Vibrant, pedestrian-friendly landscape integrates mixed-use site’s perimeter
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationWest Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
ClientGrosvenor Americas
Size3 acres

Landscape improvements for this new mixed-use development integrate and enhance the streetscape improvement measures the city of West Vancouver is currently implementing, providing a vibrant and pedestrian friendly landscape along the entire perimeter of the site. The landscape design for the 1300 Block, Marine Drive South at Ambleside Village Centre contributes to the City’s goals for revitalization by creating a strong public streetscape, flexible spaces for community activities, and locations for plazas, cafés, art installations, and a healthy and vibrant civic realm. The project makes use of the material palette and other design standards set forth by the City, with modifications to provide upgrades of paving and other features, establishing a compelling design and strong place-making for public and private realms. Maple trees unify the street edge and provide continuity with the existing tree canopies along Marine Drive. Along the street edges and through the Galleria plaza, colored concrete bands add interest and variety to the ground plane, extending across Bellevue Avenue, which may be closed off to provide temporary plaza space for community events.

Sculptures and art installations emphasize the public, pedestrian-friendly character of the neighborhood, provide focal points for pedestrian and vehicular traffic along Marine Drive and function as thresholds to the 14th street and the Bellevue plazas. Art installations at the north and south corners highlight the gateways to the project, while special paving, trees in grates, lighting, and movable seating increases the appeal and livable character.  Sustainable elements throughout the project include the use of permeable paving and a series of linear landscape panels that serve as rain gardens.

The project was honored with a ULI Americas Award for Excellence in 2021

Related Projects

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

This office building’s roof garden celebrates a potent image of the native Texas landscape: the level, grass-covered plains emerging from a wooded riparian area. A design vocabulary of native, drought-tolerant plant materials, especially selected to react to light and air movement, reinforces this design approach. The project serves as a two-acre rooftop garde...

Guangzhou Vanke Center

Guangzhou Vanke Center incorporates commercial, and office uses in an urban setting. To echo the “cascading” concept of the architectural design, the landscape architecture was inspired by the fluidity of water, as well as the unique local cultural heritage of dragon boats. The design provides for different types of social activity with variously scaled spaces...

Wuhan Huafa Capital Park

Wuhan Huafa Capital Development is located in the city’s urban core, amidst the hustle and bustle of busy streets and neighborhoods. The nearly 57,000-square-foot green space, adjacent to the Wuhan Capital Residential Development Sales Center, is envisioned to provide an immersive landscape experience for the sales center’s model housing area during the advert...

Huamao Center

Huamao Center adds a major civic destination to the edge of Suzhou’s old town. Occupying 23.5 acres along the historic Shantang Canal, the project layers retail, office, and hospitality space into a human-scaled district rooted in the area’s history of water-based commerce, known for its classic Jiangnan water-town architectural style, with narrow lanes and st...

Wuhan Huafa Capital Park

Wuhan Huafa Capital Development is located in the city’s urban core, amidst the hustle and bustle of busy streets and neighborhoods. The nearly 57,000-square-foot green space, adjacent to the Wuhan Capital Residential Development Sales Center, is envisioned to provide an immersive landscape experience for the sales center’s model housing area during the advert...

Zifeng Tower Nanjing

Nanjing Greenland International Commercial Center is an urban high-rise project containing two major sites, A1 and A2. The 450-meter main tower, Zifeng Tower, with its concentric rings of mixed trees and linear water features, is the focus of the A1 site. The landscape design encompasses existing parks as well as the adjacent historic features in o...

325 5th Avenue Plaza

A new residential tower has risen across the street from the Empire State Building. As a zoning incentive, a new public plaza was included to attract and accommodate the area’s tourists as well as its diverse office and residential neighborhood. The space is defined by a clean, contemporary design composition of spaces, elements, and custom furniture meant to ...

Hunter's Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point

Perched on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the Hunters Point Shipyard was an important naval manufacturing center for the WWI and WWII war efforts. The abandoned shipyard and Candlestick Point were combined into a new, mixed-use residential, retail and light industry development—the largest in San Francisco since WWII. Thomas Balsley Associates collaborated wit...