A thoughtful and cleverly constructed profile of architect Bing Thom in the current Vancouver Magazine by Michael Harris. Bing’s a natural for an interview, always ready with a provocative quote:
“The tragedy here,” says Thom, “is that people in Vancouver have not figured out where we’re going. We’re drifting toward becoming a resort town—one giant Whistler. Up to 30 percent of the people with homes in the downtown core don’t actually live here. And 30,000 young people in the downtown every day are foreign students. This is the global-city problem: foreigners and visitors outnumber residents; you become a stranger in your own home.”
Harris also gets some good quotes on Bing’s work. Here’s Bob Rennie:
“Twenty-five years from now we’re probably not going to be able to drive cars. We need the next vision. And Bing is planting a seed.”
And me:
Combining an office tower, a mall, and a branch of SFU, Central City is a masterpiece of mixed-use design. Its main galleria is toplit by a massive skylight that, buttressed by a network of timber beams, resembles the organic outline of Thom’s boat. Above it all, the 25-storey office tower bears a glass prow, poised as though it might thrust itself through the surrounding tracts of monotonous sprawl.
Price calls Surrey Central City Thom’s most important project. “They were carheads out there, and then Thom created a real urban environment.”
Don’t forget the brewpub! Unfortunately, I can’t say the interior of that place is terribly warm and welcoming. If it were, perhaps it may provide more of a community focal point that pubs often do.