A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
From the Globe, by Rochon:
Time to build outside the box
Lisa Rochon
The Globe and Mail
Jan 11, 2007. pg. R3
With a new planner at the helm, the city has a chance to shake up the way it builds. And as the 2010 Olympics loom, there's a new sense of urgency, LISA ROCHON writes
Beneath every shift in the ground, every calamity, lies goodness -- and some troubling truths. Vancouver's chief uber- planner, Larry Beasley, has resigned his post to become a special adviser to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. With Beasley gone, the city has lost its tireless, shrewd deal maker and the maker of many urban design rules which were becoming, frankly, oppressive. A rip in the fabric of the city has opened.
There's a feeling of unrest in Vancouver. What once was a dense rain forest at the edge of Stanley Park overlooking Burrard Inlet has been demolished by wind. Maybe now Vancouverites will start to yearn for urban grit and daring in design -- for the unpredictable sleight of hand.
It's hard to imagine Vancouver without Beasley, its urban godfather. Actually, Beasley was the co-director of planning along with Ann MacAfee. He muscled his way into prominence, demanding what no other city planner in Canada could ask from developers, ensuring plenty of public amenities and spearheading major new high-density developments that were the envy of North America. MacAfee looked to long-range planning schemes and made the administration tick along.
Now, the co-directors have been replaced by one person. Brent Toderian, 37, a planner who actually always wanted to be a lawyer, with nine years with a workhorse planning consultancy based in Kitchener, Ont., before becoming chief subdivision planner in Calgary, the Canadian city with the fastest-growing suburbs.
Sounds crazy, I know. But Toderian is a good-natured player with a desire, he says, to create some iconic architecture in Vancouver. "Vancouver is in an ideal situation," he says. "The quality and consistency of architecture and urban design is there and yet we're in this fascinating discussion about the potential monotony of it."
In the past, he has worked against overwhelming odds in small-town Ontario and the fringes of Calgary to attempt to effect change. Most recently, he was Calgary's manager of centre city planning and design, a force behind a new centre city plan and special downtown projects such as the expansion of the Calgary Stampede. He doesn't have the depth of experience or the vision of a Larry Beasley.
But he's young and has energy to burn. Maybe that's what Vancouver needs, an upstart with a sunny disposition who'll let architects design.
Over the past decade, Vancouver has developed a culture of urban rules rather than a culture of great design. There are rules for just about any move an architect might want to make. There are endless view corridors or "cones" that need to be respected. There is the 80-foot distance between towers. There is the requirement to step back buildings to minimize shade, and the need for window walls to allow for natural light. There are areas zoned to height limitations of 250 feet, or 350 feet or, in rare exceptions, 650 feet. There is the favoured landscape of symmetry.
"It's a huge challenge for the new director," says Bing Thom, a prominent Vancouver architect. "We've become a victim of our own success. There's smugness and fear of change. The planning department knows what it wants, the architect knows what the planning department wants and nobody dares to rock the boat. Everybody is in bed together. The podium-tower formula keeps getting stamped out in Vancouver, because everybody knows that will get quick approval."
Bing Thom should know -- he has tried to rock the boat in Vancouver. His design for the Hotel Georgia Tower, one of the city's most coveted sites and historic properties, featured a sexy crystal tower, its upper levels sculpted like shards of ice with sharp angles and myriad corners.
Maybe it was a matter of too much of a building program and an inability of the developer to finance the project, Larry Beasley says from his Vancouver home office.
"It didn't surprise me when there was a sale of the property and new architects and new attitudes," he says, referring to the purchase of the hotel by its new developers, the Singapore-based Delta group with Goodman Real Estate of Seattle.
Now, the proposed tower by IBI/HB Architects and Endall/Elliot Associates has been squared up and dumbed down. The promise of high-tech wizardry such as solar panels on the exterior doesn't help with the pain of what has been traded away. The hotel closed on Jan. 2 in order to prepare for the massive $275-million renovation. A golden opportunity to produce something astonishing has been lost.
"The Beasley regime was so formulaic," charges James Cheng, another of Vancouver's major architects who designed the 60-storey Shangri-La luxury hotel and residence currently under construction on West Georgia Street in the city's downtown. The sleek, minimal design will become Vancouver's tallest tower when it opens in 2008 and is expected to rise about 20 storeys above its neighbours.
Beasley himself agrees that the time is ripe for making great architectural statements in the city, opportunities that will present themselves through the reinvention of cultural institutions such as the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Iconic architecture can also come in small packages, especially when the world is watching. The design of the 2010 Olympic Athletes' Village has been a process fraught with kingmakers, loads of money and the inappropriate selection of the original architect. The Millennium Group purchased the 2.5-hectare site for the otherworldly sum of $193-million. Its owners, Vancouver brothers Peter and Shahram Malek, have produced a previous portfolio of Beaux Arts wannabes in Burnaby, Vancouver and West Vancouver, so it wasn't surprising that they selected as architect the American star of "modern traditionalism," Robert Stern, who is also the dean of Yale University's school of architecture. Stern swept into Vancouver, declared the absence of meaningful architecture and called for the 11-block site at False Creek to be transformed into a fishing village. Thankfully, local architects screamed and the city's powerful urban design review panel balked. Stern was unceremoniously dismissed.
Now, Stern's joint-venture architect, Paul Merrick Architects, is being put through the wringer to transform parts of the so-called fishing village into something that looks like it belongs to Vancouver. Two days ago, the architects submitted plans to the panel for a series of pavilion buildings with flat roofs that serve as heavily landscaped gardens. Things are looking up, says Scot Hein, head of the city's urban design studio. "An innovative and exuberant architecture has replaced what was there before. The French classical fishing village has gone by the wayside."
But the struggle is far from over. Since Stern left town in the fall, Arthur Erickson Architects has been hired to take over and design one of the sites he was going to work on, as well as a community centre in joint venture with Walter Francl Architect. The most significant commission is to design the signature residential block with a major courtyard that opens directly onto False Creek. "It's hectic," says architect Nick Milkovich, the long-time partner of the legendary Arthur Erickson. "I'm worried that we can't do justice to it and we'll be designing as they are pouring foundations."
With Beasley, the city organized an environmental cleanup of the Olympic site, which historically served not as a fishing village but as a place of industry and sawmill operations. An island in the shape of an egg, to be reached at low tide on foot, is being built. How to create sustainable water and energy infrastructure is being organized.
But don't ask for remarkable architecture -- there's no time for that. The city established the six-to-13-storey massing of the Olympic Village long ago. "Unfortunately, in Vancouver, nobody had the guts to make a bold statement," Cheng says.
And now drawings for development permits for Erickson's residential complex need to be delivered to the city in one week. "There's not much play there," Milkovich says, referring to the rules around setbacks and shadow and sustainable built-ins. "It's so hectic that I don't know if design adventure is part of the game. It's just getting it done."
lrochon@globeandmail.com
_________________________________________________
An excellent article that highlights the pitfalls Toronto should avoid when coming up with an urban design regime.
AoD
Time to build outside the box
Lisa Rochon
The Globe and Mail
Jan 11, 2007. pg. R3
With a new planner at the helm, the city has a chance to shake up the way it builds. And as the 2010 Olympics loom, there's a new sense of urgency, LISA ROCHON writes
Beneath every shift in the ground, every calamity, lies goodness -- and some troubling truths. Vancouver's chief uber- planner, Larry Beasley, has resigned his post to become a special adviser to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. With Beasley gone, the city has lost its tireless, shrewd deal maker and the maker of many urban design rules which were becoming, frankly, oppressive. A rip in the fabric of the city has opened.
There's a feeling of unrest in Vancouver. What once was a dense rain forest at the edge of Stanley Park overlooking Burrard Inlet has been demolished by wind. Maybe now Vancouverites will start to yearn for urban grit and daring in design -- for the unpredictable sleight of hand.
It's hard to imagine Vancouver without Beasley, its urban godfather. Actually, Beasley was the co-director of planning along with Ann MacAfee. He muscled his way into prominence, demanding what no other city planner in Canada could ask from developers, ensuring plenty of public amenities and spearheading major new high-density developments that were the envy of North America. MacAfee looked to long-range planning schemes and made the administration tick along.
Now, the co-directors have been replaced by one person. Brent Toderian, 37, a planner who actually always wanted to be a lawyer, with nine years with a workhorse planning consultancy based in Kitchener, Ont., before becoming chief subdivision planner in Calgary, the Canadian city with the fastest-growing suburbs.
Sounds crazy, I know. But Toderian is a good-natured player with a desire, he says, to create some iconic architecture in Vancouver. "Vancouver is in an ideal situation," he says. "The quality and consistency of architecture and urban design is there and yet we're in this fascinating discussion about the potential monotony of it."
In the past, he has worked against overwhelming odds in small-town Ontario and the fringes of Calgary to attempt to effect change. Most recently, he was Calgary's manager of centre city planning and design, a force behind a new centre city plan and special downtown projects such as the expansion of the Calgary Stampede. He doesn't have the depth of experience or the vision of a Larry Beasley.
But he's young and has energy to burn. Maybe that's what Vancouver needs, an upstart with a sunny disposition who'll let architects design.
Over the past decade, Vancouver has developed a culture of urban rules rather than a culture of great design. There are rules for just about any move an architect might want to make. There are endless view corridors or "cones" that need to be respected. There is the 80-foot distance between towers. There is the requirement to step back buildings to minimize shade, and the need for window walls to allow for natural light. There are areas zoned to height limitations of 250 feet, or 350 feet or, in rare exceptions, 650 feet. There is the favoured landscape of symmetry.
"It's a huge challenge for the new director," says Bing Thom, a prominent Vancouver architect. "We've become a victim of our own success. There's smugness and fear of change. The planning department knows what it wants, the architect knows what the planning department wants and nobody dares to rock the boat. Everybody is in bed together. The podium-tower formula keeps getting stamped out in Vancouver, because everybody knows that will get quick approval."
Bing Thom should know -- he has tried to rock the boat in Vancouver. His design for the Hotel Georgia Tower, one of the city's most coveted sites and historic properties, featured a sexy crystal tower, its upper levels sculpted like shards of ice with sharp angles and myriad corners.
Maybe it was a matter of too much of a building program and an inability of the developer to finance the project, Larry Beasley says from his Vancouver home office.
"It didn't surprise me when there was a sale of the property and new architects and new attitudes," he says, referring to the purchase of the hotel by its new developers, the Singapore-based Delta group with Goodman Real Estate of Seattle.
Now, the proposed tower by IBI/HB Architects and Endall/Elliot Associates has been squared up and dumbed down. The promise of high-tech wizardry such as solar panels on the exterior doesn't help with the pain of what has been traded away. The hotel closed on Jan. 2 in order to prepare for the massive $275-million renovation. A golden opportunity to produce something astonishing has been lost.
"The Beasley regime was so formulaic," charges James Cheng, another of Vancouver's major architects who designed the 60-storey Shangri-La luxury hotel and residence currently under construction on West Georgia Street in the city's downtown. The sleek, minimal design will become Vancouver's tallest tower when it opens in 2008 and is expected to rise about 20 storeys above its neighbours.
Beasley himself agrees that the time is ripe for making great architectural statements in the city, opportunities that will present themselves through the reinvention of cultural institutions such as the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Iconic architecture can also come in small packages, especially when the world is watching. The design of the 2010 Olympic Athletes' Village has been a process fraught with kingmakers, loads of money and the inappropriate selection of the original architect. The Millennium Group purchased the 2.5-hectare site for the otherworldly sum of $193-million. Its owners, Vancouver brothers Peter and Shahram Malek, have produced a previous portfolio of Beaux Arts wannabes in Burnaby, Vancouver and West Vancouver, so it wasn't surprising that they selected as architect the American star of "modern traditionalism," Robert Stern, who is also the dean of Yale University's school of architecture. Stern swept into Vancouver, declared the absence of meaningful architecture and called for the 11-block site at False Creek to be transformed into a fishing village. Thankfully, local architects screamed and the city's powerful urban design review panel balked. Stern was unceremoniously dismissed.
Now, Stern's joint-venture architect, Paul Merrick Architects, is being put through the wringer to transform parts of the so-called fishing village into something that looks like it belongs to Vancouver. Two days ago, the architects submitted plans to the panel for a series of pavilion buildings with flat roofs that serve as heavily landscaped gardens. Things are looking up, says Scot Hein, head of the city's urban design studio. "An innovative and exuberant architecture has replaced what was there before. The French classical fishing village has gone by the wayside."
But the struggle is far from over. Since Stern left town in the fall, Arthur Erickson Architects has been hired to take over and design one of the sites he was going to work on, as well as a community centre in joint venture with Walter Francl Architect. The most significant commission is to design the signature residential block with a major courtyard that opens directly onto False Creek. "It's hectic," says architect Nick Milkovich, the long-time partner of the legendary Arthur Erickson. "I'm worried that we can't do justice to it and we'll be designing as they are pouring foundations."
With Beasley, the city organized an environmental cleanup of the Olympic site, which historically served not as a fishing village but as a place of industry and sawmill operations. An island in the shape of an egg, to be reached at low tide on foot, is being built. How to create sustainable water and energy infrastructure is being organized.
But don't ask for remarkable architecture -- there's no time for that. The city established the six-to-13-storey massing of the Olympic Village long ago. "Unfortunately, in Vancouver, nobody had the guts to make a bold statement," Cheng says.
And now drawings for development permits for Erickson's residential complex need to be delivered to the city in one week. "There's not much play there," Milkovich says, referring to the rules around setbacks and shadow and sustainable built-ins. "It's so hectic that I don't know if design adventure is part of the game. It's just getting it done."
lrochon@globeandmail.com
_________________________________________________
An excellent article that highlights the pitfalls Toronto should avoid when coming up with an urban design regime.
AoD
