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Architects Foster + Partners have attached a 35-storey tower onto the side of two renovated 1920s buildings in Vancouver’s financial district.

Nestled alongside the restored Ceperley Rounsfell Building and the retained facade of the Royal Financial Building, Jameson House provides 23 floors of apartments above offices and shops on the floors below.

The glazed tower’s northeast elevation is articulated as four vertical tubes, which begin at the cornice height of neighbouring buildings.

Other projects we’ve featured in Canada include an interesting canoe store and a set of plywood skating shelters – see them all here.

Photography is by Nigel Young.

Here’s some more information from Foster + Partners:

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Jameson House, Foster + Partners first mixed-use project in Canada

Jameson House is a new 35-storey mixed-use tower in the heart of Vancouver and includes the first residential development to be completed by the practice in North America – completed at the end of last year, already the building is now almost fully occupied. The project combines the restoration of heritage buildings with new construction: the lower level offices and shops knit with the existing streetscape to reinvigorate the downtown neighbourhood, while the apartments above face dramatic views of the bay and create a new landmark on the skyline.

Fusing old and new, the site connects the city’s financial centre with its emerging creative hub, and the scheme integrates two 1920s Beaux Arts structures: the entire internal double-height volume of the A-listed Ceperley Rounsfell Building has been returned to its original configuration and the facade of the B-listed Royal Financial Building has been retained.

The development comprises eleven storeys of offices and shops, topped by twenty-three storeys of apartments. The tower’s form articulates these different functions: the first two storeys continue the row of shop units at street level, while the uppermost office floor aligns with the cornice line of the adjacent building. Contrasting with the flush facade of the offices, the residential floors curve outwards in four wide bays, which are staggered to allow daylight to reach neighbouring buildings and oriented to provide uninterrupted views of the landscape.

The tower’s flexible plan supports a variety of apartment types, with interiors by Foster + Partners and living spaces in the deep curve of the window bays. At the top of the tower are two-storey penthouse apartments and landscaped roof terraces.

The design was developed in response to the local climate, seasonal sun paths, prevailing winds, humidity levels, air temperatures and precipitation rates specific to Vancouver.

Foster + Partners’ in-house engineering group – formerly PHA Consult – has been involved in the project from the outset, in a fully integrated approach to environmental engineering and architectural design.

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This has led to innovations such as chilled floors and a mechanised valet parking system, which reduces the number of parking levels and associated excavation, lighting and ventilation requirements.

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Lord Foster said: “Vancouver has a spectacular location, surrounded by mountains and the sea. The design makes the most of the city’s fantastic natural setting, with balconies and deep bay windows looking out towards the landscape. Jameson House further develops a number of key themes that have been integral to our work for many years. The project combines restoration with new construction; it is high-density and mixed-use, offering a sustainable model for urban living; and it demonstrates innovation, both in its evolution of the high-rise building and its progressive environmental agenda.”

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Nigel Dancey, a senior partner at Foster + Partners, said: “Jameson House was the result of a team effort: we worked closely with environmental engineers, as well as the city, from the outset. This collaborative approach led to innovations, both in the tower’s design and in our interrogation of the brief – we were able to significantly increase the density of the scheme to create a highly sustainable mixed-use development. And by combining these different functions within a compact footprint, we can further balance energy usage with the mixture of daytime and night-time activity.”

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Colin Bosa, CEO of Bosa Properties: “Foster + Partners has created a unique building for Vancouver, which combines high-quality finishes and a strong design sense with a clear commitment to sustainability. We are most pleased with the architectural legacy that Jameson House offers to our city.”

Late 60s photographs by Franco Rubartelli Title via the tumblr Malicious Glamour Will 50 Watts

Listen up Weekendudes and Weekendettes, have I got a fact for you. So it turns out the South Kensington area of London where all the museums are is known as Albertropolis. How fricking sweet is that, and what a boost for all of us with names that end in “-bert” who up to now have had only the nagging fear someone might call us Bertie. My desk has been renamed Robertropolis and it has laws and a flag and a national anthem (I’ll sing it if you ask me nicely). Where was I? Oh yes, live from Robertropolis, it’s the Weekender!…. (Read more)

Mick.

Our most controversial story this week announced writer Alain de Botton’s plans to erect temples for atheists across the UK – read the story and join the debate here. It also emerged that Disney were selling a T-shirt inspired by the 1979 album cover of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division, but don’t rush to order one as they’ve all sold. We also showed a robe made of golden silk harvested from over a million wild spiders and a tower built by flying robots.

Our most popular story featured a blackened timber house surrounded by sheep on a Portuguese island and readers showed a lot of love for the bottle-shaped shutters of a wine shop in Prague, but argued about the sloping zig-zag roof of a market in Majorca.

This week the sad news reached us that Moss design store in New York is to close. More happily, retailers Habitat appointed Polly Dickens as new creative director, William Knight was announced as the new event director of trade show 100% Design, Jeremy Till was appointed as the new head of college at Central Saint Martins and Tord Boontje is to open a shop in London.

John Pawson unveiled his proposals for the new Design Museum in London and Grimshaw were selected to masterplan the home of the Wimbledon tennis championships.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates and discussions throughout the week.

More architecture stories | More interior stories | More design stories | More Dezeen Wire |More watches | More movies

Some of the best cutting edge creatives in Japan came together to work on this excellent video for androp – Yuri Suzuki, Tomoaki Yanagisaw and KIMURA under the direction of PARTY. Oh, and they put together some musical ROBOTS to create a sound and light spectacular. Technophiles, start your engines…

www.prty.jp

Improved is a strong word, but this is so, so good. As you look at the images on this site, all your prior knowledge about art history and the Renaissance slowly drains out of your ear (that’s what ear wax is) to be replaced by this smug, cackling fat cat, lounging in some of the most epic paintings in the history of time. Take that, intellect!

www.fatcatart.ru

If you're in London you might want to swing by the Architectural Association School and check out H.O.R.T.U.S. (which stands for Hydro Organism Responsive to Urban Stimuli.) To be honest i'm not sure what to think about this one but it's been a slow week art-wise for me so i'll throw the information in this post in the hope that it will help me make up my mind about the project.

ecoLogicStudio, H.O.R.T.U.S. installation at AA. Photo: Sue Barr

ecoLogicStudio, H.O.R.T.U.S. installation at AA. Photo: Sue Barr

ecoLogicStudio, H.O.R.T.U.S. installation at AA. Photo: Sue Barr

With HORTUS, the architects from ecoLogicStudio are inviting the public to become cyber-gardeners and "invent new protocols of urban biogardening."

There's a bright green carpet on the floor and hundreds of intravenous-style bags are suspended above our heads. The bags are in fact photo-bioreactors and they form a 'greenhouse' that hosts nine different species of algae, from chlorella to algae found in London's canals. Visitors can blow into flexible plastic tubes, fostering the growth of the algae with their carbon dioxide and activating the oxygen production.

The plastic bags carry a QR code. You hold up your smartphone, scan the code and are directed to a page of information about the algae you've just 'fed' with your breath. Large containers are distributed between the algae bags, they host bioluminescent bacteria that automatically fed through a pump with air from the oxygen released.

The greenhouse cohabits with a virtual garden that feeds on visitors' scans and tweets about the exhibition. Their 'interaction' with the algae shape a garden rendered in real time on a screen.

ecoLogicStudio, H.O.R.T.U.S. installation at AA. Photo: Sue Barr

ecoLogicStudio, H.O.R.T.U.S. installation at AA. Photo: Sue Barr

I wasn't much impressed with the QR codes and the virtual garden created by tweets but it turns out that the project is much more than just another demonstration of how 'nature meets buildings meet the virtual.' H.O.R.T.U.S. is one of the manifestations of ecoLogicStudio's exploration into the role that algae might play in our future life: to produce nonpolluting hydrogen-based energy, to filter water or take a more important role in our alimentation.

The architects recently had the opportunity to try and test their idea on a larger scale in Simrishamn in Sweden. The Swedish Municipality is in need of new urban ideas to help boost its economy: the fishing industry is declining and young people are leaving the area.

ecoLogicStudio came up with an Regional Algae Farm plan that involves a series of algae-related urban activities and architectural prototypes.

H.O.R.T.U.S. enables the public to engage directly and simply with ideas and systems that might form a larger part of our life in years to come.

If someone held a gun to my head and asked me to pick the coolest person on earth ( a fairly unlikely scenario I grant you – what could they possibly be trying to achieve?!) I would probably plump for comedian/musician/maverick Reggie Watts. Constantly defying expectations, this collaboration with photographer Noah Kalina is a peach of a little film – enigmatic, elegant and every gorgeous shot is composed with consummate care. Beautiful.

www.reggiewatts.com www.noahkalina.com

Following their Eurovision Song Contest win last summer, Azerbaijan rushed to commission German firm GMP Architekten to design a new stadium that will be complete in time to host this year’s competition.

The sports stadium and concert hall for the capital city of Baku will seat 25,000 spectators and is being designed and constructed simultaneously in a period of just eight months.

The building’s exterior will be faceted to match the form of a crystal container. GMP Architekten are collaborating with contractors Alpine Bau Deutschland and Nüssli to deliver the project by March 2012.

You can see more stadiums designed by GMP Architekten here, including a trio of venues for Shenzhen that are remarkably similar.

The text below is a statement from the architects:

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Sports Concert Complex, Baku, Azerbaijan

Design and implementation of Crystal Hall for the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku In May 2012, the Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku at Crystal Hall.

Alpine Bau Deutschland GmbH, the general contractor for the project, was contracted on August 2nd, 2011 to design and implement a multipurpose event-venue that is meant to accommodate 25,000 spectators.

This challenging task was undertaken by combining the efforts of gmp · Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner, Alpine Bau Deutschland AG, and Nüssli International AG.

The Eurovision Song Contest takes place every year, which means that this striking crystal-shaped building on the peninsula near the city centre, right in the Caspian Sea and in the direct vicinity of one of the world’s highest flagpoles, had to be designed and constructed within a period of just eight months. The building is not a concert hall in the classical sense but a multi-functional indoor arena, which is intended to be a longer-term facility. Normally, event venues of comparable size, such as a football stadium, will require 4 to 5 years for design and construction.

Instead of the usual reinforced concrete construction, the building has been designed as a pure steel structure which consists of three independent parts, i.e. the membrane façade, the modular stadium itself and the interior roof. In order to be able to put up a building of the size of a football stadium in just a few months, design and construction proceed in parallel. An important tool in this complex process is the detailed visualisation of the entire work schedule: it covers and displays each step in chronological order in weekly sequences. A prerequisite for the success of this novel working method is the extensive experience in design, management and construction scheduling provided by the consortium, as well as very good communication between the design team and the construction companies.

The characteristic crystalline shape of the building and its illuminated façade is the response to Azerbaijan’s special request for the creation of a widely visible and visually effective landmark as a bridge between Asia and Europe that will be noticed in an international context. Different dynamic lighting scenarios are currently being programmed for the 9,500 LED lights to highlight the membrane façade and create moods appropriate for the different stages of the events.

Sports Concert Complex, Baku, Azerbaijan Direct commission following the bidding process in 2011 In Cooperation: with Alpine Bau Deutschland AG, Nüssli International AG Design: Volkwin Marg and Hubert Nienhoff with Markus Pfisterer, 2011 Project Management: Markus Pfisterer, Silke Flaßnöcker Staff: Martin Hakiel, Carsten Borucki, Monika Kwiatkowski, Ignacio Zarrabeitia, Helge Lezius, Gerard Slee, Lars Laubenthal, Fariborz Rahimi, Justin Allen, Sebastian Lundelius, Dirk Müller

Client: State Commitee on Property Issues, Baku, Azerbaijan Structural engineering: SSF Ingenieure München; schlaich bergermann and partners, Stuttgart Services / Sanitary / Heating / Ventilation: Basler & Hofmann Ingenieure, Zurich Lighting design: Lichtvision, Berlin Seats: 25,000 Design and construction period: July 2011 – March 2012 Length of hall: approx. 206 m Width of hall: approx. 168 m Height of hall: approx. 25 m

This 60 metre-long metal bridge is a route for heating and power pipes, rather than people.

Designed by London architects MJP, the stainless steel tunnel connects the combined heat and power plant (CHP) at the University of Birmingham’s main site with a campus across the railway tracks and canal.

Small perforations create a pattern of wavy lines on the bridge’s exterior, while the steel surface has a brushed finish that reduces glare for train drivers below.

The new CHP supply will decrease the University’s carbon footprint by approximately 1500 tonnes per year.

We’ve also featured another interesting University energy facility – click to read about an energy centre with diamond-shaped aluminium scales.

Photography is by Simon Kennedy.

Here’s a description from MJP:

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Steam on at the University of Birmingham

The newly completed Steambridge is a key component of a forward-looking major programme to refurbish and extend the University of Birmingham’s combined heat and power (CHP) network. The site of the new bridge is at the West Gate of the University and marks the entrance to the Edgbaston Campus. MJP Architects have designed the curved 2k finished, laser cut, Grade 316 stainless cladding for a very long service life with zero cleaning and maintenance.

Liz Pride, MJP’s Director of Education and the University’s Development Plan Architect says,

“It’s in a very prominent location at the main West Gate entrance to the University’s campus and right opposite the entrance to University Station. It’s also quite a feature seen from the canal below. The elegant design of the cladding makes an inherently utilitarian feature interesting and attractive: it highlights the University’s real commitment to CHP and carbon reduction.”

Steam is Green

The University has an in-house combined heat and power (CHP) station, and a remote site at the Medical School on the opposite side of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and the busy railway lines. The Steambridge links these two parts of the campus.

David Drew M&E Manager at the University of Birmingham says:

“The success of the bridge is that it reduces our carbon footprint by in excess of 1,500 tonnes of carbon per year and gives us a vastly improved security of supply”.

Kevin George CPW Building Services says:

It’s an impressive structure and the reaction that people have had has been amazing. People arriving at the University get off the train and they stop, look over and say ‘wow what’s that?’ – To get people to go ‘wow’ for a services project is a really great thing”.

The campus wide CHP network is a very sustainable method of providing for the future power needs of the University as local power generation, is significantly more efficient than the national grid and therefore reduces the University’s carbon dioxide outputs campus wide.

Glamour Brought to Infrastructure

The Steam Pipe Bridge is designed as an elegant, sinuous sculptural form, ‘flowing’ across the canal and railway lines. The curved silver cladding reflects the colours of the trees and water, whilst the rippling slots enliven its surface.

Birmingham and the West Midlands are UK centres of industry and the bridge uses aeronautical, transport and engineering imagery in its design, to reflect its location at the University of Birmingham and to illustrate its purpose. Reza Schuster Director MJP Architects says:

“It’s not just a pipe, it has the flattened ends and curved profile of the trains that run underneath it and the front of the bridge has the shape of an intake of an airliner turbofan nacelle. I like to think that the sinuous curves in the metallic surface describe the flow of steam from one side of the bridge to the other”.

Off-Site Construction

The 60 metre long superstructure was pre-clad off-site, transported by road in two spans, and installed with military precision during a five hour overnight line closure. The cladding panels were fabricated in Holland by Sorba Projects and their detail design was the result of a close and creative collaboration between MJP Architects, the University and the specialist subcontractor.

Client: University of Birmingham Estates Department

Project Team Architect: MJP Architects Project Manager: Couch Perry Wilkes Contract Administrator: Robinson Low Francis Structural Engineer: Couch Consulting Engineers Services Engineer: Couch Perry Wilkes Quantity Surveyor: Robinson Low Francis CDM Coordinator: Robinson Low Francis

Contractor Team Main Contractor: Volker FitzPatrick Cladding Subcontractor: Sorba Projects M&E Subcontractor: D&I Building Services

I know we’ve posted him before but if Matt is prepared to make such great work at such an alarming rate then what are we to do? Every picture he creates (and god knows how he creates them) seems at once mythological but still futuristic, like that bit in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure when they bring Beethoven to the mall and he plays the keyboards. Matt’s images have got so much story behind them that I’m just waiting, praying, for the day he starts making comic books. (Read more)

http://mattleinesart.tumblr.com