Kengo Kuma?s Alberni, currently under construction, sits opposite the rounded-corner triangular tower of Peter Cardew?s classic 1500 West Georgia (formerly Crown Life Block), completed in 1978. Photo by Ema Peter
TEXT Trevor Boddy
For over a century, ?architectural zoos? have been permanent collections of architectural animals?one example each from the leading species of designers. The most famous of these is the Weissenhofsiedlung, which in 1927 collected a range of modernist housing by Le Corbusier, Mies, Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Bruno Taut and others on a Stuttgart hillside. For Fukuoka?s Nexus World Housing in 1991, Arata Isozaki served as zookeeper, contributing a housing block of his own and coordinating constructions by Steven Holl, Rem Koolhaas, Mark Mack and more. Such collections are unequalled opportunities to see how differing design thinking can be realized within the same topography and building brief. Vancouver?s Alberni Street is emerging as the continent?s leading zoological park for creative luxury high-rises. There is no single organizing mind behind choosing the designers for the various species of residential towers rising there. Rather, the concentration results from the converging dynamics of urban design controls, land economics, a mandated 6,500-square-foot limit on residential floor sizes, view cone restrictions on building heights, and the feng shui of mountain and harbour views?all propelled by a rare-in-Canada spirit of architectural ambition.
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