I counted 10 tower cranes on the site today, plus one of those remote controlled Potain self-erecting cranes.
I have a hunch there will be several more tower cranes on the site. There are 16 distinct buildings in the Olympic Village precinct and if even three or four share cranes that still leaves a couple more tower cranes to go up at the very least.
The first building at the south west corner of the property is now a storey above ground. It is a market building of maybe 10 or 11 storeys. Beside it is a non-market building that should be at-grade in a couple weeks. Those were the first two buildings to make it through the City's development process. The rest are all following like cars on a train.
I was at the Urban Design Panel on Wednesday. The Wall Centre / Playhouse complex passed. It is a four-tower scheme with 399 units and a 43K foot space for the Playhouse Theatre company including admin space, a rehersal hall, a production shop, storage, and a 200 - 250 seat black box theatre space. The Playhouse occupies the entire podium on the western half of the block-long project. Each half of the block supports two towers ranging from 154ft to 125ft and a podium that ranges from 3 to 5 storeys. On the base of the eastern half of the project the podium will be surrounded on three sides, including the laneway, by live/work townhouses, many of which will feature over-height two-storey "work" areas fronting on the street while the "live" area can be locked off and also enter from the same sort of internal hallway as the apartments. On the Manitoba Street frontage there will be several retail storefronts, including a restaurant/large coffee shop that wraps around the corner of Manitoba and 1st. The streetcar will have a stop in the median at 1st and Manitoba.
The main entrance to the Playhouse space and the theatre is off of the mid-block pedestrian walkway, complete with its own intersection across 1st and adjoining walkway through the property fronting on 2nd ave. The glass entrance pavilion for the Playhouse is ~ 40ft tall and the top half of it will be a folded/crenelated glass curtainwall that will look like a theatre curtain that has been lifted to reveal the lower, slightly set back entrance and marquee of the Playhouse. Sounds neat.
Regarding landscaping, there is a three-part narrative. The ground plane is about the history of the site as a ship building and industrial area. There will be some industrial artefacts and the original shoreline will be marked at several places. The podiums are the second part and they are all about sustainability. Each one has an intensive green-roof and there will be a small apple orchard, urban agriculture plots, and local ornamental trees. The third layer is the roofs of the towers themselves and these are about restoring habitat. They will be green roofs that will be largely given over to nature so that they can be a home for birds and indigenous plants. There will be no public access to these uppermost roofs.
The towers themselves will have two elements to each. The north and eastern faces of most of them will be sleek modern curtain walls while the south and west sides will have bands of extended floorplate sun shades and smaller, punched windows to reduce the solar gain of the towers. As many balconies have been place on the west side as possible to maximize their utility and to have them act as solar shades for the primary living areas below. The overlook guidelines of SEFC require that no two primary living areas directly face one another across lanes to improve privacy in lieu of the conventional 80ft spacing that is in place for towers everywhere else. The towers and podiums in SEFC and especially in the Olympic Village will be much closer than anything we're used to in Vancouver over the last couple decades. This place will feel very different, that's for sure.
All in all the Wall Centre is shaping up to look like typical Vancouver tower-podium buildings that has been squashed, sewn together, and planted with trees and green. The key for me is how these buildings meet the street and how the first few floors are programmed and I am excited about this project because I think it addresses the public realm very well. The live/work townhouses have a fair shot at actually being used as an interesting form of retail since they have so much space and height compared to most "live/work" suites. I especially like that the townhouses wrap completely around the building, including the laneway, which will be quite different in SEFC than elsewhere in the city. They will have a cement runnel in the centre and two wide strips of asphalt beside this. On the outside edges will be poured concrete or cement paver "sidewalks".
That's all I've got for now.
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