Project Tag: Current

River District OCP

River District, also known as East Fraser Lands, is embedded in layers of rich history, and meaning. Our design for the Waterfront Precinct seeks to unite the community with the Fraser River, making the riverfront an inseparable part of the East Fraser Lands experience. As the ‘soul’ of the project, the Waterfront Precinct includes the pedestrian-oriented High Street (now named River District Crossing), that gently curves towards the water, opening views out to the river, and terminates at a highly active and unique waterfront area.

The precinct contains the tallest buildings in the East Fraser Lands, making it the focal point of the community. All these buildings feature a mix of uses and a variety of housing tenure options including affordable, rental and market housing units. The Community Centre, local shops and services, waterfront retail, riverfront parks and plazas form part of this area and are key components of this vibrant waterfront.

Area 1’s master plan process (OCP and rezoning) has concluded, while Area 3 is currently in-process.

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Harlin

Harlin (River District Parcel 29) is a gateway tower to the waterfront precinct of the River District. It will function as both a conduit and a platform for the emergent urban life of the waterfront area. The courtyard space between Parcel 29 and Parcel 30 to the south will act as an important public space for local residents. We have imagined the building edges and courtyard spaces as moments of interference to the predominant flow of people running north south along river district crossing. Inspired by the river ‘Eddy’ we imagine that the spaces around the building can offer opportunities for people to pause and to gather.

The central public space is a critical gathering area for the neighbourhood, connecting to the future public areas to the south and the future community centre. The central courtyard is characterized by a terraced grassy knoll that offers a unique connectivity to the adjacent building edges adjacent to it. The ‘rippled edges’ of the cast-in-place ribbed façade profile reference the site’s history in the heavy logging industry and proximity to the Fraser River.

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Ardea

Ardea is located in the southwest precinct of Area 2 of the East Fraser Lands. This precinct’s identity draws from its naturalistic setting and the established appeal of the Kerr Street pier. Eight blocks frame a gently curving east-west street envisioned as a richly landscaped pedestrian-friendly environment. Terraced mid-rise blocks frame a series of generous garden spaces opening onto the foreshore and modulate the streetwall along the Kent Avenue corridor.

Ardea sits at the eastern end of Riverwalk Ave and adjacent to the future Kinross Park. It is also bound by the Fraser River and foreshore walkway to the south. The project is envisioned as a series of building pavilions within the landscape. The lush, naturalized landscape is welcomed into the site and abuts each building. The simple rectilinear forms of the buildings are situated as a counter point to this organic landscape.

Visit Ardea by Wesgroup

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Band

Band is located along one of Coquitlam’s main transit corridors, near the Evergreen Line’s Burquitlam Station. The project features a continuous dark clad ribbon that wraps the podium perimeter and extends up both towers to unify the massing, reduce the apparent width of the towers, and announce the main entry points. At-grade commercial units along North Road and ground-level two-storey townhomes for both the north rental tower and south condo tower contribute to the pedestrian-focused public realm.

The storefront and townhome frontages share a strong language of recessed vertical piers to create individual bays, while a similar horizontal gesture helps break down the height of the taller tower to provide deeper terraces and common rooftop decks. Numerous public and private gathering spaces are designed into various rooftops.

Visit Band by Townline

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Marina Centre

Marina Centre is a large mixed-use development in the San Miguel neighbourhood of Lima. The project represents a new vision of what urban living in Lima could look like. It inverts the recent vernacular of inward-looking courtyards, gates, and fences and turns the building to face the street. The four towers are arranged around a multi-level central outdoor public mall with a continuous edge of retail on the three street faces.

The terraced building forms are shaped to allow for maximum daylighting of the public spaces both at grade and on the various upper-level terraces. The project includes a supermarket, theatre, offices, gym, hotel, residential apartments, restaurants, and retail. Designed with the local community in mind, the building offers an opportunity to reinvigorate a part of the city that has not seen a lot of investment in recent years.

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East Hastings & Semlin

East Hastings and Semlin is located along a major transit arterial in the heart of the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood, close to the active Commercial Drive corridor. Along with at-grade retail and live-work units, an outdoor ‘urban room’ contributes to the vibrancy of the public realm, anchoring the corner of the building and connecting the building to the life of the street. The idea of movement – referencing the active pedestrian, bike, and vehicle movement along East Hastings Street – is articulated in the building’s facade, where the pattern of angular bays can be appreciated from various speeds and perspectives.

Sawtooth balconies highlight this sense of dynamism while optimizing building energy performance with a simplified envelope. Inspired by the neighbouring light industrial buildings, textured cladding reinforces the building’s angles and adds visual interest throughout different lighting conditions. All units enjoy private outdoor space as well as a shared rooftop amenity terrace with views of Downtown Vancouver and the North Shore Mountains.

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Northern Junk

Located at the head of the Johnson St Bridge between Old-Town and Inner-harbour, currently isolated between Reeson Park and Bridgehead Green Park, the site offers the potential to complete a key piece of the public realm and neighbourhood revitalization. It consists of a multi-unit residential apartment building set atop the existing Northern Junk heritage warehouse buildings that are to be rehabilitated and incorporated into a mixed-use development.

It brings together active ground level uses, new housing options, and an integrated public access and extension of the public waterfront walkway.

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