The Post
The Post
Covering a full city block, the Post on Georgia is the largest heritage revitalization project in British Columbia. The former Main Post Office building, an International Style landmark in Vancouver, is reimagined as a centrepiece for the growing downtown community with high tech office space, restaurants, retail, and a new public plaza. Two new office towers create a contemporary extension of the existing building while being respectful of the existing heritage elements.
Within the existing heritage structure, the development provides two levels of underground parking, retail opportunities on the first four levels, and office and parking above in the top three levels. The towers above are articulated to establish a formal relationship with the base and surrounding context, while a contrasting material palette distinguishes old and new. Each elevation has a distinct identity using solar shades and window detailing to echo proportions of the heritage façade and develop a visual hierarchy of scales.
Concept & Renders
MNP Tower
MNP Tower
The MNP Tower is defined by its sculptural massing and silhouette resulting from careful consideration given to three adjacent heritage buildings. The building’s mid-block, compact site was previously occupied by the University Club between the Marine Building and Guinness Tower. The 35 storey office tower integrates the restored heritage façade of the University Club building while completing the block of three buildings owned by Oxford Properties.
The site size and contextual relationships yield an innovative massing and floorplate response. A grade, a plaza provides mid-block connectivity between Hastings and Cordova Streets, and a pedestrian link between the Marine Building and Guinness Tower. Above, teardrop-shaped floorplates of approximately 8,000 sf maximize views from within the tower and from adjacent buildings. The cornice of the building forms a peaked crescent and concave massing that not only references but embraces the adjacent Marine building.
Concepts & Renders
B6
B6
The 31 -storey office building includes a 3-storey retail podium with below grade parking. The massing of the building conforms to the heights of the site view cone parameters, celebrates its corner location and resolves the intersection of the two downtown street grids. The three storey podium continues the street massing of Pender Street and provides a receptacle for the singular form of the tower. A canopy element visually holds these two forms together and provides weather protection and a statement of entry.
All roofscapes are activated and accessible with two private roof terraces at the top and a larger roof terrace at level four, accessible to all tenants and associated with the building’ s overall amenity space offering. Triple glazing and glass solar shading are the major components of a high quality building envelope. The horizontal external expression recognizes and enhances the differing solar orientations and cardinal “gateway” vistas that provide orientation of the building within the downtown core.
Renders & Development
Vancouver Centre II
Vancouver Centre II
The building is a thirty-two storey office building connected at the lower level to existing retail shopping. This new class A office building will augment the existing Vancouver Centre Complex. The ground floor lobbies are connected along Seymour Street with an Atrium. The new building includes new amenities such as fitness centre, premium end-of-trip-facilities and bicycle storage, 6th level podium terrace and 27th level sky terrace. The building will have above and below grade parking to replace the existing parkade.
To meet future expansion, the above grade parking is designed to allow conversion to office use as parking demands reduce in the downtown district. The form generated conforms to limits of the site, its mid-block nature, and view cone guidelines. Special attention and detail have been given to connecting the ground plane between the two office towers.
Concepts & Renders
1628 Scotia Street
1628 Scotia Street
A unique infill development located near the western end of the CN Rail Vancouver main yard. It includes laboratory space, office space, and a large rooftop amenity.
The building structure is designed to accommodate the dual uses of laboratory and office spaces in two separate volumes, each with its own planning modules, structural requirements, and core-to-wall depths. This is achieved by averaging the required front and side yard setbacks at different building heights, creating a continuous vertical expression of the building form. A louvre pattern, echoing the nearby train tracks, is integrated with the massing, visualizing a transition between the opposite corners. The main entrance, pulled out towards Scotia Street, is emphasized with a dramatic canopy.
Renders & Development
550 Cambie Street
550 Cambie Street
The project site is located mid-block on Cambie Street between Dunsmuir and Pender Streets in the Crosstown neighborhood of Vancouver and within the Central Business District (CBD) Extension area. The proposed development is a 264,009 sqft and 22-storey office building providing approximately 258,245 sqft of office space with 5,764 sqft of retail at grade.
The building‘s architectural expression is a sculpted form achieved by a process of subtraction in response to contextual constraints. What meets the ground as a rectangular form is transformed through a terraced low rise base, angular high rise tower form to create a ‘crystalline’ building that addresses the site and its relation to nearby Victory Square. The building form is driven by a deep recognition of the significance of Victory Square throughout the entire calendar year. Sculpting the upper portion of the building yields a building form that balances the generation of job space with the preservation of the quality of space within Victory Square. The resultant volume is broken down into various components through massing and façade articulation in order to relate to context and produce legible architecture. These components can be organized into three elements: base, low-rise, and tower. The unique façade expression is informed by both the building’s historical context and performative building envelope design. The texture created on the façade responds to fenestration qualities found within the retained Cleland-Kent building façade in addition to buildings within the immediate context of Crosstown, Gastown, and Chinatown.
Renders & Development
625 West Hastings
625 West Hastings
The proposed development is a 150,611 SF, 30-storey office building with 2 levels of below-grade parking, accessed by two vehicle elevators. The massing conforms to the heights of the site’s view cone parameters. The office tower is broken down into three equal parts that gradually recess and relate to the proportions of the adjacent heritage Royal Bank building. Pattern and articulation are created on the façade by the varying depths of vertical fins. Clear anodized aluminum extrusions provide contrast and detail while maintaining a connection to the existing heritage façade and floor levels. The structure of the new office will create a unique opportunity to design a new lateral loading resisting system that can support both buildings while providing a seismic upgrade to the Royal Bank.
The proposed building plays its part in completing the streetscape along Hastings Street while maintaining its own unique quality.
Related Projects
220 Prior Street
220 Prior Street
The project site is located at the Prior and Station Street, 220 Prior Street. At the northwest corner of the future St.Paul’s Hospital site, this will be the first medical building in the Healthcare Precinct in the FLATS district. The program calls for 100,00 sf of strata medical office, industrial and retail uses. Keltic’s development is a once in a lifetime opportunity to own office space steps from the new St. Paul’s Hospital and Health Campus, the most innovative delivery of integrated care in B.C. and Canada. This strata office project is the ultimate convenience for medical professionals.
The building is conceived as a marker, a buoy. The location of the site sits on the shoreline of the eastern half of the false creek before being filled in for development in 1914 for the National Pacific Railway. This point of intersection has historical significance that needs to be acknowledged. The investigation of form progressed in a series of proto-type studies, first through a simple form, informed by the industrial set-backs. Applying thoughts of medical instruments to this notion of a buoy. The question of how to express the history of industry and blend with a place for healing (in a western sense). The future of this area will bring down the viaducts and create a new context across this medical campus. Residence and medicine across the street from each other. Industrial colors don’t only come in black.
Related Projects
First West Credit Union
First West Credit Union
This 6 storey building concept with average 20,000sf floors fulfils the spatial and technical needs of the First West Credit Union with a superior workspace that is highly visible at an important junction in Langley: 200th St. and Hwy. 1. It is a comfortable, functional and efficient workspace with amenities that is an architectural statement but is also a building with meaning that promotes “pride of place”.
Credit Unions embody the moral of one of Aesop’s Fables (600BC): “strength in unity.” This building is composed of slightly different linear forms that are bundled together to represent a stronger unified form. This concept recalls the metaphor Aesop used: “this bundle of sticks you cannot break, take them singly, with ease, you may break as you please”.
Related Projects
Luxe on No 3 Road
Luxe on No 3 Road
Luxe on No. 3 Road will be a catalyst development at the heart of Richmond’s evolving City Centre Lansdowne Village. The project vision is for an urban, transit-oriented development that will establish a new urban core in Richmond. The proposal aligns with the vision set forth in the Area Plan that identifies the intersection of No. 3 Road and Lansdowne to be the “Centre of the City Centre”.
The proposed form of development is 4.0 FAR and includes three 15 storey residential towers and a single 12 storey office building over a mixed-use podium. Two levels of parking are located below grade with two additional partial parking levels located on the interior of the site within the podium. A 10m dedication on Lansdowne Road extends the Lansdowne Linear park across the south end of the site. The project proposes a total of 345 Market Condo Units, 20 Affordable rental units, made up of a diverse mix of studio, one, two, and three bedroom units. At grade, there is 6,000 sqFT of Community amenity space committed to RCD. There is approximately 12,000 sqFT of retail CRU at grade and 80,000 sqFT of office space.
Concepts & Renders
