The Ultimate Vancouver Rumour Thread!

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

The city did identify W Georgia as a major corridor where buildings of significant architectural excellence can penetrate a view cone, so far no one has taken the plunge on that one though.

East of Granville? Could you kindly link to a city document where that policy is described? Indeed, could you link to any city document that allows for a penetration of a viewcone other than the Queen Elizabeth Park viewcone anywhere in the city? As you may know, West Georgia (and all of downtown) is smothered by numerous viewcones other than the Queen Elizabeth Park viewcone.

[LeftCoaster]

I may be wrong, policy for higher buildings does in fact seem to end at Seymour.
http://guidelines.vancouver.ca/H005.pdf

I thought it did have a blanket provision for Georgia and Burrard St but I can't seem to find it.

[Prometheus]

Yep. Unfortunately, current city policy forbids the construction of buildings higher than about 90 metres on West Georgia east of Seymour. The office tower of Telus Garden is the tallest building we will ever see in this part of downtown under current city policy, a policy that Vision has no intention of changing or compromising on. Indeed, they doubled-down on this policy with their biased survey from a few years ago.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by csbvan

I hadn't even thought about Canada Post. Another interesting possibility.

I think that the fact Canada Post came to mind for me just reflects my age more than anything else....

[LeftCoaster]

Haha, well I'm sure they aren't interested in paying downtown rents unless they end up in a federally owned building. Wouldn't be shocked to see them take some space if whatever gets built at the Sinclair Centre, but that may be a decade out at best.

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Yep. Unfortunately, current city policy forbids the construction of buildings higher than about 90 metres on West Georgia east of Seymour. The office tower of Telus Garden is the tallest building we will ever see in this part of downtown under current city policy, a policy that Vision has no intention of changing or compromising on. Indeed, they doubled-down on this policy with their biased survey from a few years ago.

Honestly if anyone has any skills in web design they should start a website to get the ball rolling on a campaign to reform the viewcones. There are a few particularly egregious and ridiculous ones that should be assessed and making a lot of noise will likely trigger a discussion at the very least. Viewcones 9.1 and 9.2 really hamper a LOT of the east side where there is a ton of development potential, personally I'd focus on those two.

[Klazu]

Nice, Amazon in three buildings must mean a future employee base of over 1000 in their Vancouver campus which is huge! That talent pool alone will surely help to attract other big players too, as they tend to follow and cannibalize each other.

Now, what if Telus Garden's protruding box would be extended over Seymour to make a two-level bridge across the street? That would be quite interesting...

Thinking more about it, Amazon should by the naming rights from Telus to have Telus Garden renamed to Amazon Garden (Garden of Amazon?) to better reflect who the true big player there is.

[chrisel]

Great article on Westbank & Ian Gillespie in Archinect with a few mentions of their present projects.
http://archinect.com/features/article/15...at-appreciates-the-value-of-architecture

Includes these juicy tidbits:

So when it came up in a meeting in my office here, Bjarke and Thomas [Christoffersen] and his team were in—I think we were probably working on combination of King Street, which is in Toronto, and a project in Vancouver on Beatty [Street].

I have got Kengo Kuma doing a new Starbucks in the base of one of the buildings here.

I have five or six projects with Kengo Kuma right now, Bing Thom’s office, and then some local Vancouver architects.

.. we’ve got another office and residential project they’ve (BIG) designed for us in Vancouver, which we are [working with] the city on the rezoning of. They’ve got a power station here in Vancouver that they’ve designed.

We’ve got four projects in Seattle going up, half a dozen projects in Toronto and about a dozen here in Vancouver.

Well we spent quite a bit time with Ando. I had him come to Vancouver and put on a lecture with me here. We’ve had conversations off and on on a couple projects; it just hasn’t come to fruition yet. But I am sure we will do something with him quite soon. Same with Toyo Ito—we’ve been working on a project off and on for the last few years. Jean Nouvel, I think, would probably be right at the top of that list. We have a project in Vancouver that we are going to be reaching out to him [about] this weekend. Renzo Piano I think would be on that list. Obviously Herzog.

Looks like the project at Beatty might also be BIG-designed since Toronto's Ziggurat-esque project is already making it's way through their DRP. I wonder what else Westbank's planning among those dozen projects

[connect2source]

Link doesn't work, love the read about it.

[chrisel]

Originally Posted by connect2source

Link doesn't work, love the read about it.

Fixed.

[mcminsen]

Originally Posted by chrisel

Great article on Westbank & Ian Gillespie in Archinect with a few mentions of their present projects.
http://archinect.com/features/article/15...at-appreciates-the-value-of-architecture

Includes these juicy tidbits:



Looks like the project at Beatty might also be BIG-designed since Toronto's Ziggurat-esque project is already making it's way through their DRP. I wonder what else Westbank's planning among those dozen projects

Thanks for the link. Interesting read.

I clicked on an article Archinect had about Vancouver House and noticed one of my photos.

[urbancanadian]

Originally Posted by chrisel

Great article on Westbank & Ian Gillespie in Archinect with a few mentions of their present projects.
http://archinect.com/features/article/15...at-appreciates-the-value-of-architecture

Includes these juicy tidbits:

Looks like the project at Beatty might also be BIG-designed since Toronto's Ziggurat-esque project is already making it's way through their DRP. I wonder what else Westbank's planning among those dozen projects

These preliminary renders were posted about a year and a half ago. I'd be surprised if this was still the design. If it is, I'm sure the finished product would look very different anyways.

Originally Posted by Ted Sheckler

Originally Posted by officedweller

I think that the fact Canada Post came to mind for me just reflects my age more than anything else....

If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure I'm younger than csbvan and Canada Post came to mind for me as well.

Originally Posted by Klazu

Nice, Amazon in three buildings must mean a future employee base of over 1000 in their Vancouver campus which is huge! That talent pool alone will surely help to attract other big players too, as they tend to follow and cannibalize each other.

Now, what if Telus Garden's protruding box would be extended over Seymour to make a two-level bridge across the street? That would be quite interesting...

That would be pretty cool. Especially if they extended the LED lighting along the underside like it is now.

[officedweller]

Thanks.

WRT the stream plant site - hopefully they'll revise the design, because that plan had way too many windows (residential?) facing the BC Place Northern Lights display.

[Vin]

Hope they don't make it fat like the original design, although I have to say it looks really good, but would work better in places like Kitsilano or Olympic Village. Should be slimmer and taller in order not to block more of BC Place Stadium.

[EdinVan]

Originally Posted by Vin

Hope they don't make it fat like the original design, although I have to say it looks really good, but would work better in places like Kitsilano or Olympic Village. Should be slimmer and taller in order not to block more of BC Place Stadium.

In its infinite wisdom, I believe the city's intention is to block the view of BC Place as much as possible.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by EdinVan

In its infinite wisdom, I believe the city's intention is to block the view of BC Place as much as possible.

They have overtly stated that their intention is to not block views of the stadium if it can be avoided.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

They have overtly stated that their intention is to not block views of the stadium if it can be avoided.

Then they need to let the building go way taller. Can't have all the restrictions and expect the building to achieve the required FSR and most importantly, unique design.

[LeftCoaster]

Agreed

[trofirhen]

This is the building that faces The Exchange and complements it, 466 Howe.
Anyway, I wonder if anything could be done to enhance this building also.

https://www.google.fr/maps/@49.2853459,-...btRl7skEKCNhW5g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=fr seems to work okay

[Feathered Friend]

As 1444 Alberni is now public, I thought I would keep our little rumor mill active by saying that this should herald the start of an interesting 2 month period for the West End.

[jlousa]

You figure the interesting developments will come before the summer break? I'm more leaning to after.