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The rise and, well, alteration of the glass condo tower

April 19th, 2011 · 18 Comments

Douglas Coupland called Vancouver The City of Glass because of its forest of greenish-glass towers. I always imagined the glass towers were only about trying to maximize views and build modernist.

As I discovered in doing this story, it’s really all about the money. Glass is cheap. But not for much longer.

One, people don’t like the sameness. I’ve heard endless griping in Vancouver about glass towers. People want something different. Concord recognized that a while ago and started putting colours on some of their more recent buildings.

Second, the push for buildings that are not such energy pigs means that something is going to have to change in those glass towers, which require more heating and air-conditioning that buildings with other materials.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Lesli Boldt

    This may sound architectural geeky, but when I was in Berlin, I learned that much of post-war Berlin – particularly that which was rebuilt after the Wall came down (as so may buildings in East Berlin had not been repaired after the war) – was deliberately designed rebuilt with glass ,to demonstrate the openness and transparency of the new Germany.

    Sort of depresssing that it’s all about the money here – I like the Berlin story better. And with the right windows, you can still meet those energy efficiency goals…

  • Joe Just Joe

    And with the right windows, you can still meet those energy efficiency goals…

    Couldn’t agree more. The city could easily change the building code to require the use of high efficiency triple-pane windows. The West and South facing windows could all be treated to block UV rays which contribute the heat gain. Require larger overhangs to act as solar visors instead of having flush mounted windows. Require the installation of solar blinds instead of the more common slant blinds. Require more openable windows to allow for ventilation (the Burrard Gateway project has a great idea of having the windows open at the bottom and top to create more circulation.
    The most expensive item on that list is the triple pane windows but even that is a small cost, and once required by code would drop in price to where the difference would be miniscle over existing prices.
    The city could help the environment by changing the building code to include higher energy standards and scrapping the requirement for LEED certification, the money spent on certification could buy a measurable increase in efficiency and still come out cheaper.

  • Max

    Interesting how a certain ‘news media’ was reporting this was a no go even prior to the supposed ‘vote’, this afternoon.

  • Max

    @ me for # 3, wrong article to comment on.

    Sorry all!

  • Jake

    It’s not “really all about the money”; it’s also about maximizing views and natural light, as well as making small spaces feel more expansive.

    Basic float glass is indeed the cheapest, but it gets its green tint from iron oxide impurities – not from the addition of a “sea foam green” tint.

  • Roger Kemble

    It isn’t only about glass curtain walls or lack of colour although it is that too!

    I notice Concord timidly introduced splashes of colour in their more recent towers: OV cautiously plays with it too. I like to flatter myself those paragons of power architecture have taken their queue for my writings but I wonder . . .

    I was playing with primary colours in the late ’60’s but it didn’t catch on: to see click on my name above . . .

    There is a growing awareness, now though, among architects that Douglas Coupland’s City of Glass just doesn’t cut it! Doug, I understand is a visual artist in his own right and I am surprised he didn’t delve into architecture, creative art and risk further.

    I am looking at the book’s cover now: a bland wash of unarticulated blue, reading as gray, and in reality even more depressing especially on so many of Vancouver’s dull days.

    There is much, much more to urban architecture than just applying colour though.

    Some recent, cautious attempts have been made to escape the formulaic tower: that is the tower with a twist. To me this is almost a cry of capitulation, a pathetic attempt to escape the stricture of over zealous planning control imposed to reign in a development industry’s hubris and a public that seem to have lost its nerve . . .

    http://www.favelapainting.com/santa-marta

    . . . or worse disinterested!

    Urban architecture starts with commodity, firmness and delight: you and me at ground level. Wallowing in the pleasure of a shaped public realm described by its surrounding buildings: figure ground.

    It’s the holes between stupid!

    Then it goes onto the juxtaposition of building-to-building and most important the magic created by their proximity.

    Chiaroscuro makes the Sun play hide-and-seek with balconies, Sun shades, overhangs and embarrassing protrusions. Look for signage and see through living room windows.

    Masonry and stonework at ground level goes tactile although as dead load best not go much above street level.

    In the best interests of energy economy there is no need for wall to ceiling glass: a view is a view through any aperture. And with less window area there is more exterior surface to play with.

    Once we get over the glass curtain wall fetish many opportunities for colour and composition are opened to the creative artist/architect.

    Architecture should be like falling in love again.

    It’s been along time . . .

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    Condo towers are not green (except as cash) and they are not sustainable. So, someone please explain to me the love affair with the hi-rise.

  • Ron

    It’s all about the views, and connectedness to the outdoors.

    Even City Hall places value on views through its “view cones”. But if people didn’t care about windows and light, why don’t more people live in basement suites?

    The City’s insistence on transparent glass has also contributed to the problem (reflective or tinted glass would hide the window coverings and lend a more cohesive look to a building) – but the City wants you to be able to peer into condo suites (i.e. the Wall Centre fiasco).

    In Vancouver, most of the condo don’t have air conditioning and heat is only required in the dead of winter. I would venture to guess that a single family home uses a lot more electricity or gas to heat a house than for a condo.
    i.e. For my 870 sq ft condo, electricity bills are generally $25.00 per month and they jump to $40.00 per month in winter for the 2 months when I use the electric heat.
    How does that compare to a house?

    Are people just pushing for efficiency for the sake of efficiency without any material benefit? – think fluorescent light bulbs…

  • pacpost

    I didn’t know one needed glass at ankle level to be able to have a “view”. And northern European countries (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, etc.) seem to be able to provide plenty of natural light for the inhabitants of their non-glass wall buildings. Yes, it does require a touch more creativity on the part of the architects, but let’s hope our own are capable of such.

    Pointing to the electricity bill doesn’t give you an idea of how terribly inefficient these all-glass towers are. British Columbians pay the lowest utility rates in North America, at 6.2 cents per kWh (and 8.7 cents if you hit the second tier). It makes us amongst the most wasteful of electricity users in the world, something most Vancouverites are completely ignorant of.

    The average residential utility rate in the U.S. is around 11 cents per kWh, with Californians paying 16 cents or so. In Germany, rates average about 30 cents per kWh. That $25 per month bill would be nearly $150 in Germany. That would definitely wake Vancouverites up to the inherent wastefulness of these towers.

    Yes, a standard condo is inherently more efficient than a house, thanks to having only one or two exposed walls (rather than four walls and a roof). But Vancouver condos should easily be 50-70% more energy efficient than they are.

    Yes, triple pane windows would help, but we should focus on overall energy performance of the wall (and building). Triple pane windows mean nothing if the corresponding frame isn’t built to a high standard and installation is done in the usual half-assed manner that is typical of Vancouver construction.

    To give you an idea of how poor glass-wall construction is on an energy efficiency basis, some figures. As far as I know, current single family homes in Vancouver need to have walls built to an R value of 15. A typical glass-wall has an R value of 2. The best two pane, low-emissivity glass-wall construction can hit an R value of 3. As for the much-ballyhooed spandrel construction mentioned in the G&M article, you’re lucky if you can get much above an R value of 4 or 5 (thanks to poor aluminum framing and so on).

    I hope we drop the needlessly expensive and largely useless LEED standard (or, as I like to call it: Lacking Energy Efficient Design), and start looking at European standards such as Passivhaus (which were themselves based on innovative designs first implemented in Canada in the late 1970s). It’s effectively ‘open source’ and is free to be used by anyone who manages to build to the standard.

    Here’s some basic info on a standard that reduces energy consumption for heating and cooling by 80-90%:

    http://www.passiv.de/07_eng/index_e.html

    The wikipedia page isn’t bad either:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

    @ Ron: what’s your issue with fluorescent light bulbs?

  • Anne

    @ Ron of the lucky low electricity bills – my downtown condo is much smaller and even in the middle of summer mine is never below $40. Current bill is $56.

    My concern about mega towers is about infrastructure and lack of City planning of. With 7 towers approved for DT that are all 42-56 storeys tall, how will all those many residents be accommodated? Schools? Roads? Services?

    Why does the City (and media) never mention those issues and instead focus ONLY on views?

  • Roger Kemble

    Oh for God’s sake Lewis @ #00 of course towers are unsustainable. So are your effete fee simple rural cottages.

    So are your conjugal rituals. Where do you thinq your sacrificial offering goes when you sit on your gold plated bog every morning? It sure as hell doesn’t drain into sustainability heaven: out of sight, out of mind on that one!

    It goes to Iona Island where it is hashed up with an unsustainable chemical goo that makes like one day you will sit on God’s lap and sneer at us unbelievers.

    Eventually, it comes back as our drinking water. And how do you like that?

    In the thickness of our dysfunctional conurbation we can only squabble over that we thinq we can see. Iona is the least of our civilized Eco-density, unsustainable, Enviro-charter manic slights of hand.

    At least we can see towers.

    I can thinq of dozens of blamable targets to dump on for the biblical disaster we call Western civilization, couples who wake up at dawn and procreate, bankers, politicians, lying bastard PavCo CEO’s, before I dump on the ugly towers.

    Imagine a planner without a pension or a high-rise columbarium: how unsustainable can you get?

    Thanq heaven’s I’m a disgruntled old fart: I wont see your inevitable squishy demise.

    So shit to your heart’s content Lewis because some how we must find a way to keep our future denizens out of our legendary rain: even if it means stacking them!

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    “Yes, a standard condo is inherently more efficient than a house, thanks to having only one or two exposed walls (rather than four walls and a roof).”

    pacpost 9

    Perception or fact? Got some numbers to back it up?

    While one side of a tower cooks in late afternoon sun, the other chills in solar-less dimness. Every ounce of live load and dead load has to be lifted by mechanical means. The live load (groceries, people, furniture) are lifted in perpetuity.

    Retrofitting new technology is easier done at human scale, incrementally, one step at a time.

    The so-called “disadvantages” of having a roof and four sides are overplayed. Though in high-density human-scaled configurations, the houses will typically only have a front, a back, and a roof. The roof is the obvious point for solar and water collection, although I admit we still lack the technology.

    I can see photo-voltaics coming in the form of standing seam roof panels that allow each house to plug into the grid and be a net producer of energy, rather than consumer.

    I can also see a collection and filtration of rainwater, especially in our region, as being a technologically and economically more efficient way of getting domestic potable water.

    Passive solar we can do now. A covered deck on the rear side, or a covered porch on the front, traps cool air and creates heat differential with the wall on the opposite side of the house. That temperature difference creates air movement—breezes—that cool the interior. In the winter the covered porch is glassed in for an instant solarium (the name gives away the function).

    Operable skylights not only let in 60% more light than vertical openings, but act as “air chimneys” creating vertical cooling drafts. When it gets too cold, or there is too much rain, they can close.

    My skylight, however, is invariably open. The most glorious moments are full-moon nights. There is something about the cool blue of moonlight that is magical inside the living space.

    All this is only possible with dual-aspect units and an accessible roof. The latter gives the added advantage of a roof terrace that the homeowner can monitor for the leak that will inevitably appear over the first 10 or 20 years of the building’s life-cycle as it settles into the ground.

    We have a tower zone in the downtown peninsula. However, when it comes to the intensification of our neighbourhoods—and our historic neighbourhoods—we must strike in a new direction.

  • pacpost

    @ Lewis

    “Perception or fact? Got some numbers to back it up?

    While one side of a tower cooks in late afternoon sun, the other chills in solar-less dimness. Every ounce of live load and dead load has to be lifted by mechanical means. The live load (groceries, people, furniture) are lifted in perpetuity.”

    I should have defined my terms better. I was talking about the heating and cooling efficiency of a dwelling space. These loads typically consume up to 75% of the total energy needs of a residential building. And it is simply a fact that an apartment built to the same insulation standards as a house will be 30-40% more energy efficient (for heating and cooling) because it has less walls exposed to the exterior.

    “Every ounce of live load and dead load has to be lifted by mechanical means.”

    Logically speaking, I agree. But I have yet to come across a study that analyses this energy use. If you have, please send a link.

    “The roof is the obvious point for solar and water collection, although I admit we still lack the technology.”

    Lack? There are now over two million individual homes in Germany that have solar PV, and several hundred thousand that have solar thermal panels installed.

    “I can see photo-voltaics coming in the form of standing seam roof panels that allow each house to plug into the grid and be a net producer of energy, rather than consumer.”

    These also exist already (and were built 11 years ago). Look up Rolf Disch “Plus Energy House” and Solarsiedlung. Located in Freiburg’s Vauban development, he basically took a passivhaus and slapped solar PV panels on them.

    “Passive solar we can do now.”

    We can do most of what you describe. It will need policy support, however. Minimum building standards and so on. One of the main hindrances, however, remains our very low electricity costs. The financial incentive to be more intelligent when it comes to construction simply isn’t there yet. Unfortunately.

    And yes, I do hope that we move to low rise – high density development in the rest of the city.

  • keith

    Looking back from the Skytrain near Main Street, I think how ugly are those glass towers.
    The West End is so much more Vancouver.

  • Roger Kemble

    Of all the “greening, energy saving” issues, all that is uncharismatic and ignored from our out-of-sight-out-of-mind energy consuming human waste disposal all we can talk about is moving the family portmanteau up the elevator: huh!

    Are we supposed to take this seriously?

    We are inadvertently exchanging the ennui of the single-family stucco box for the ennui of the, lined-up, six storey box. Evidently all the way down the Canada Line and all over Mount Pleasant we are about to be inundated by land-lift boxes: huh again!

    Oh, and BTW given energy consumption quid-pro-quo hi-low rise, SFD’s, mud huts are all btu guzzlers.

    Surely there is an argument to be made for an appropriately mixed building typology.

    Although a close read of the MP plan leaves open the possibility for indiscriminate towers, passim, I would hope that does not turn out to be the case: essentially it is up to us to provide sensible reasoning.

    The MP plan, at this reading, articulates the possibility of a 26 story tower at the confluence of Broadway and Main, MP’s traditional center, descending lower, following “a distinctive ‘hilltown’ visual with a heritage ‘heart’“: somewhat in the wishful manner of a Tuscany hill town.

    Now I acknowledge that is a pretty sophisticated approach given the lack of sensitive urban design throughout Metro but there is always a first.

    In contrast, I am not quite sure how to rationalize urban design on the basis of moving furniture.

    I have, at least, been consistent in my vision, not that I have any influence over the city’s urban design, but to me a healthy city is one organized around semi-autonomous urban villages: or as Lewis like to call them Quartiers.

    Urban village-wise MP is a start. On the other hand Marpole is not!

    Marpole is, unfortunately starting out on the wrong foot. Marine Gateway is an insensitively designed block of towers away from Marpole’s traditional center: i.e. the 7000/8000 area of Granville Street.

    The traditional center has the potential to connect to the wider city with a non-emission flexible tram providing connections citywide.

    Gateway’s TX, on a limited-stop elevated track, does not!

    Mount Pleasant is different. A quartier has a heart and, as in the case of MP, the heart is at Broadway and Main and can justify a cluster of hilltown towers respecting the caveat of a diminishing height typology radiating from the epicenter.

    Broadway at Main is a perfect confluence for a non-emission tram connecting to any where in the city: and the R-A tower could symbolize . . . hey this is where you pick up your ride!

    Moving household furniture is energy consuming no matter the building typology, especially if the place of origin was Montreal or farther a field.

  • Creek’er

    Leslie:

    Certainly the Reichstag’s glass atrium was designed with the idea of transparency in government, but I haven’t heard that this was an idea with widespread application. Interesting.

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    pacpost

    Good discussion.

    “… it is simply a fact that an apartment built to the same insulation standards as a house will be 30-40% more energy efficient (for heating and cooling) because it has less walls exposed to the exterior.”

    Is it that simple? An apartment will have units requiring heating AT THE SAME TIME AS units requiring cooling—on the same day!

    So, while a house may be heating, the condo tower will be cooling and heating at the same time. Houses typically won’t be cooling, because in our clime it is probably more practical to plant a tree in the yard and shade the summer sun. Deciduous trees have this nasty habit of dropping the leaves just in time for winter heating; and growing new ones just in time for summer shading. Go figure.

    “Logically speaking, I agree. But I have yet to come across a study…”

    Well, you are welcome to come to MY study. We can have coffee…

    “There are now over two million individual homes in Germany…”

    Hey, the photo-voltaic information I got from by talking to a dad in a playground near Sophia Street. He is a German-Canadian in the business of importing green technology into our Greenest City. My point stands—the tech is not here, not yet.

    We agree on photo voltaics:

    “These also exist already (and were built 11 years ago). Look up Rolf Disch…”

    That doesn’t sound like a Vancouver URL. But we also agree that Passive Solar works for houses—but not for condo towers:

    “We can do most of what you describe. It will need policy support, however.”

    I didn’t mention the advantage of having contact with the ground. Apartments have contact with the unit below… but that’s a carbon footprint warm spot. The earth is 10°C for free. Policy? Yes, and a major cleansing of the hype in the real estate sector.

    But, the surprising bit for me is this….

    “And yes, I do hope that we move to low rise – high density development in the rest of the city.”

    Here is the missing tale… we can build high-density with human scale (low rise).

    We are both on the same page here. We probably agree that this will support mass transit, and lessen the role of the automobile. Bikes and walking will be more important. And the conversations around the neighbourhood design policy meetings….

    Well… they may as well need be held in German, or Swedish, or some other language than what we are hearing now.

    In order to get to where we say we want to go, we will need to learn a new urban speak.

    Just Towers Wont’ Do.

  • Robert Andrew

    #15 All the esoteric arch-talk about places five hundred years older than our village, Mount Pleasant, doesn’t alter the money fact one bit. As you opine, the MP community plan “…leaves open the possibility for indescriminate towers…” and of course since in this city maximum profit and the highest density possible for any site always trumps every other idea every time in spite of anybody’s good intentions. It’s always a trial balloon snowjob until the developer gets his maximum profit and the lowly residents who don’t know what is good for them get something ridiculous they have to live with. “…hoping that doesn’t turn out to be the case” is ridiculous because nowhere in Vancouver has hope ever prevented glass towers where they don’t make sense. The 12 story heights just passed for Chinatown with some select 15 story heights seems about right. Where did this Broadway/Kingsway Rize 26- or even 19- story glass tower come from out of the Community Plan when all around there were no new high rises over 12 stories? Let’s face it, in some neighbourhoods 12 stories is high rise and over double that is just greed. Also your idea of “BroadwayatMain is a perfect confluence for a non-emission tram to anywhere in the city…” as justification for a glass tower makes me wonder if you do have real smoke in the pipe of dreams. It’s never gonna happen.