Vancouver Heritage Foundation – Painted Shut: Open Your Wood Windows

Jim Stiven of Vintage Woodworks will lead a hands-on demonstrative and illustrated course on historic wood windows. Windows often determine the “character” of a building. Unfortunately, they are often the first element to be replaced because homeowners don’t know how to repair them and are told by contractors that they are the main cause for energy loss in an old home. This course will deal with some of those challenges and inaccurate myths. How can we balance historic integrity, current functional requirements, aesthetics and energy efficiency? That is just one of the topics that this practical course will address. The day will also include demonstration of the repair and maintenance of a painted-shut double-hung wood window. This full-day session happens Saturday, April 16, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Flying Angel Club, 401 East Waterfront Road, Vancouver. The cost is $125 + HST, and lunch will be provided. To sign up, visit www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org.

7 Core LUs

Vancouver Heritage Foundation – Brown Bag Lunch Lectures: The Salt Building

Architect Russell Acton MAIBC of Acton Ostry Architects will tell the story of the rehabilitation and adaptive re-use of this historic industrial building as the social hub for the rejuvenated Southeast False Creek neighbourhood. It takes place Wednesday, April 27, 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m. the British Columbia institute of Technology’s Downtown Campus, 555 Seymour Street. The cost is $12. To sign up, visit www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org.

1.5 Core LUs

Vancouver Heritage Foundation – Brown Bag Lunch Lectures: The Downtown Robert Lee YMCA Project

Architect Alan Endall MAIBC of Endall Elliot Associates will describe how the redevelopment of the downtown YMCA brought an aging structure to 21st Century standards while creating a downtown gathering place while  maintaining a significant grouping of heritage buildings along Vancouver’s Burrard Street. It will be held on Wednesday, March 30, 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m. at the British Columbia institute of Technology’s Downtown Campus, 555 Seymour Street. The cost is $12. To sign up, visit www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org.

1.5 Core LUs

RAIC Gold Medal for Bing Thom

Architecture Canada | RAIC has announced Bing Thom MAIBC FRAIC AIA as the recipient of the 2011 RAIC Gold Medal in acknowledgement of his global reputation for innovative design along with his advocacy for urban and social change. The RAIC Gold Medal, the highest honour for the profession of architecture in Canada, is given for significant contribution to Canadian architecture. It recognizes an individual whose personal work has demonstrated exceptional excellence in the design and practice of architecture; and/or exceptional excellence in research or education. Among Thom’s successes are the master plans for the City of Dalian and the City of Yuxi in China; Surrey Central City; the Canada Pavilion for Expo ’92, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver; Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, BC; the Pacific Canada Pavilion at the Vancouver Aquarium and Marine Science Centre; the Trinity Uptown Plan for Fort Worth, Texas; Vancouver’s Sunset Community Centre; and the recently completed Arena Stage theatre complex in Washington, DC. In reaching its decision, the Gold Medal Selection Committee noted “Bing Thom’s architecture consistently and skillfully balances the art of form-making with an over-arching capacity to create meaningful and sustainable ‘community’. It is an architecture that has the capacity to engage and inspire, to create community. It is transformative in the sense that it looks beyond program and site – it is an architecture which engages the broader urban, social and economic opportunity.” The annual RAIC Gold Medalist Lunch will take place Friday, May 27 as part of the 2011 Festival of Architecture.

 

Telus Building New $750-million Headquarters

High-tech venture to include offices, residential towers and green design

By Brian Morton, Vancouver Sun

March 10, 2011

Telus Communications Corp. plans to build a spiffy new home in downtown Vancouver that will include a 22-storey office complex and 44-storey residential tower, and promises to bring an aging city block to life. The $750-million project, which requires rezoning by the City of Vancouver, would be completed in 2015 if council approves the project and construction gets underway later this year as planned. More …

 

Blueprint for Business

So you finally have the MAIBC after your name and are itching to hang your shingle out for all those potential clients who will soon be pounding at your door.  Your shingle is up; now what?  Blueprint for Business will walk you through the “A to Zs” of business planning for architects, from your professional obligations to the various forms of practice available to you. It will alert you to fundamental issues and opportunities attracting your attention prior to (and during) hanging out your shingle, from both a professional and business point of view. For those already with firms who may have forgotten what the enthusiasm was all about, this is a perfect refresher course. Your enthusiasm will be renewed. The course is scheduled for Thursday, March 17, 2011. Registration closes March 14, so you are encouraged to, register on-line now.

6 Core LUs

 

New BC Building Code Effective Fall 2012

The Province of British Columbia has announced a delay in the anticipated release of the revised provincial codes. New editions of the BC Building Code, BC Plumbing Code and BC Fire Code (the “BC Codes”) are generally adopted by government in the year following the release of the new edition of the National Building Code.  Thus, many in the industry have been anticipating the release of the BC Codes in the spring of 2011.  However, the new National Building Code contained more than 850 changes, with some of the more substantial ones requiring further analysis. As a result, the province will be publishing the next editions of the BC Codes in the spring of 2012 with an effective date in the fall of 2012.  For more information, please see Bulletin 11-01 BC Codes – Release of Next Editions (http://www.housing.gov.bc.ca/building/bulletins/).

 

UBC SALA Lecture Series: David Owen – Why Manhattan is the Greenest City in North America

The Global Civic Policy Society and the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture welcome New York-based David Owen, author of Green Metropolis and staff writer of The New Yorker magazine. Owen will share his insight as to how such a populous urban centre can also be one of the world’s greenest city. It happens Thursday, March 17, 2011, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. at the Playhouse Theatre, Dunsmuir and Hamilton in Vancouver. There is no charge for admission. However, r.s.v.p. is requested. Contact Lynn Zanatta at lzanatta@telus.net.

Canada Green Building – LEED® Canada for Homes: Program Review

This full-day workshop will address essential knowledge of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)® Canada for Homes rating system. It will provide the foundation required for the more advanced LEED® Canada for Homes training. Group activities will be used to help demonstrate and reinforce learning. Like all CaGBC education programs, this workshop meets the eligibility requirements of the Green Associate examination. The workshop will be held on Thursday, March 24 in Room 945, 1500 West Georgia Street, Vancouver. Visit http://www.cagbc.org/source/Events/Event.cfm?EVENT=HM11VA0324&section=Education to register.

7  Core LUs

Tall Timber Skyscrapers Workable, Report Says

Buildings up to 30 storeys possible, award-winning architect tells conference

By Randy Boswell, Vancouver Sun

March 8, 2011

A study funded by the B.C. government to help promote the province’s forestry sector will conclude that buildings as tall as 30 storeys could be made almost entirely out of wood, says an award-winning Vancouver architect leading the research. Michael Green, who detailed his vision for the world’s first “timber skyscraper” during a keynote address last week at a Green Cities conference in Australia, told Postmedia News on Monday that a provincially supported study due to be released later this month will show that such buildings can be cost-saving as well as both fire-and earthquakesafe, and that Canada is ideally positioned to lead an emerging global “race” to reinvent the highrise construction industry -with wood challenging steel and concrete as the ideal building material. More …

 

Rich Folk Poor Folk: Mixed-Income Housing

By Christine McLaren, BCBusiness

March 7, 2011

Vancouver’s experiment with mixed-income housing broke new ground. But to what extent is it a replicable model? When Bob Rennie set out to sell 536 glitzy condominiums in the Woodward’s complex next to 200 units of Downtown Eastside social housing, Vancouver’s real estate marketer extraordinaire took a self-described leap of “blind faith,” one that people told him would ruin his career. More …