This proposal – a rendering of Westbank’s Howe and Beach proposal (coming soon – and maybe revised) – is raising lots of comment over at Skyscraper Pages where it was posted. It would be the first major design here influenced by Bjarke Ingels’s firm – BIG.
This was in the Downtown Transportation Plan approved by Vancouver Council in 2003. While not as “radical” as removing the viaducts, the loops represented the auto era and one of the two was hardly used at all. Alternative uses of the land make sense as well. Good to see it finally coming to fruition!
I don’t see the page on the skyscraper forum in the link where this is discussed, just a bunch of other topics. Any idea where this is coming from? A website? A city of Vancouver page? Anything else?
From the scale, it looks like a major addition that would have a major impact on the skyline – I didn’t think the view cones could go that high in that site, but I can’t quite see the plan as I understood it, at least not in this picture, which was of course to remove the loops and replace it with a grid of streets. But maybe that’s just the angle.
Author
Try http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=138107&page=412
Gord
I will be curious to see how the residents of Beach Ave by Burrard St bridge will react – or if they will connect the dots. This will double or triple the amount of traffic through that section – it’s the main way for Westend residents coming into the Westend who prefer not to wait at traffic light after traffic light.
The section of Beach between Horby and Howe have already had a relatively quiet street turned into a busy artery after the Burrard bike lane pushed traffic one block further east.
Those 2 sites flanking the Granville Bridge were the two sites (together with a few others) that the City spot-zoned to allow taller buildings. That’s in addition to the shorter towers that will appear on the site of the Granville Bridge loops when they are removed.
Those 2 are known as “Granville Gateway”. Burrard Gateway (the Pattison site) is another.
See Page 44 here:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/capacitystudy/pdf/11jan20presentation.pdf
BTW – someone posted on VanCityBuzz that that render is not the actual BIG proposal (and it has been removed from the origianl link).
Has this city lost its mind? These buildings are way out of scale with rest of the areas.Congestion will be intolerable. We have been assured that traffic flow will not suffer in the past (Pacific Promenade is one example) and our worst fears came true. You can barely get up the ally into your own block. London has been ruined by this kind of ugly architecture masquerading as “avant-garde”. Utterly horrid and wretchedly stupid planning. PLEASE KILL THIS PROJECT.