HomeArchitecturePerkins & Will complete a sculptural landmark and coffee house in the heart of Vancouver’s emerging art, design, and innovation district
September 16, 2020

Perkins & Will complete a sculptural landmark and coffee house in the heart of Vancouver’s emerging art, design, and innovation district

Primarily constructed of prefabricated mass timber, the complex and expressive building demonstrates a progressive manufacturing and sustainable approach
Image credit: Andrew Latreille

The Great Northern Way Pavilion is relatively small project in stature but it makes a statement like no other structure in the City of Vancouver. Design by Perkins & Will, the pavilion is a stunning architectural achievement. Inspired by the intricate layered composition of flowers, the pavilion, which was completed in February of this year, is both a coffee house and landmark sculpture.

Primarily constructed of prefabricated mass timber, this complex and expressive building demonstrates a progressive manufacturing and sustainable approach. The uniquely curved petal forms overlap creating an undulating pattern comprised of five inner petals that form the grand singular volume and five outer petals that flare out to announce the three entrances. The petals converge at the top to form an oculus filtering daylight to illuminate the wood clad interior creating a warm and inviting ambience.

Vancouver’s new art, design and innovation district

The False Creek Flats neighborhood in East Vancouver is transforming. The former industrial land is changing face with a blooming art scene that aspires to position the precinct as Vancouver’s new art, design and innovation district. The relocation of Emily Car University of Art + Design, previously located on Granville Island since 1980, to its new building north of the pavilion’s site, creates a campus that provided the rich context and cultural inspiration for the pavilion.

The pavilion is both a coffeehouse and a landmark sculpture building that anchors the regeneration of an industrial zone. It will be the catalyst for the area’s redevelopment and connection to the city. Composed as a sequence of ten interconnected and undulating fractal petals, the pavilion’s form takes inspiration from the delicate and intricate layered composition of flowers. The colorful petals share a common locus, they curve, overlap, rotate, flare, and rise – as they would in nature.

Akin to flowers attracting birds, the pavilion aspires to attract and engage the emerging community of artists and students with an open and accessible design that welcomes the public and puts the creative processes on display.
Image credit: Ema Peter

A landmark as a catalyst to inspire culture

The idea of the pavilion emerged by recognizing that the new campus needed a heart; a place for collaboration and social connection. The existing zoning allowed for a 60ft high building along Great Northern Way that reaches the edge of the public plaza. The architects approach, which resulted in a rezoning, was to increase the allowable building height at 565 Great Northern Way to 100ft, allowing for a civic strategy to nearly double the size of the public realm, improve daylight, capitalize on mountain and city views, and create opportunities for social connection.

The building has a simple circular footprint and sits unbiased within the heart of the campus. The overlapping undulating petals flare out to announce the pavilion’s three entrances: Two are located towards the public plaza to the west to create an open invitation to the community. The third entry is facing east, connecting to the pedestrian spine to Wilson Arts Plaza, the office building at 565 Great Northern Way, and the multi-use pathway connecting to East Vancouver along Great Northern Way.

Physical organization and form

The physical form and organization of the project emerged from a series of design studies that explored how to re-imagine the campus plaza, the expression of a freestanding landmark therein, and the role of a coffeehouse programme in activating the public realm and connecting the community of artists and students.

The five inner petals form a grand singular volume: they follow a simple cross section, revolved around the center of the pavilion. Each of the inner petals’ footprint is narrowest as it meets grade to allow visual connection to and from the plaza; the petals gradually expand in width as they curve to transition from wall to ceiling, and then converge to culminate at the top forming an oculus and filtering light into the interior.

The five outer petals are more expressive, sculpted to announce a landmark in the plaza with animated curves and inviting flares around the pavilion entrances. The petals expand as they curve to shape the pavilion’s roof, overlap, rise and connect towards the top of the pavilion announcing the presence of the oculus and the connection to daylight through the skylight.
Image credit: Nick Diamond

Environmental and social awareness

Socially, the pavilion aspires to be a catalyst for social connection and a cultural inspiration to an emerging arts and design community. Environmentally, the pavilion is connected to a district energy source, and is targeting LEED Gold. The pavilion’s sustainable approach means that it possesses more durable systems, sustainably sourced and local materials, efficient below-slab air handling HVAC systems, has greater thermal insulation, and offers a healthier and more comfortable environment for its inhabitant.

Daylight

The central skylight and perimeter glazing offer excellent daylight levels and create a comfortable and inviting environment for gathering. LEED2009 daylight simulation indicates 80.6 percent of the regularly occupied spaces achieve daylight illuminance levels of a minimum of 107 Lux (10 footcandles) and a maximum of 5,382 lux (500 footcandles) in a clear sky condition on September 21 at 9.00 and 15:00.

Design research

The design process of the pavilion connects the dots between design, technological innovation and hands-on physical creation. During concept design, the team was determined to explore what is possible in wood construction through digital fabrication – the use of which is rising due to the complexity of building forms and the increasing demand for precision and speed in construction. They also aspired to use wood as the main structural elements as well as the interior finish of the pavilion.

Through material and fabrication research, and in collaboration with industry partners, the design team proposed fabricating a complex curvature Nail Laminated Timber (NLT) structural panel; a proof of concept prototype for a curved mass timber structure. The prototype was composed of readily available standard 2x lumber, cut at precise angles to aggregate the panel curvature, and laminated together using wooden dowels and aluminum nails to form a faceted structural shell of complex double curvature.

Leveraging computational design and advanced fabrication techniques, the shell was milled by a 5-axis CNC router to achieve smooth curved interior surface finish. The shell panels were set to be assembled together for the actual build of the project. The development of a smooth curved NLT shell highlights innovation in applying advanced industrial fabrication methods to a historic natural and sustainable building material, enabling wood structures to address complex building forms, and thus opening up new possibilities for the future of wood construction in the industry.
Image credit: Ema Peter

Fabrication

Learning from the curved NLT prototype, the design team worked with the structural engineers and fabricators to optimize the petal forms, and develop a lighter and more cost effective structural solution. The final structure is a prefabricated waffle-based system that comprises hybrid timber and steel plate structural components.

Each petal is composed of curved Glue Laminated Timber (Glulam) column beams with embedded CNC steel plate splines, Laminated Strand Lumber (LSL) purlins, CNC blocking and plywood sheathing. The inner petals connect structurally to a steel ring beam to form the free span dome structure, while the outer petals rest on the inner petals’ structure. Each petal consists of a number of individual panels, fabricated at the shop, sized to fit a flatbed truck, shipped, and then assembled and erected on site.

Wood: an act of urban repair

Globally, construction of buildings uses 40 percent of global resources. The decision to construct this complex and expressive structure in wood was intentional and deliberate – a proof of concept through research and innovation, on small scale, for the recognition of wood as an option for complex structures which offers a higher quality of space and a sustainable way of meeting global demand for buildings.

Wood allowed the design team to rethink interiors – moving away from stark white gypsum walls towards the warm glow of a natural material. Wood also offers significant environmental benefits. Wood is a carbon sink, which means wood buildings can sequester carbon – unlike any other building material. Wood is also 50 percent carbon by weight, its use supports the local forest economy and is an incentive to restore and maintain healthy forests.

Prefabrication, used extensively for the production of the pavilion, allowed for economy and conservation of material and energy usage in production and assembly. Environmentally sensitive products are used for all materials such as engineered birch plywood and FSC certified lumber. The pavilion materials capitalize the effects of light and reflection, animating the facades and interior space. These areas are treated with two sharply contrasting materials, both in color and texture.

The application of the materials is simple. The exterior is finished with a field of overlapping painted aluminum composite shingles that offer texture and unique light reflection as the form curves and undulates. The exterior paint is a fusion of two subtly different shades of red that reflect light in different ways depending on view angle – further accentuating the petals’ curvature.

The edge is finished in a CNC cut and curved red aluminum plate following the outline of the petals and sitting one inch proud of the shingles, defining a crispedge to the form, and forming a guide for controlling rain. The interior is clad in overlapping vertical strips of light Birch plywood that curve and expand to follow the petal forms. The light shade of plywood provides warmth, illuminates the interior spaces as it reflects ambient light, and creates a neutral but animated backdrop for the activities inside the coffee shop.

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