Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion | Completed - Page 2

Canadian Mind · #21 Posted **Nov 22, 2007, 6:17 PM**

hmm... Orgasmic. I like it.

raggedy13 · #22 Posted **Dec 7, 2007, 8:04 AM**

Pics from today...

SFUVancouver · #23 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 1:02 AM**

Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion (Burrard and Canada Place Way?)

My photos ( SFUVancouver in SSP | Vancouverite in SSC )

raggedy13 · #24 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 1:47 AM**

Awesome pic SFUVancouver.

ardecila · #25 Posted **Jan 27, 2008, 8:26 AM**

I'm constantly impressed by Vancouver's ability to uncannily mimic Manhattan. The mountains in the background are a giveaway, but they DO make it possible to go skiing just 1/2 hour outside the city. Try doing that in New York.

This convention center is awesome, with a great design. I wish McCormick Place had sprung for a huge green roof; it's by far the largest roof in the city.

Down_Under_the_El · #26 Posted **Jan 27, 2008, 8:17 PM**

^ good idea for McCormick

Looks very well integrated.. are you going to be able to walk on the roof?

mr.x · #27 Posted **Jan 27, 2008, 8:22 PM**

^ unfortunately, no.

SFUVancouver · #28 Posted **Feb 4, 2008, 11:47 PM**

From Canada Place.

(My photo, taken February 4th, 2008)

Looking north from the driveway of the Shaw Tower. The Fairmont Pacific Rim is to the right.

(My photo, taken February 4th, 2008)

Looking northeast from the walkway to Harbour Green Park.

(My photo, taken February 4th, 2008)

Looking east from Harbour Green Park.

(My photo, taken February 4th, 2008)

For comparison, I took the following picture in late spring last year.

(My photo, taken June 29th, 2007)

SFUVancouver · #29 Posted **Feb 14, 2008, 12:30 AM**

(My photo, February 13th, 2008)

SFUVancouver · #30 Posted **Apr 9, 2008, 6:27 AM**

A couple of great shots of the Convention Centre from Harbour Green Park

Quote:

Originally Posted by raggedy13

A few pics from today. Unfortunately my battery died right after the second pic so I couldn't get any more than that.

SFUVancouver · #31 Posted **Apr 11, 2008, 3:55 AM**

A few shots of the Convention Centre from different perspectives. I paid extra attention to the interesting new steel work on the west side of the structure.

My photo, taken April 10th, 2008.

My photo, taken April 10th, 2008.

A detail shot of the footings for the Convention Centre that will assist marine life. It looks more like it will keep pirates from boarding.

My photo, taken April 10th, 2008.

Lastly, the main staircase from the Seawall to the street grade is coming along.

My photo, taken April 10th, 2008.

mr.x · #32 Posted **May 18, 2008, 4:34 AM**

City's Signature Roof
Plan is to cover convention centre top with dense green vegetation

Pete McMartin, Vancouver
Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008

At the moment, the grandest and most ethically ambitious architecture in the city -- the green, living roof of the new convention centre -- resembles a hair plug job. There's a lot of bald up there.

It's sparse, but growth proceeds. They started planting it two weeks ago, and crews are working their way across the six-acre roof sewing and digging in more than 750,000 plants. A green blush appeared on the canvas of the roof's dark-brown growing medium of pumice and organic matter.

It's hairing up.

They aren't plants you find in the typical urban garden. They're not gaudy flowers, but tough, mundane survivors. There is common thrift and Hooker's onion and chamiso sedge. There is beach strawberry and broad-leafed stonecrop and silverweed. There is bent grass and pearly everlast and quatro sheeps fescue. All of them are indigenous to B.C.

They've been planted about six inches apart on a predetermined grid, and the plan is that by August, they will have grown together to cover all the bare spots and form a dense green, foot-tall mat of vegetation. When it's complete, it will be the largest green roof in Canada. For something so low-lying and organic, it's a very big architectural statement -- an enormous verdant horizontal in the midst of a vertical downtown.

More than the new convention centre itself, more than the sails of the old convention centre or the stockade of highrise condos ringing Coal Harbour, the roof will be the signature architecture of all those things Vancouver wishes itself to be -- green, environmentally compatible and living. It's the imagined future -- not green like Stanley Park, but an attempt to let the rough edges of the wild leak into the urban setting. It will be a little unkempt, and an extension of that which presses up so close to the city.

"The theme of this roof," said Bruce Hemstock, the roof's landscape architect, "is B.C. coastal grassland. And I say that sort of loosely because it's difficult to recreate a coastal grassland on a roof. But esthetically, that's what we're going after.

"Practically, did we take coastal grassland plants and put them on the roof? No, because they're completely different ecologies. But we tried to create a roof that looks like that and functions like that."

The template, Hemstock said, was Triangle Island, a craggy Gibraltar-like rock at the northern tip of Vancouver Island. It's a bird colony for murres and puffins, and shawled in a blanket of tough, low-lying greenery. It's exposed to wind and salt air and rain and hard summer sun, all the environmental challenges that the plants on the roof will face. It's tough growing up in the wild: it might be tougher in the city.

Hemstock has no doubt the roof will be a success, though some doubts about its viability have been expressed. Nothing this big in Canada has been attempted, and if the roof greenery does fail to take -- and for such a wide expanse, the harsh environmental factors of drought, wind and salt air will be all that much more difficult to address -- then fixing it will be no easy matter. Or cheap. You can't just re-tar a green roof.

But Hemstock sees no reason why it shouldn't. All the plant types have been tested in similar conditions for hardiness. An irrigation system, using the grey water from the convention centre itself, and recycled rain water captured by drains on the roof, will be used to get the plants through periods of drought.

And at fruition, Hemstock sees an ecosystem that will help cool the building during summer, and keep it marginally warmer during the winter. It will greatly reduce the "heat island" effect that conventional roofs contribute to in urban settings. It will extend the life of the roof by shielding it from ultraviolet rays. It will produce oxygen and absorb pollutants. It will muffle the sound of float planes. It will provide a home to nesting songbirds and colonizing insects. It will also be a helluva lot less ugly to look at. If all goes well.

Maintenance?

Weeding crews and weed whackers. There is a limit to the roof's shagginess, Hemstock said, and when the grasses reach a foot and a half or so, it'll get a haircut.

But the one big irony of the green roof?

Few will see it. It's 10 stories above the street. For safety and maintenance reasons, there will be no public access to it. Office workers and residents in the highrises around the convention centre will look down on it, and conventioneers will only be able to see smaller portions of it where lower levels of the roof have been planted.

For the man on the street, whose tax dollars paid for it, the roof will remain a feel-good idea, not a visible tangible. The grandest and most ambitious architectural statement in the city will be unseen.

The plants, and the birds and insects that live there, will have the place to themselves.

pmcmartin@png.canwest.com or 604-605-2905

How about installing cameras atop the roof?

SFUVancouver · #33 Posted **Jun 13, 2008, 12:05 AM**

The built form of the new convention centre is now clear. It will be a great addition to Harbour Green Park and this section of the Seawall. The Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel/condo tower across the street is starting to really head skyward. It will ultimately be 140 metres in height.

My photo, taken June 12th, 2008

The main staircase from the Seawall to the Convention Centre plaza is nearly done.

My photo, taken June 12th, 2008

The silver lining about all of the recent unseasonably wet weather is that it was just perfect for the green roof to take root before the hot summer weather hits.

My photo, taken June 12th, 2008

The new Convention Centre and Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel as seen from the Harbour Centre lookout tower.

My photo, taken June 12th, 2008

SFUVancouver · #34 Posted **Jun 16, 2008, 7:50 AM**

Taken by SFUVancouver, June 15th, 2008.

SFUVancouver · #35 Posted **Jul 16, 2008, 6:05 PM**

July 15th update

The new convention centre as seen from a curiously deserted Harbour Green Park portion of the Seawall

Taken by SFUVancouver, July 15th, 2008.

The new convention centre from Harbour Green Park

Taken by SFUVancouver, July 15th, 2008.

SFUVancouver · #36 Posted **Aug 8, 2008, 1:46 AM**

Taken by SFUVancouver, August 7th, 2008.

Taken by SFUVancouver, August 7th, 2008.

The green roof is coming along nicely.

Taken by SFUVancouver, August 7th, 2008.

This is the structure for one of the two restaurants that will be part of the convention centre precinct.

Taken by SFUVancouver, August 7th, 2008.

The new convention centre as seen from Harbour Green Park.

Taken by SFUVancouver, August 7th, 2008.

And lastly, the view from Stanley Park on a hot and hazy summer afternoon.

Taken by SFUVancouver, August 7th, 2008.

mr.x · #37 Posted **Dec 7, 2008, 3:32 AM**

credits to raggedy13:

Click for larger:

Coldrsx · #38 Posted **Dec 9, 2008, 6:34 PM**

love the wood incorporation... still meh about the rest.

SFUVancouver · #39 Posted **Apr 3, 2009, 2:10 AM**

Whether it was planned or just spontaneously happened, today around noon the grounds of the new Convention Centre were overrun with people exploring the new seawall, plaza, street, etc. I came back mid afternoon with my camera and found that some of it had been blocked off and the weather had turned sour. Never the less, here are some shots I took.

Taken by SFUVancouver, April 2nd, 2009.

SFUVancouver · #40 Posted **Apr 4, 2009, 10:20 PM**

Taken by SFUVancouver, April 4th, 2009