A courtyard is carved into the project facing the main street, creating an outdoor public space. A two-storey atrium connects from the plaza down to the lane, passing through the parking garage and offering an unexpectedly delightful promenade. Photo: Ema Peter
PROJECT Strathcona Village, Vancouver, British Columbia
ARCHITECT GBL Architects
If architectural form can be said to speak, it is material finish that colours its voice. The corrugated metal cladding of Strathcona Village, a mixed-use project in Vancouver, announces itself boldly and loudly.

It borrows the language of stacked shipping containers to communicate a novel pairing of the domestic and the industrial.
The project sits at the northern end of Strathcona, the city?s oldest residential neighbourhood, at the edge of a wide tract of industrial land and sprawling port infrastructure. This dichotomy has informed the area?s rich past and its complex present. Residents in the 1950s successfully fought against a proposal to raze existing homes?the area was then dubbed a slum?and replace them with concrete apartment towers. The 1960s saw neighbourhood advocates thwart a planned freeway that would have destroyed parts of Chinatown and Gastown.
The main façade of Strathcona Village addresses East Hastings Street with a variety of light industrial and production spaces. Photo: Ema Peter
Today, owing in part to the area?s global shipping compound with its potential for smuggling controlled substances, Strathcona also e...