One Wall Centre | 149.8m | 48fl | Completed

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by Klazu

They have almost reached the bottom and only the notch area remains. Once they reach it, the platform will separe into 3 pieces. 2 of the pieces around the building will return to the roof and disassemling them will commence, while the 3rd one around the notched area will continue another 10 floors down. They are currently setting up a timelapse camera to record this happening.

This is going to happen this Friday. Interesting weekend coming.

[Klazu]

Only the notch remains. It's going to feel strange to see the building without the stage soon.

[Klazu]

As told, today the stage was moved up so that they can begin splitting it to a smaller part that will be used for completing the notch area. I was at home to witness the stage move once more past our floor. This is the operating speed the stage moves up or down.

• Video Link

Then to the cool part. Thanks to the photos I have taken from this project and that seem to have traveled the internet, I was today given an exclusive peek to see how things look up on the roof of One Wall Centre!

Elevator takes one to the 48th floor. From there you take short stairs one more level up and you will find yourself inside the large "fin" structure. It's an open space and you can see the mast above you. The tip of the mast is standing 157.80 meters above the ground.



The roof itself is 137.16 meters above the ground and is surprisingly large. There is an easy and safe railing that will guide you around the fin. As part of the project, the scaffolding company has installed 18 large towers on the edge of the roof that hold the stage up.







Each towers has an electric motor that are in sync and move the stage up or down.





On a beautiful day it's an amazing place to work, high above the streets of Downtown Vancouver!



I live only few floors below, but up here the view is still something else. It's such an open space without any boundaries and one can see far into cities. Here are some photos of Yaletown.

Projects around Granville Bridge area.


Just imagine Burrard Gateway and many other buildings appearing in this view in next few years.


Yaletown


Looking east from roof of Downtown.


I was really lucky to get to spend 10 minutes up there and see how the magic happens. Thanks to all the great guys working on this challenging and exciting project.

[spm2013]

Glad you got a reward for all the time you've put into photographing the project!

[red-paladin]

Thanks again for your excellent photo journal of the reclad process and all the extra photos.

[Sir Conga]

Thanks indeed, Klazu! Huzzah!

[trofirhen]

Amazing panoramas! Thank you.
Informative, too. I notice in the lower photos that the streets immediately adjacent to Granville of have old, low-rise, and presumbably developable properties.
Wonder what the downtown peninsula will be like in another 15 years?

[Pinion]

Great photos, Klaus. I took similar shots from the top of TD tower about half a decade ago for my first post on this forum - would've been fun to compare them, but I think they're lost forever. They were just starting to build the towers above Costco at that point.

[Locked In]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Great photos, Klaus. I took similar shots from the top of TD tower about half a decade ago for my first post on this forum - would've been fun to compare them, but I think they're lost forever. They were just starting to build the towers above Costco at that point.

This post? http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=2940979#post2940979

Get that Canucks Central account back on line!

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Great photos, Klazu. Thanks for documenting this project so thoroughly!

[Klazu]

Thanks guys, always a pleasure.

[vitc]

Klazu, thanks so much for the photos - truly amazing views. You are so lucky

[Graham_Yvr]

I wonder why they replaced one floor of glass into the hotel portion. The metal band was a perfect demarcation point, now the transition is more obvious. Oh we'll, it's better in any case. I just hope they complete the "v".

[osirisboy]

And right above that there is clear glass. —?

[Klazu]

Oh boy. The thick fog from weekend is gone and what an unpleasant surprise it has revealed.

I knew they were changing windows all the way down to floor 31, which is the lowest condo floor and not part of the hotel hotel, but some how I didn't add 1+1 and realize that it means they will go one floow below the 1/3 line.

I must say the result doesn't look very good on a cloudy day.







I am not sure why the condo owners on floor 31 having the old reflective dark glass even wanted to chip into this expensive renovation, as I was under impression there wasn't that much of an issue from heat or lack of privacy with the old glass.

Fortunately the building looks this two-tone only on a cloudy day, as could have been seen from my previous photos, but then again this is Vancouver.

I wonder what Peter Wall thinks of the end result, as to my understanding his biggest issue was always with the two-tone looks, which didn't get really addressed here. Such a shame.

[Prometheus]

The aesthetics of this project have been botched.

The two colours don't match. That's bad enough. But what is unacceptable is that the change in colour occurs at an utterly illogical point.

The result is a building that looks improperly finished, as if an unintentional mistake was made during the glazing process and awaits resolving. Except that no resolution is coming (at least not for another twenty years or more, if ever).

We may have lamented that the beautiful, original blue glass wasn't allowed to cover the entire building. I know I did. But at least the difference between the blue glass and the clear glass appeared intentional. And, most importantly, the change in glass occurred at an appropriate, sensible point. Thus, although not as beautiful and pure as it could have been, the older building still appeared relatively coherent and competently built.

I can hardly believe it, but I think this project (which I was very excited for) has actually rendered our best modern tower somewhat laughable.

Originally Posted by Klazu

[rsxstock]

so what now? all that time and money that did not accomplish their goal

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by rsxstock

so what now? all that time and money that did not accomplish their goal

It has accomplished the main goal of keeping residential suites cooler and providing better privacy, there is no question about that. But the uniform looks goal is not accomplished on cloudy days, which is a shame.

One would think they have been looking at a piece of old glass and new glass next to each other in all possible lighting conditions, so this can't be a surprise to those making the decision. Shame that it fails to deliver on cloudy days, although it looks lovely in those few sunny days we get.

I need to take more comparison photos in different weather, but yeah, it is somewhat dissapointing for the gorgeous building itself. Damn you, City of Vancouver board of 2000!

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by rsxstock

so what now? all that time and money that did not accomplish their goal

EDIT: Klazu beat me to the punch.

[Klazu]

[Prometheus]

Why on earth would they replace a perfectly good floor of the original reflective glass, especially when doing so would also make the building look stupid?