The past 18 months will be forever known in Vancouver’s history as the peak of the condo boom. Yes, many decades ago we led the nation in creating the strata title legislation that made condominium apartments possible, and by now, the idea of purchasing a box in space is hardly new for us.

What is new is the almost frenzied switch to condos by Vancouverites – both new arrivals as well as citizens of long standing. Much faster than our civic politicians or city planners anticipated, the complete development of all highrise residential sites on the downtown peninsula is already within sight. More than most of us realize, downtown Vancouver got architecturally “finished” over the past several years, by and large.

Decades, maybe centuries from now, historians will tour Downtown South, Coal Harbour, Concord Pacific, even our core downtown and be amazed to find cornerstone after cornerstone bearing dates reading “2003”, “2004”, and “2005”. Looking around at the similar acre-after-acre of white concrete and green glass that is our current “mondo condo,” these observers may not be generous in their opinions about our stewardship of this lost last chance to make Vancouver a city worthy of its setting.

There is one development firm that has used design to set itself apart from the others, almost single-handledly raising the bar for architectural quality and public benefit in new Vancouver towers for highrise living. The $180-million Shaw Tower on Cordova at the foot of Hornby, designed by James K.M. Cheng for Ian Gillespie’s Westbank Projects, literally stands above the rest, soon to be followed by the same team’s even more audacious Shangri-la hontel-condo tower at Georgia and Thurlow, soon to be our city’s tallest residential tower.

Vancouver-raised and educated, Gillespie separates himself from the pack of downtown developers first in picking one of Vancouver’s most lauded designers in Hong Kong-born James Cheng, then sticking with him through three major projects in Vancouver (two projects for the Kwok family along Bute Street – and now the Shaw Tower), plus a trio of similar residential towers out of town (Bellevue, Dallas, and Edmonton). Many local developers trade design innovation and finesse for even more competitive professional fees and passive compliance from their architects; the dullness of too many of our new towers gives evidence to this.

Not for Gillespie and Cheng, Vancouver’s “Kings of Mondo Condo”. “As our market matures, Vancouver is learning what a good investment quality design makes,” says the soft-spoken Gillespie. Over and above their highrise accomplishments, the two have also walked this talk with a building one-hundredth the size of Shaw Tower, an utterly different challenge to the synergy of architect and client. Last year, James Cheng finished the last touches on an Endowment Lands residence for Gillespie, his wife Stephanie, and their two children.

Dominated by a glass stair hovering over a carp pond, there is a warmth within that befits a dwelling alive with young children, while at the same time providing Gillespie grand spaces to show off his growing art collection.
Outside, the Gillespie house’s cubic glass and concrete exterior volumes are a marvelous combination of good neighbour (its key visual moves are in synch with the houses adjacent), while also demonstrating how an unapologetic Modernism is so much better suited to this part of town than the scratchy mock-Englishness that still hangs upon this neighbourhood like damp tweed leggings.

The Gillespie residence is the finest private house to open in Vancouver in the last three years since John and Patricia Patkau finished their governor-general medal-winning Shaw House (no relation to the Edmonton-innovating Shaw Media family, though is should be noted that these architects started their architectural practice in that same Alberta city).

This double collaboration of developer with architect at two vastly different scales has earned them a tie with themselves for “2004 Building of the Year,” winning for both the Gillespie residence and the Shaw Tower. Now, my reasons why these two stand out from all the rest.

To get the Shaw Tower built, architect and developer had to undertake the long and arduous task of rezoning, which necessitates an elaborate package of technical documentation and arguments, lengthy negotiations with urban planners, and an ultimate “yeah” in the risky forum of city council.

The hook that pulled this project through these obstacles was its live-work zoning. While there had been a previous limited experiment with the concept in a few condos only at Westbank’s “Dockside,” completed a few blocks west of Coal Harbour, the Shaw Tower has 131 units totaling 234,000 square metres of space perpetually flexible for any combination of living and working. This is equal to the total of all other such spaces previously approved by council.

As conceived by Gordon Campbell’s team when he was project developer here with former owner Marathon Realty, this was to be an office-only site that would rise no higher than 300 feet. Along with the change of function to two-thirds housing, the architect and developer asked for an increase in height to 450 feet. Visible from around the entire Burrard Inlet, this is a double-or-nothing bet by planners and politicians that architecture would be delivered equal to this harbour-side location. It has.

On top of its visual splendour, the Shaw Tower brings social merits into the bargain. Unusual for such buildings, it has on-site daycare. An art collector himself, Gillespie had previous public art success with Dale Chihuly’s bouquet of glass flowers, closely flanked by Gwen Boyle’s fountains bedecked with icons along the Bute Street side of his much lauded Residences on Georgia.

For the Shaw Tower, the artistic ante was upped by concentrating on a single sculptural work that will be visible from the North Shore and both our major harbour bridges.
Conceived by a Los Angeles artist, multi-colored, constantly changing LED-displays will pulse up and down the entire elevation of the Shaw Tower, a public art-work that will be inaugurated this summer.

Befitting its location near our Howe Street financial hub, the Shaw Tower is well-haberdashed in an all-glass curtain wall, tailored with crisp seams of banded sun-screens. The Shaw Tower rotates and slenderizes as it rises. Along the way, Cheng’s design finds niches for decks that are surprisingly large and private, those cornice-like solar screens blocking views from adjacent towers.

The architect wanted the Shaw’s 16 lower storeys to be a good urban neighborhood to Cordova Street and adjacent buildings such as the Guinness Tower, but then had to rotate the tower’s bulk higher up to get out of the line of fire of the city’s form-determining “view corridors” (established to protect vistas from key public spaces).

In addition to these factors – according to the third key member of their team, condo marketer wunderkind Bob Rennie – the team wanted to maximize harbour views on every residential floor. If Gillespie and Cheng are Vancouver’s Kings of Mondo Condo, the effusive Rennie – whose small firm sold $405 million worth of condos last year, a Canadian and perhaps world record – is the Sultan of Sales: “With a hotel below the residential floors of Shangri-la and the office building below those at Shaw Tower, our lowest condo views literally start where most other towers top out.”

A tour of Shaw Tower’s cleverly planned suites serves – by contrast – as an instant education about the awkwardness we have sadly come to expect at most other new Vancouver condos. A devoted neo-modernist and protégé or L.A. Gerry Museum architect Richard Meier when a student at Harvard, James Cheng has eye-pleasing proportions and an elegant brace of textures that quickly come into view at even Shaw’s smallest suites.

As for the big ones, action film star Jean Claude van Damme has taken an entire penthouse floor. The “Muscles from Brusels” joins the growing ratio of international buyers attracted to Vancouver’s unbeatable combination of nature and urbanity, and the Shaw’s harbour-hugging location ensure it has permanent views of both. Gillespie and Cheng’s Shaw Tower clearly give a “Van Damn” about design, and its quality will endure while our growing oversupply of badly-conceived downtown condos shakes out over the next few years.

Because the stacked office and apartment buildings sharing the Shaw tower have separate lobbies, the meaty movie star will not have to tussle for the elevator with a famously aggressive Vancouver businessman. Jim Pattison will soon oversee his diverse corporate universe from an entire floor at Shaw Tower. Currently based in the Guinness Tower across the street, B.C’s most powerful business builder first went over to Shaw’s preview sales centre to complain about his views being blocked, but soon chose to move his headquarters there instead, Gillespie says.

Along with Westbank, the Shaw Tower’s co-owners and fellow office tenants are B.C. headquarters for two Edmonton-founded business success stories: cable TV and Internet behemoth Shaw Media, and the company that built the tower, Ledcor Construction. Now, when Vancouverites call in to complain about their fuzzy reception of “Coronation Street” or their slow download time of Britney pix, they will be answered by Shaw employees overlooking Burrard Inlet.

“These have to be the vest views of any call centre in the world,” boasts Rennie. The start fact of a call centre at the best view address in town is also testament to the fact that Vancouver’s corporate class is abandoning our downtown; thank goodness for the real estate vision of Alberta’s Shaw and Lede families.
The spectacular Shaw television studios just off the lobby replace a jerry-built operation the company inherited on a North Vancouver back street. The glass-walled studio views are now so spectacular with the comings and goings of cruise ships and float planes in the harbour that these live visuals now regularly trump what interviewees are talking about on such cable 4 regular programs as The Fanny Kiefer Show. The Shaw Tower’s medium of design finesse and views is its message.

The 300,000 square feet of office space is rounded out with headquarters for Gillespie’s Westbank Projects Corporation. These premises, furnished by Gastown’s InForm Interiors, make Donald Trump’s corporate suites on The Apprentice look like Ma Kettle’s laundry room.

Already, Gillespie is eyeing the plot immediately to the east for a sister tower. When asked about this one blocking views from his new owners, Gillespie sums up the strength of this team in a single phrase: “Jim Cheng and Bob Rennie will make it work, and we all know that Vancouverites have started buying architecture, not just square footage.”