Archinect - News

Patkau Architects chosen to design new Presentation House Gallery in Vancouver

2013-01-26T11:34:00-05:00

Vancouver-based Patkau Architects has been chosen to design Presentation House Gallery's new home at the foot of Lonsdale Ave. One of Canada’s most notable architectural firms, Patkau's buildings include the Beaty Biodiversity Museum in Vancouver and the new School of Art at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, currently under construction.

Pop Rocks: Soft Urban Boulder Field

2012-10-04T14:22:00-04:00

Vancouver hosted a fascinating hybrid of public spatial art and waste material upcycling in its downtown area this summer: Pop Rocks, a temporary installation that covered a full city block. The project is fabricated entirely from post-consumer and post-industrial waste from the metropolitan Vancouver region.

The installation, an equal collaboration between Matthew Soules Architecture and AFJD Studio (Amber Frid-Jimenez & Joe Dahmen), 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.

Dark realities lurking in Vancouver

2012-06-22T12:47:00-04:00

What people said concerned them the most was a growing sense of isolation and disconnection. They said we live increasingly in silos, separated by ethnicity, culture, language, income, age and even geography. They lamented what they saw as a deepening civic malaise that has resulted in more people retreating from community activities. They said this corrosion of caring and social isolation hurts them personally and hurts their community.

Regardless of its textbook urban success with its new buildings, neighborhoods, geography and living standards, Vancouver also faces some disturbing truths about creeping isolation, loneliness, racial and ethnic intolerance and other psychosocial urban perils. Perhaps these are due to over gentrification and other actions, but recent survey by the Vancouver Foundation focuses on some tough issues in the community and raises critical questions most other economically developed cities are also facing.

Did hi-end urbanization become a socially divisive trend? Sort of walled living for the individuals with their own kind? And what would the long term effects of these new problems be?

Somethings to ponder as we call this "an urban century" and most urbanisms these days are associated with "upgrading" the neighborhoods.

BIG’s 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe Tower for Vancouver

2012-04-17T14:38:00-04:00

Copenhagen darlings BIG have unveiled their design for the 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe tower in Vancouver, a collaboration with Westbank, Dialog, Cobalt, PFS, Buro Happold, Glotman Simpson and local architect James Cheng. The new mixed-use tower marks the entry point to downtown Vancouver, forming a welcoming gateway to the city, while adding another unique structure to the city's skyline.

After the first leaked renderings from a few weeks ago, here some official images from BIG directly.

Can wooden skyscrapers transform concrete jungles?

2012-03-18T23:48:00-04:00

Swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world. Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17- and 20-story buildings that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete.

Beach & Howe Tower Proposal Vancouver BIG Tower Bjarke Ingels Group

2012-02-14T18:37:00-05:00

The proposal is for a mixed-use development. On the Howe Street side, there will be a 49-storey residential tower with a 9-storey podium which includes market rental housing, commercial uses, and a childcare facility. The building height is at 150 metres and will be the tallest building on the southern end of downtown and the 4th tallest building in the city, unless the Ritz Carlton site gets developed before this, in which case it would be the 5th tallest.

High-tech greenhouse planned for downtown Vancouver parkade rooftop

2011-12-14T20:25:34-05:00

The inside of the greenhouse will be anything but ordinary. Four-metre-high stacks of growing trays on motorized conveyors will ferry plants up, down and around for watering, to capture the sun’s rays and then move them into position for an easy harvest. The array will produce about the same amount of produce as 6.4 hectares (16 acres) of California fields, according to Christopher Ng, chief operating officer of Valcent.

LEED Platinum Vancouver Convention Centre Takes Home Top Ten AIA COTE Award

2011-04-26T15:52:49-04:00

When the Vancouver Convention Centre was first completed we were totally blown away by its gorgeous (and huge!) green roof as well as its many green features. So we weren't surprised when the convention centre was recently recognized by the AIA landing its place among the Committee On The Environment's (COTE) Top Ten Green Projects.

The gorgeous green-roofed Vancouver Convention Centre was just recognized by the AIA as being one of this year's Top 10 Green Projects.