British Columbia, Canada
Category: Residential Towers Year: 2019 Architects: Henriquez Partners Architects Lead Architect: Gregory Henriquez Design Team: Peter Wood and Bas Olsman Client: Westbank Projects Corp Associate Architects: Leckie Studio (Interiors) Contractor: Icon West Construction Corp Photographers: Ema Peter Photography
A backdrop to the vibrant seawall waterfront, Pendrell contributes critical purpose-built rentals to the West End – one of Vancouver’s most densely populated neighborhoods.
Inspired by its maritime context and the modernism of Vancouver’s 1960s towers, Pendrell’s design is split into two blocks, animated with traditional West End architectural elements including concrete construction, ribbon windows and landscaped setbacks. A unifying steel frame ties these elements together, recalling cargo ships anchored in the nearby harbor. The frame geometry is further punctuated with wooden-slatted privacy screens.
Similar in scale to buildings from the 1950s-1970s, the design reduces impact on private views and minimizes shadowing on public open space. View corridors to neighboring parks are carefully preserved, and the western block shifts south, maintaining the northern neighbor’s panoramic English Bay views.
Ground-level landscaping includes a distinctive laneway activation to provide beach and car share access to residents, and a Japanese Zen Garden reinterprets the traditional West End Garden with an Asian influence, complementing the architecture’s clean, modern aesthetic. A public art piece, “Still Standing” by Samuel Roy-Bois, evokes cedar shake cottages that populated the area 100 years ago.
Fulfilling an important social sustainability objective, Pendrell introduces 173 market rentals with 26 units secured as affordable and approximately half of all units comprising family-sized, two- or three-bedroom units.
The roof terrace’s shared amenity provides urban agriculture, encouraging food security. Pendrell also establishes an innovative district energy node as the primary, sustainable energy source for a new hot water network, designed to grow with demand.