustainable solutions to building, we must look at the fundamentals of the way we build – from the bones of large urban building structures to the details of energy performance. We need to search for the picture solutions of today’s vast climate, environmental, economic and world housing needs.”

VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre / Perkins+Will

Courtesy of

Perkins+Will‘s VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre in , BC is designed to meet the Living Building Challenge, the most rigorous set of requirements of sustainability.  Formally and functionally, it encompasses the goals of environmentally and socially conscious design.  The building is an undulating landscape of interior and exterior spaces rising from ground to roof level and providing a vast surface area on which vegetation could grow, thus reoccupying the land on which the building sits with the landscape.  The building also features numerous passive and active systems that reuse the site’s renewable resources and the building’s own waste.

More photos after the break, including a video about the project!

100 Mile House Open Ideas Competition

Courtesy of The Architecture Foundation of BC

The Architecture Foundation of BC promotes ideas that recognize sustainable design, architectural merit and innovation in order to advance the knowledge and practice of the design of sustainable buildings in . They are inviting participants of this competition to explore, rethink, question and experiment with new ideas that will challenge the concept of the regional house and the way we live. Geographically, they have selected the City of Vancouver to be the focus of the competition for the ’100 Mile House’. More information on the competition after the break.

Beaty Biodiversity Centre – Aquatic Ecosystems Research Labor​atory / Patkau Architects

© James Dow

Architects: Patkau Architects
Location: Vancouver, ,
Project Team: Greg Boothroyd, Michael Cunningham, Joanne Gates, Samantha Hayes, Maureen Kwong, Thomas Lee, Davis Marques, Patrick O’Sullivan, John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, David Shone
Model Makers: Oliver Birett, Anike Duffner, Gregory Graemiger, Julianne Heinrich, Craig Simms, Christian Schulte, Jan Rasche, Tokimi Ota
Photographs: James Dow 

   

Jameson House / Foster + Partners

© Nigel Young

Architects: Foster + Partners
Location: , Canada
Co-architects: Walter Francl Architects Inc
Consultants: Yolles, Vermeulens Cost Consultants, Imec Mechanical Ltd., PWL Partnership Landscape Architects Inc., Claude Engle Lighting Consultant, Bridge Electric Corp., Imec Mechanical Ltd., Piers Heath Associates, Robert Lemon Architect Inc.
Client: Jameson House Ventures Inc, Pappajohns (previous client)
Year: 2004-2011
Photographs: Nigel Young / © Foster and Partners

Vancouver Chinese Evangelical Church / Acton Ostry Architects

Courtesy of Acton Ostry Architects

Architects: Acton Ostry Architects Inc
Location: , British Columbia,
Size: 32,000 square feet
Completion Date: 2008
Photographs: Courtesy of Acton Ostry Architects