VanDusen Botanical Gardens Visitor Centre

Reviewing the VanDusen Botanical Gardens Visitor Centre of Vancouver, we should be happy sustainable architecture continues to be second-to-none in terms of aesthetic appeal. Industry professionals should take note that the construction of the visitor centre in many ways exemplifies the benefits of building information model in streamlining the workflow of complex forms. To beginning, the website describes the overall building thusly:

"Shaped like an orchid when viewed from above, its organic lines echo the way nature and conservation have been considered at every turn. The building is widely recognized as a pioneering structure in green design—and is LEED Platinum certified."

A curved structural grid system was used to organize the building's layout from which the structural system of columns and custom glulam beams were derived. Much of the building's enclosure was made from pre-fabricated wood panels to capture the complex free-form surface. Again building information modelling software platforms are optimized for this type of work. Custom glulam beams and pre-fabricated wood panels would have been carefully tracked and laid out on page after page of construction details. BIM gives the additional confidence that as changes occur, the drawing set would have been automatically updated. The story of architecture separated from other design fields decades ago in setting aside how the design was to be built. It's just a characteristic of the professional field that unlike consumer-goods, architectural designs – "the product" – are sold before the design is even completed or built. As BIM matures we're seeing construction processes considered earlier in the design phase with the application of modularity and prefabrication techniques which have the effect of reversing this trend. Fast+Epp is again here again lending their expertise in the structural use of wood. 

When Frank Gehry was experimenting with free-form shapes at the beginning of his career he was really struggling against the 3D modelling software and manufacturing constraints of the time. Architectural 3D modelling skills are now much more advanced, including the availability of a wide talent pool of computational architectural specialists and programmers experienced in deriving complex geometry from the underlying maths. Therefore, the architecture loving public, which I include myself in, have a role in encouraging projects which are able to add depth and meaning to our visual world. Enter landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Practicing in Canada for nearly 60 years, she seems to be at the height of her powers on this project. Every angle of this building looks great and the wood detailing throughout is an inviting detail to copy but I doubt is replicable in any other building without her and the project team's help at Perkins + Will. Architect Peter Busby of P+W's San Francisco office also deserves a big shout out – especially for the green roof – because it's a heck of a sustainability feature. The street-level views of this building are great and I love the the free-form lines defining the elevations. If developers and real estate agents are trying to figure out what architectural features really add value to a building, this is definitely a good example of contemporary sustainable architecture to include in any early research. The building earned both Living Building Challenge Certification and LEED Platinum status, which is quite a unique accomplishment by my estimation.