one-seventh.ca

It’s called ‘Citadel Parade’ - yeah, that’s right ‘Parade’. Oh, um, by the way, it’s one block long.

But I’ll let that go and redirect my critical eye to that yellow strip shape on the tower. Ouch. If you live in Vancouver, you’ve noticed these strips applied to towers on top of the new Costco wedged between the viaducts and GM Place- they also come in red and blue. (These shots taken earlier today with my mobile phone camera).

Ok, this is funny: I was just about to launch into this bit about how I suspect that the addition of a bit of colour was an afterthought and was perhaps the result of a response to design input provided by the Urban Design Panel. It just feels like it. If you are not familiar with what the Urban Design Panel is or does, I’ve cut & pasted from the City’s website:

The Panel gives impartial and professional advice to the Director of Planning, Development Permit Board or City Council on any proposal or policy affecting the community’s physical environment. In particular, the Panel offers advice on significant development permit applications which are to be reviewed by the Development Permit Board or Director of Planning, as well as comprehensive rezoning applications and other projects of public interest. …

The Panel is strictly an advisory body and makes recommendations only. It does not have the authority to approve or refuse projects or make policy decisions.

So guess what; I was right. Check out the minutes of the Wednesday April 30, 2003 Urban Design Panel meeting for 651 Expo Boulevard. Cut & pasted again:

A member (of the Panel) commented that the site had been established as a “texture” rather than “signature” tower site, and that it should be the latter - to which several members indicated their agreement. He offered that Georgia viaduct was a gateway from the east with characteristics of scale and appropriateness that should be recognized.

Further general comments from the Panel included: …

• support introduction of colour and would support a stronger scheme, i.e. towers in different colours; …

I just fricken knew it. A panel member looks at a model for 15 minutes, makes a comment that gets recorded and now we all have to live with this ridiculous outcome.

‘Signature’ tower is a term batted around quite a bit at the City; towers downtown are referred to by Planners as as either ‘background buildings’ or ’signature buildings’: meaning that a building either dissolves into the bland 30-storey window-wall typical tower tedium or it is somehow eye-catching i.e. it may have some corny or shallow trick to it like for example applied facade lighting or perhaps some curve or something. This is the level we’re dealing with. Yes, of course it’s an architecturally immature way of looking at buildings; no, don’t consider the craft or the detailing; just go by impact value - that’s signature. But local architects and developers have figured out that planners are easily pacified with a bit of eye candy (only a handful of Planners are also architects). Hey, here’s the deal: construction quality standards and building budgets in this part of the world are extremely low. Adding insult to injury, nobody seems to be aware of this (except those in architecture and we’re a quiet bunch.) Consequently, the general sophistication and quality of architectural expression here is equally as low. This is a fact of life in this town: Vancouverites just have different priorities of which architecture ranks very low; if this were incorrect, the City would look different. But let’s not pretend that mediocre proposals can be pimped up to achieve signature status, by suggesting minor and meaningless cosmetic gestures.

If a certain developer/architect party (like most here) has both the budget and ambition for a merely mediocre project, then lets not fool ourselves. The cost and risk premium to attempt exceptional architecture is not worth it for a developer- the pro-forma works for what has already been established, the tried and true. They’ve already done the math; it’s a done deal. Tower economics in this town is air-tight right down to the budget, the materials, the efficiency of each floor plate, the size of the core, the floor heights, the unit mix… all these variables are not actually variables anymore. They are the constants in the formula of the formulaic 30-storey condo tower - and you do know that the 30-storey condo tower is the new millennium Vancouver special. So then let’s get real; you’re not going to convert an economically viable and safe project into what is referred to as a ’signature building’ by suggesting splashes of colour. So if the Panel is reacting to what has turned out to be a bland skyline, and is rightly concerned about the addition of yet another ho-hum set of towers, then the issue is much bigger than anything that can be solved by strips of colour. The applicant will however abide and in fact will add the colour as requested and do it with a smiling face, thanking you all the way for your brilliant suggestion, just to get it through the panel.

This is the game. It’s politics and no one has the balls to call it like it is. This colour thing is just an example. The issue with the downtown Costco towers is not that the project lacks colour; the issue is that the project lacks architectural ambition - and colour won’t fix it. James Cheng knows this; he’s done some truly outstanding & beautiful projects in his time and he knows damn well that the Costco Project is not one of them. Don’t get me wrong here: it must have been an incredible undertaking from many perspectives to design and execute this complex project from rezoning to substantial completion - the demands and constraints and design challenges, which I have no doubt were resolved with competence, were likely mind-boggling. What I am saying though is that architectural excellence by international standards, for this project, I am comfortably guessing, was probably never on the agenda. That’s the way it is here.

What we’ve got here is conflicting interests: the City wants downtown density erected in a controlled tower and podium format; it also wants density bonussing (some social amenity or money from the developer in return for the granting of additional floor area); the developer wants to sell off the units and then get the thing up quickly and on budget because the meter’s running on his or her financing; the Urban Design Panel, an impartial body, is to uphold design standards. But they can only react to what is presented; they, like Planners, have virtually no influence over a project’s architectural ambition or lack thereof as that choice was made long before drawings were done. So what happens? The UDP makes some suggestions, the architect plays along, in the end the developer gets his, the City gets theirs and what gets built is a compromise for which the ones that bear the greatest brunt is any future generation that gives a damn about architecture. Once a tower is up, it’s up. Unravelling the entanglement of legal redtape of a strata development for the purpose of future demolition would never happen. We’re stuck with these buildings folks. Unless you stop buying the condos inside.

By the way, in case you’re curious, this Costco project’s first crack at UDP was voted non-support (1-6). The second attempt made it through (7-0). Here are the minutes to the follow-up meeting. Note the comments on colour:

Most Panel members liked the introduction of colour to the two corner towers and encouraged further development of this idea. One Panel member suggested extending colour to the other two towers as well, as a means of tying them together, but others preferred the differentiation.

Good thing they added the colour.