Vancity Centre (gbb)

Location

183 Terminal Ave

Vancouver, BC

Canada

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Building Type
Commercial Office
Height
58.22 m
Floors
14
Certifications & Awards
  • BOMA BESt Level 1
Project Team
  • Architect: Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership
  • Mechanical Engineer: Earth Tech
  • Structural Engineer: Jones Kwong Kishi
  • Electrical Engineer: Prism Engineering

Summary

Located at the Main Street Science World SkyTrain station in Vancouver, this location gives Vancity, western Canada's largest financial institution, prominence from downtown looking east, with Vancouver's workforce literally in transit through their building to and from the city.

The building form is broken into two distinct masses: one oriented to the "city" grid that relates to the string of Citygate towers facing Quebec Street, and the other on axis with the Skytrain guideway, which expresses more "high tech" aspects of the transit station.

The building has been awarded the BOMA Earth Award in 1998, the BOMA TOBY Award in 1999, and BOMA BESt Level 1 in April 2005 for its green building performance.

LIGHTING SYSTEMS

Vancity has taken energy efficiency a step further by applying LED technology to their exterior signs at their two downtown office tower locations and branches throughout the lower mainland and Victoria.

At their two Head Office towers and close to 50 branches across BC, Vancity is changing their exterior signage from neon to LED. In 2004, a pilot retrofit project was completed at 11 Vancity branches with the assistance of BC Hydro. Energy savings from the pilot were 85% of what the signs originally used. Other advantages for Vancity were a reduction in maintenance costs, fewer failures, and reduced safety hazards.

As a result of the pilot project, Vancity has committed to changing all the exterior signage at their locations to LED and this has become the standard for new locations. The initial cost is similar to that of neon signs, but LED has a much better life cycle cost when considering energy and maintenance cost savings.

The LED sign located at the top of the Vancity Centre building is seven feet high and 35 feet long, proving that LED has some lofty applications. The entire sign draws only 1,260 watts, less than 25% of the sign it replaced.

Technology: Sensor based energy management of energy needs