Downtown Vancouver Updates

[jlousa]

Intracorp is taking their lasted proposal tothe DPB on May 4th. This project is at 1301 Davie St.

19-storey mixed-use building comprising 62 market condos,
28 social housing units, and one commercial unit at grade, all
over three levels of underground parking, accessed
off the lane.

[csbvan]

I think I prefer the heritage homes. I would much rather see a 3 story walkup replaced in the west end than character homes.

[Jimbo604]

Originally Posted by Locked In

New Jubilee House at Richards and Helmcken - my photos from today:


IMG_4840 by 604 City, on Flickr


IMG_4841 by 604 City, on Flickr

Hmm wonder if anyone is working on this site today...
See:

CityHallWatch Jan 27th, 2015 - Yaletown residents win case against City of Vancouver about secret land swap 508 Helmcken (BC Supreme Court)

Vancouver Sun Jan 27th, 2015 - B.C. judge kills Yaletown development after flawed land swap process

[Jimbo604]

oops, double post

[yogiderek]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Intracorp is taking their lasted proposal tothe DPB on May 4th. This project is at 1301 Davie St.

west end neighbors no doubt will hate this project like everything else.

[hollywoodnorth]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Intracorp is taking their lasted proposal tothe DPB on May 4th. This project is at 1301 Davie St.

very interested to see the renders. glad to see some more retail fill in that part of davie.

[antonba]

Just a comment on view cones. I used to live in Vancouver, but now live in Seattle. As you know the tallest building here is 960+ feet. But Vancouver downtown still looks more impressive and from outside of downtown the view of the city together with the mountains is even more impressive. If the buildings were taller and were to obstruct the mountains Vancouver would not magically become more impressive. I love towers, but I fully support the view cones idea. I am very much a quality > quantity person and asking for more height is most definitely more quantity. I know you'll disagree, just come live here for a couple years.

[antonba]

And one more comment - from the street level the difference between the 700 ft buildings and that one 960+ ft building is negligible - almost impossible to tell. Usually one needs a good view from more than 1-2 miles away to tell the difference and only from particular locations.

[Infrequent Poster]

Originally Posted by antonba

Just a comment on view cones. I used to live in Vancouver, but now live in Seattle. As you know the tallest building here is 960+ feet. But Vancouver downtown still looks more impressive and from outside of downtown the view of the city together with the mountains is even more impressive. If the buildings were taller and were to obstruct the mountains Vancouver would not magically become more impressive. I love towers, but I fully support the view cones idea. I am very much a quality > quantity person and asking for more height is most definitely more quantity. I know you'll disagree, just come live here for a couple years.

Yes it would.

[osirisboy]

Omg taller buildings would not obstruct the mountains lol. if we had taller buildings downtown the mountains would not disappear. There would still be countless vantage points to see them.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by antonba

And one more comment - from the street level the difference between the 700 ft buildings and that one 960+ ft building is negligible - almost impossible to tell. Usually one needs a good view from more than 1-2 miles away to tell the difference and only from particular locations.

I am with you on both of your comments. Here is a good example how height becomes difficult to perceive after certain height. The viewing platform of Burj Khalifa is located at 452 meters, which is only halfway to the top. Could you really tell it from the photo below?



"Ikkunanpesijät" stands for window washers, who were tangling on the side of the building with their ropes some 400 meters up in the air.

[antonba]

Originally Posted by Infrequent Poster

Yes it would.

The very fact that you say that is sufficient to understand how you think of cities.

Last year I visited New York, Chicago, San Francisco, DC, Houston, Barcelona, Paris and London.

Nothing like what we have in Vancouver.

What makes it great is the attention to the experience of the person on the street - retail, pedestrian space & furniture, light and, for Vancouver, absolutely the views which are like that of no other big city I've ever been to. All of this is because of unmatched urban planning. I wouldn't change a thing with it.

Obviously being on this forum you can tell I like tall buildings. I had very high expectations of New York and it fell tremendously short. They actually have a lot of problems like a hodge podge of sidewalks in various states of disrepair, super loud streets and the 3rd world piles of trash on sidewalk (they have no alleys so they pile mountains of trash bags right next to bus stops and other amenities waiting multiple days for a garbage truck to pick them up). But let's ignore this and say they'll fix it. Lower Manhattan and the area around Central Park where you have tall buildings did not in any way impress any more than CBD/Coal Harbour or Yaletown, save for a small handful of iconic buildings, which impressed not because of their height, but because of their design.

[antonba]

Originally Posted by Klazu

I am with you on both of your comments. Here is a good example how height becomes difficult to perceive after certain height. The viewing platform of Burj Khalifa is located at 452 meters, which is only halfway to the top. Could you really tell it from the photo below?

Yes that was my point - when you add 200 feet, some 700 feet away (to go from a 700ft to a 900ft building) that is not a 25% addition, but probably more of a 5% addition in observable height.

[Infrequent Poster]

Originally Posted by antonba

The very fact that you say that is sufficient to understand how you think of cities.

Last year I visited New York, Chicago, San Francisco, DC, Houston, Barcelona, Paris and London.

Nothing like what we have in Vancouver.

What makes it great is the attention to the experience of the person on the street - retail, pedestrian space & furniture, light and, for Vancouver, absolutely the views which are like that of no other big city I've ever been to. All of this is because of unmatched urban planning. I wouldn't change a thing with it.

Obviously being on this forum you can tell I like tall buildings. I had very high expectations of New York and it fell tremendously short. They actually have a lot of problems like a hodge podge of sidewalks in various states of disrepair, super loud streets and the 3rd world piles of trash on sidewalk (they have no alleys so they pile mountains of trash bags right next to bus stops and other amenities waiting multiple days for a garbage truck to pick them up). But let's ignore this and say they'll fix it. Lower Manhattan and the area around Central Park where you have tall buildings did not in any way impress any more than CBD/Coal Harbour or Yaletown, save for a small handful of iconic buildings, which impressed not because of their height, but because of their design.

Fair enough. I still disagree though. If you think a 960 foot building makes no bigger impression then a 400 foot building with a floorplate a quarter of the size (maybe less) then I really dont know what to say to you.

I can only really give you anecdotal evidence. When I go to seattle the greater height of the buildings is 100% evident to me. almost more so however (as I all ready brought up) the mass or larger floorplates. The buildings without a doubt are more impressive in every way, in my opinion.

Most of seattles buildings seem to be of a high quality and I don't believe because they are taller (then Vancouvers) they are for some reason of a lower quality. In fact I would say in many cases the opposite is the true . I have never understood this argument. Oh you like taller buildings? Well you must want garbage built then because you know quanity over quality....

I have several friends who have come out from back east and have said unprompted..."Wow Vancouver feels so much smaller then toronto , the buildings are tiny here" again anecdotal I know.

As to the last part of your post are you equating taller buildings to trash on the sidewalks and noisy streets? Or could it be you were in the biggest city the united states?

As someone else has pointed out taller buildings are not going to block out the mountains. Vancouver has an impressive and dense skyline, multiple skylines really.....

Would it be more impressive if it was taller? 100% unquestionably yes....In my opinion.

[antonba]

The NYC trash has nothing to do with the tall buildings - as I said, let's imagine they actually can fix that.

But I don't think you understood what I am talking about. I didn't mean people littering. I meant household and office garbage bags being put up on the street for collection as NYC wasn't designed with alleyways where trash containers can be put up. Let me show you a picture I took:



Link

Note that it wasn't much different in front of Empire State either.

Now onto the higher quality aspect. I think you are right that the tallest buildings tend to have a high quality standard. I think it's a result of a competitive market where the building tries to make a statement by both being tall and well-designed (although the same capacity may be achieved at a similar price point with two shorter buildings). Now, Seattle has a few impressive buildings that are indeed high quality and very tall - Columbia Center (960+), WAMU tower (~700), One Union Square (~700), Russell Investments Center (~600)... but this about clears it. Heights do not require good design. There is a number of buildings in the 500-700 range that do not impress at all. The best examples are the Municipal Tower at 722 ft and also The box the Space Needle came in at 630ft.

If there is a height limit and strong competition, then being well designed is still on the table. We are now seeing that Vancouver is getting starchitecture without height - like the Trump Tower and Vancouver House, for example.

Originally Posted by Infrequent Poster

Fair enough. I still disagree though. If you think a 960 foot building makes no bigger impression then a 400 foot building with a floorplate a quarter of the size (maybe less) then I really dont know what to say to you.

I can only really give you anecdotal evidence. When I go to seattle the greater height of the buildings is 100% evident to me. almost more so however (as I all ready brought up) the mass or larger floorplates. The buildings without a doubt are more impressive in every way, in my opinion.

Most of seattles buildings seem to be of a high quality and I don't believe because they are taller (then Vancouvers) they are for some reason of a lower quality. In fact I would say in many cases the opposite is the true . I have never understood this argument. Oh you like taller buildings? Well you must want garbage built then because you know quanity over quality....

I have several friends who have come out from back east and have said unprompted..."Wow Vancouver feels so much smaller then toronto , the buildings are tiny here" again anecdotal I know.

As to the last part of your post are you equating taller buildings to trash on the sidewalks and noisy streets? Or could it be you were in the biggest city the united states?

As someone else has pointed out taller buildings are not going to block out the mountains. Vancouver has an impressive and dense skyline, multiple skylines really.....

Would it be more impressive if it was taller? 100% unquestionably yes....In my opinion.

[antonba]

Let me put it another way. I like height and do of course give it bonus points. But I'd give far more bonus points for good design. I like the Vancouver House design, for example. It's 500 ft and that's fine. Let's say you watered down the design but allowed the building to grow taller. How much taller would it have to be to impress me? I'd say 2000-3000 ft. You get far more bang for your buck with good design and in Vancouver, no loss of views.

And one more comment - larger floorplates are horrible - they block views from surrounding buildings, they produce cavernous offices where people are far away from windows and natural light and they lead to a darker street environment. I absolutely love the skinny towers that Vancouver has and that now finally NYC is copying in projects like 432 Park Ave (which is otherwise a pretty boring box despite being 1396 ft).

[Infrequent Poster]

Originally Posted by antonba

Let me put it another way. I like height and do of course give it bonus points. But I'd give far more bonus points for good design. I like the Vancouver House design, for example. It's 500 ft and that's fine. Let's say you watered down the design but allowed the building to grow taller. How much taller would it have to be to impress me? I'd say 2000-3000 ft. You get far more bang for your buck with good design and in Vancouver, no loss of views.

And one more comment - larger floorplates are horrible - they block views from surrounding buildings, they produce cavernous offices where people are far away from windows and natural light and they lead to a darker street environment. I absolutely love the skinny towers that Vancouver has and that now finally NYC is copying in projects like 432 Park Ave (which is otherwise a pretty boring box despite being 1396 ft).

Lets say you dont water down the design. How about a 700 foot vancouver house? On par with the building in Calgary. Same design just 200 feet taller. You say you like height and you like the design of Vancouver house. So isnt this better then? I'm not trying to convince you, just trying to understand.

Vancouver doesnt need any 3000 foot towers in my opinion. But some more 600-800 foot buildings would balance the skyline nicely, and if a few of these buildings were to be built and they blocked a bit of a part of a fraction of a view of a mountain, I would not shed a tear.

[hankthetank]

Originally Posted by Infrequent Poster

Lets say you dont water down the design. How about a 700 foot vancouver house? On par with the building in Calgary. Same design just 200 feet taller. You say you like height and you like the design of Vancouver house. So isnt this better then? I'm not trying to convince you, just trying to understand.

Vancouver doesnt need any 3000 foot towers in my opinion. But some more 600-800 foot buildings would balance the skyline nicely, and if a few of these buildings were to be built and they blocked a bit of a part of a fraction of a view of a mountain, I would not shed a tear.

Thanks goodness we have had view cones in place for a while. Imagine if back in the 70's and 80's some developers were allowed to build big ugly concrete buildings to whatever height they wanted. Yuck. The thing that makes Vancouver so amazing is it's natural beauty. Why are people so obsessed with height? We have such a small downtown that a giant tower would feel like it's looming over the city. I just don't understand the obsession with height.

[Infrequent Poster]

I give up. Every single time this is the argument. Height equals shitty building design. It really doesnt though.

This really isnt the place for this discussion anyways I suppose.

One day I hope they build a wall of 70 floor highrises along broadway,ugly ones too. Well they're tall so they are obviously ugly right? These buildings would block out all views of the precious, precious mountains and a large amount of sun.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Infrequent Poster

Fair enough. I still disagree though. If you think a 960 foot building makes no bigger impression then a 400 foot building with a floorplate a quarter of the size (maybe less) then I really dont know what to say to you.

I can only really give you anecdotal evidence. When I go to seattle the greater height of the buildings is 100% evident to me. almost more so however (as I all ready brought up) the mass or larger floorplates. The buildings without a doubt are more impressive in every way, in my opinion.

Most of seattles buildings seem to be of a high quality and I don't believe because they are taller (then Vancouvers) they are for some reason of a lower quality. In fact I would say in many cases the opposite is the true . I have never understood this argument. Oh you like taller buildings? Well you must want garbage built then because you know quanity over quality....

I have several friends who have come out from back east and have said unprompted..."Wow Vancouver feels so much smaller then toronto , the buildings are tiny here" again anecdotal I know.

As to the last part of your post are you equating taller buildings to trash on the sidewalks and noisy streets? Or could it be you were in the biggest city the united states?

As someone else has pointed out taller buildings are not going to block out the mountains. Vancouver has an impressive and dense skyline, multiple skylines really.....

Would it be more impressive if it was taller? 100% unquestionably yes....In my opinion.

A bigger impression? What is that, the equivalent of whipping it out and seeing whose is bigger?

At street level it doesn't matter at all as one doesn't really register what's above four stories. Unless you walk around staring upwards at all times.