Vancouver: The Latest Architecture and News

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Heatherwick Studio has shared plans for a pair of residential towers in Vancouver, Canada. The "curvaceous" skyscrapers were designed for Kingswood Properties and Bosa Properties in the city's West End neighborhood. Inspired by tree-like forms, the towers aspire to create a "new level of global design excellence" that emerges from a ground level plaza. The two towers would rise between 30 and 34 stories tall in height, and would feature views across the city and Vancouver Harbor.

Housing is a ubiquitous typology ripe for experimentation. Exploring form, view, materials and hierarchies, residential projects center on daily life and retreat. Designed to bring people together and provide space for isolation, homes can be open and inviting, secluded and private, or both at the same time. For unbuilt housing projects, these concepts are designed to rethink traditional forms and spatial layouts in the context of local climates and landscape conditions.

This week’s curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture focuses on homes and residential projects located around the world. Drawn from an array of firms and local contexts, they represent proposals submitted by our readers. They showcase both single family and multi-unit homes, from a series of villas for three friends overlooking the Caspian Sea, to a Cambodian countryside retreat and a pine cabin in the Jezzine village of south Lebanon.

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The KPF-Designed 601 West Pender Street was granted approval by the Vancouver City Council. Located next to the city’s historic Rogers Building, the project generates an urban oasis within the city, replacing a six-story parking structure in the Central Business District.

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Morphosis will design a new high-tech global headquarters for lululemon in Vancouver, Canada. Working with Francl Architecture and Clive Wilkinson Architects, the team will create the main office to serve as an extension of the core values of the brand itself. The design for the 13-story headquarters is made to create strong connections between the building and its site, landscape, and community, with exterior and interior spaces that encourage collaboration and innovation.

Revery Architecture has designed a new development of 11 residential towers for the Squamish First Nation in Vancouver, Canada. Working with developer Westbank, the $3-billion project would transform the city’s Kitsilano neighborhood on the reserve lands at Sen̓áḵw. The project will be Canada’s largest development on First Nations land.

Canadian company Henson Developments has released plans to build the world's tallest passive house in Vancouver's West End neighborhood. The 60-story project and rezoning application is being reviewed by the City of Vancouver before it goes to city council for a public hearing. Aiming to earn Passive House certification, the tower was formed to break away from traditional Passive House design approaches.

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Canadian architecture practice Henriquez Partners has designed a series of ten towers for a new suburban development in Vancouver. The mixed-use project was made for developer Westbank to create a new 4.5 million-square-foot residential community for the city. Dubbed Oakridge, the towers will include housing, office and retail as a contemporary architecture for the Pacific Northwest.

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Perkins + Will have revealed a new design for the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper in Vancouver. Called Canada Earth Tower, the mass timber project is designed along the city’s Central Broadway corridor. Bruce Langereis, president of Delta Land Development, unveiled the company’s proposal to transform a 1.3-acre lot at 1745 West 8th Avenue with a project that could rise up to 40 floors. Canada Earth Tower aims to become a new precedent and benchmark for green building construction.

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For ten consecutive years, Vienna ranks first in the Mercer survey on cities with the best quality of life in the world. In this edition to the global ranking, eight Western European cities join the top ten, even when "trade tensions and populist undercurrents continue to dominate the global economic climate", as Mercer points out in its report.