The design for this office tower at 555 West Cordova is creating quite a stir, with former planning director Ray Spaxman describing it as “the Martian has landed,” development consultant Michael Geller deploring it generally, and former Globe reporter Rod Mickleburgh calling it a “glass carbuncle.” Ray’s comments in detail (with others chiming in) over on Gord Price’s blog.
Cadillac Fairview’s application for the building, which does NOT require a rezoning, only a development permit, is here, including the explanation from the architects, or some set of people, on why they think the design enhances and complements the waterfront and former train station next to it.
I happened to notice, when I opened the documents for this application, that the deadline for public comment is tomorrow. Speak now or hold your peace until the development permit hearing on March 9.
18 responses so far ↓
1 spartikus // Jan 21, 2015 at 2:52 pm
It’s kind of awful. As in terrible.
Especially since that spot is the perfect place for an outdoor, German-style beer garden. Others might not share my view 😛
2 Silly Season // Jan 21, 2015 at 3:16 pm
The best you can say about this particular design of building—which would look great on the Georgia Street corridor—is that it isanely placed. In Gastown. As in ‘heritage. Like Chinatown.
Oh, wait. This is Vancouver, after all.
Never mind.
3 Tiktaalik // Jan 21, 2015 at 4:58 pm
Neat building, but wrong place for it. I actually like mixing modern and heritage (Flats on Georgia is great in Chinatown IMO), but the way this building creeps over the train station isn’t right.
This parking lot should be mostly an open square. That’s one thing I think most people should be able to agree on.
4 spartikus // Jan 21, 2015 at 6:25 pm
A beer garden is in essence an open square!
5 Warren12 // Jan 21, 2015 at 7:38 pm
I don’t like it in that area, but I want to like it just to piss Geller off.
6 Tiktaalik // Jan 21, 2015 at 8:03 pm
The developer would probably hate this, but one of the better uses for this space to be something similar to the square in the centre of Hayes Valley, San Francisco. Here they constructed a bunch of small footprint shops out of shipping containers. Last time I was there there was a clothing store, ice cream store, bicycle repair shop, coffee shop, and a BEER GARDEN.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@37.776442,-122.42431,3a,75y,113.89h,72.64t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sk_mkZCmrJJzrELwHhhT2MQ!2e0?hl=en
7 jenables // Jan 21, 2015 at 8:09 pm
This is one occasion where I can happily say I DO share your view! That thing they have planned is hideous and completely, utterly out of place… to the extent that it looks squashed up against the train station… roll eyes
8 jenables // Jan 21, 2015 at 8:12 pm
I know, couldn’t they have put, like, a Faberge egg building or something less hideous.. which would be pretty much anything… a house made from a shoe, perhaps… maybe I’ve been reading too much Fables (the comic) but it is a nice escape from this reality!
9 logan5 // Jan 21, 2015 at 10:20 pm
The render suggests that most of the view to the North Shore mountains will be preserved and there will be a nice plaza area that otherwise would not be there without some accompanying development. I hope the depiction of the glass is an honest one and not just condo grade glass with exaggerated reflective qualities.
We’ll see I guess. My feeling is that this building could end up looking a bit tacky, especially in the midst of early 20th century architecture. Hope I’m wrong.
10 Internet made me obsolete // Jan 22, 2015 at 11:46 am
The idea of rain-soaked, wind-swept plazas in Vancouver is funny. What, there’s not enough places to assemble a mob already? Design looks like a very efficient bird-killer, all that shiny glass reflecting the sky. Shows its backside to and blocks the views from the Sears tower north-facing offices.
If you think it’s ugly, look across the street at the parkade. You won’t look for long. A complete waste of very valuable downtown real estate, but you can’t go very far underground on the north side of the peninsula before you hit granite bedrock.
While we’re on the subject of ugly, have you seen Chip Wilson’s $57Million concrete bunker on PGRoad? Maybe it’ll look better when they cover it with stretchy fabric.
Some corner-cutting developer is putting three more-or-less identical stucco boxes with flat roofs on the NE corner of PGR and Alma. Dozerbait in 20 years, but multi-million dollar properties on a calmed street for now, the corner lot with spectacular views to north and west across the park.
Who gets to decide of a building is ugly or appropriate or too big or whatever? If it fits the zoning (or even re-zoning) isn’t that good enough? Must taste also be politicized along with sexual activity, medical treatment choices, religious belifs and everything else?
11 ChrisD // Jan 23, 2015 at 11:52 am
I won’t get into the debate about building design because no building at all is the right solution in this spot. This site has all the attributes of a great urban space- wonderful sturdy buildings on a human scale flanking it on both sides, a fabulous bustling waterfront and the perfect dimensions for an cosy, outdoor living room. Isn’t this exactly the type of space Jan Gehl’s talks about in “Life Between Buildings”? The CIty could buy the site, transfer the development rights and create a piazza of jaw-dropping beauty. The City could even make a good income by renting the edges of the piazza to bars and restaurants. This is what I wrote about the space in 2006 for a CBC competition on great urban spaces:
” Sometimes on my way to work I get off my bus two stops too late just to
check how my favorite city space is doing. Just like all special city
spaces, a dramatic statue welcomes you. It is a war memorial of a bronze
angel carrying a soldier to heaven. Two very fine heritage buildings
frame the square. The former CP railway station with its sturdy red
brick is on the west side of the square, while a handsome old warehouse
is on the east side. The north side opens up to a sweeping, unobstructed
view of the spectacular waterfront.
There is only one little problem with my space. It is actually a
parking lot for 72 cars. The other morning when I passed by, only two
cars were there. A tourist was poking his camera through the shabby
chain link fence, and taking a picture of the North Shore Mountains in
the golden morning sun. And at the quay a gleaming white cruise ship
loomed out of the sharp blue waters like an iceberg. In the foreground,
the West Coast express was pulling in, a SkyTrain was pulling out, and a
freight train was shuttling its bright red containers back and forth.
I smile to myself that while Vancouver is famous for getting so many
things right, it still devotes this incredible space to 72 cars. Then a
thought flashes through my mind and I run to the pay and display sign. A
parking spot is $2.50 for a half/hour or the bargain rate of $15.00 a
day. So for just over $1000 I could buy all the spaces for a day. I
would then rent some chairs and umbrellas and scatter them across the
space and just watch what happens. Imagine the tourists and office
workers all stopping and enjoying my city space.”
12 Lysenko's Nemesis // Jan 24, 2015 at 7:43 am
More important than the carved, glass curtain-wall facades of this inverted crystalline office shard is the site, and the relationship and ramifications to the immediate area.
As Ralph Segal points out on Gordon Price’s blog, allowing the construction of this design is expedient for the development of the site. We will have a taller structure for the financial benefit of the developer, instead of a design that would straddle the rail tracks to the immediate north of present floor plate. This would then change the value and any future neighbouring developments over the other sections of the rail tracks.
13 Jeff Leigh // Jan 24, 2015 at 11:09 am
Aren’t there two additional buildings going in to the north? One immediately north of this proposed building, and one north of the station, both straddling the tracks? People seem to be evaluating this building in isolation, and not considering the broader plan.
14 Brilliant // Jan 25, 2015 at 3:39 pm
What’s the broader plan? Throw as much density into the area as fast a you can to reward developers?
15 Jeff Leigh // Jan 25, 2015 at 11:29 pm
How about providing office space close to a key transportation hub?
The broader plan I was referring to is called the Central Waterfront Hub Framework, and is dated 2009. I don’t know how much of it still stands, and it is a framework and not a detailed development plan, but I wonder why all the debate about this one proposed building, and none about the area. People are talking about views to the water as if this is intended to be waterfront. One concept drawing from the linked plan is shown below. Note that the building under discussion is labelled 11.
http://former.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/guidelines/C031.pdf
16 Ralph Segal // Jan 26, 2015 at 10:44 am
Thanks, Jeff, for posting Hub Framework Illustrative Concept Plan which portrays the broader vision for this precinct and remains entirely relevant today. The Plan shows the tiny quadrilateral building (light brown – labelled 11 – for 11 storeys) envisioned for the subject parking lot site containing a modest 65,000 sq. ft. of floor area as well as the “Cordova Connector” (street) at the parking lot’s east edge, which is critical to serve the future Transit Concourse and high density development over the rail tracks. The proposed development, at 26 storeys and 408,000 sq. ft., may be considered as a Development Application under the present Discretionary Downtown Zoning, rather than a rezoning, because the parking lot is still contiguous with the large site of The Station (has not been sub-divided off). This technicality allows the developer and the City to say that the proposed 408,000 sq. ft. is permissible under the zoning which allows 7 FSR (Floor Space Ratio) over the entire site. However, “permissible” does not necessarily mean it is desirable. And this is what has provoked the debate – the recognition by many concerned that all this floor area, that might have fit comfortably on the full site had The Station not been there, results in an overly bulky, massive building when jammed onto the relatively small parking lot hard up against the heritage Station.
In our present context of maximizing development in proximity to existing and future transit modes, in the interest of stretching and struggling to find reasonable solutions that still maintain best principles of urban design and respect for heritage, I’ve described in my latest PriceTags post is an alternative that looks at the density that would be permitted under zoning at 7 FSR applied to the parking lot site alone. This results in approximately 205,000 sq. ft. of floor area, about half the proposed 408,000 sq. ft. This amount of density, in the capable hands of architects Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, could be sensitively positioned and sculpted within its 26 storey height to achieve an elegant tower development that will enhance rather than detract from this precinct by improving the Public Realm and responding creatively rather than clumsily to its heritage context. How ‘bout it, Cadillac Fairview and City of Vancouver?
17 Ralph Segal // Jan 27, 2015 at 9:09 am
OPPS! Just looked up on line the Downtown Zoning. Apparently, 11 months ago (Feb. 2014), Council increased the density downtown and in this area, it went from 7 FSR to 9 FSR (Floor Space Ratio – “permitted” floor area x site area). Hard to keep up with these permitted discretionary density increases….but the same issues on this site prevail – the density/floor area of this development should be significantly reduced to achieve a better fit.
18 peakie // Jan 29, 2015 at 1:20 pm
HOWEVER
Controversial ‘origami’ glass tower design struck down by Vancouver panel
bt FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jan. 29 2015, 12:01 AM EST
Last updated Thursday, Jan. 29 2015, 10:50 AM EST
theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/controversial-origami-glass-tower-struck-down-by-vancouver-urban-design-panel/article22695709/
The design for a controversial glass tower on Vancouver’s waterfront that has been called everything from “origami” to “the blob” to “the icepick” didn’t get approval in its first pass at the city’s urban design panel.
The panel, a group of architects and engineers who provide advice to the city planning department, said the 26-storey tower crowded too close to the city’s heritage Waterfront Station, a former train station that is now a central transit hub.
The current design, by internationally renowned Chicago architects Gordon Gill and Adrian Smith, shows a glass building rising from a narrow base close to the east side of the station and curving over its roof, with windows angled like the facets of a diamond.
“I admire your work and I’m very happy to see you working on a project in the city,” Vancouver architect Matthew Soules told the two. But, he said, “the proximity and overhang of the tower to the station is ultimately a disservice to the dignity of the station. By positioning the tower so close, it appears that (a future connecting road on the other side) is more important than one of the city’s civic structures.”
Mr. Soules, like others on the panel, said the 1914 station is one of this young city’s few historic buildings and needs to be respected.
As well, the building, on a site that is currently a private parking lot between the station and the Steamworks restaurant and pub, doesn’t do enough to make the public feel welcome, the panel said.
They noted that, whether owner Cadillac Fairview likes it or not, the public has come to see that parking lot – along with the view of the mountains and water from it – as their space. Cadillac Fairview also owns Waterfront Station.
Architect Jennifer Marshall suggested creating a winter garden that would extend through the lobby of the building, turning the whole ground floor, as well as the plaza outside, into a public space.
In spite of the criticisms, almost all the panel members agreed that the building fits with the city’s future waterfront plan to have an office tower of that height and density there.
They also didn’t have a problem with the very modern design next to the station, saying that many cities have shown that the blend of old and new can be attractive.
The office tower, which is not a rezoning because it fits within existing height limits, has generated considerable public debate in the last two weeks, after a couple of prominent architects and planners complained about it.
Former city planner Ray Spaxman, who referred to the building at one point as the “Martian” that had landed, said the architects didn’t seem to have considered the sensitivities of the historic buildings around when they came up with their design.
The city’s heritage commission approved the design in the fall in a 6-2 vote.
It’s not unusual for a prominent building to get sent back to the architects the first time by the city’s urban-design panel, which operates more like an architecture-school design studio rather than a court.
In fact, Mr. Smith sat as a guest on the panel years ago to review what is now the new Trump project on Georgia Street, which didn’t get approval the first time.
The two architects said they recognized the building was going to be a challenge from the start, because it has to fit into the existing city, with the historic buildings around it, but also lead the way to the future city.
“The building is a gateway to that future,” said Mr. Gill. “It’s a future most people can’t see yet.”
As well, they had to work with numerous city restrictions, including Vancouver’s notorious view cones meant to protect mountain views, various setbacks, and city planners’ concern about not having the building hang over a future connector road that will be run between the tower and Steamworks when the waterfront is built out.
In fact, it came as a surprise to some members of the public that, according to the city’s waterfront hub plan finalized in 2009, the downtown will be extended over the existing tracks and down to the waterfront behind train station. Several new towers are envisioned for that area.
Vancouver’s general manager of city planning has said he’s considering holding an open house so the general public can comment on the project.
The city has received about 100 messages from the public, pro and con, about the tower proposal, said Brian Jackson.
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City design panel rejects controversial Waterfront tower proposal
Members say 26-story design a bad fit beside heritage train station
By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun January 29, 2015 10:29 AM
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/City+design+panel+rejects+controversial+Waterfront+tower+proposal/10768804/story.html