The new visitor centre at
VanDusen Botanical Garden designed by
Perkins and Will opened last October and a couple of weeks later I had a chance to visit it. If you have not seen it, you should check it out - it is excellent.
It has no less than a LEED Platinum rating, the top possible building rating for environmental performance, and it is net-zero energy - it generates its own energy. But combined with its environmental achievement, is a dramatic architectural experiment, showing us that high 'green' grades can go together with exciting spaces and massing moves.
I have done an earlier post on the design
here, and although the design changed since then - as they organically always do - I was as into it during my visit as I was in my post. The one surprise was just how much intensity was in one rather small building. Everything was to the max - the sweeping curves, the detailing, the materiality. There is enough here for a few buildings!
Many many excellent articles have been written recently:
And
here is a fun videos from Perkins and Will.
As for images, you will find many awesome ones on this
Flickr set by VanDusen Gardens. Below is a mixture of images by others, the nice ones, and by me, not as nice since I had no other option but to take them with my phone camera.
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| by Raymond Chan |
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| by Dan Toulgoet |
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| Agnieszka Stryjecka |
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| By Perkins and Will |
