Vancouver Convention Center Expansion Project

PWL Partnership Landscape Architects Inc., USA

In the spring of 2009, a fascinating transformation took place in downtown Vancouver. Flushes of grasses and wildflowers began to appear 12 stories above Coal Harbor and were soon visited by insects, songbirds, and butterflies. This new habitat, absent from the downtown area for over 150 years, is a self-maintaining, self-regenerating living roof. Along with the 5 800 square meter plaza and seawall promenade extension, the living roof demonstrates the diverse contributions made by PWL Partnership to the Vancouver Convention Center Expansion Project.

The extensive 2.4 hectare living roof is a key component to the overall project’s achievement of LEED Gold certification. The roof moderates heat gain and loss in the building, improves urban air quality, filters and reduces rainwater runoff, and creates valuable habitat. The thriving plantings, first tested in a three-year test plot program, include sedges, perennial herbs, and grasses modeled after British Columbia’s coastal grasslands for their ability to thrive in climatic extremes and restricted root growing depth.

The plaza, designed to hold up to 8 000 people, is comprised of smaller peripheral spaces defined by planters that moderate the scale of the plaza and create intimate, comfortable, and flexible areas. The vocabulary of regional and sustainable materials includes locally sourced growing medium, plants, railings, concrete and basalt pavers, and permeable pavers. Rainwater runnels course throughout the plaza and articulate the district markers at the street ends, celebrating one of the defining characteristics of the Pacific Northwest: rainfall. Treated wastewater from the building irrigates both the living roof and the plaza plantings.

PWL’s landscape design for the Vancouver Convention Center Expansion Project features the largest non-industrial living roof in North America and Vancouver’s first large plaza for public gatherings and events. The simplicity of the site is an amazing contrast to its complex building and engineering systems, and a model for compatible, progressive, and sustainable urban design.

Originally appeared in Modus News 5