vancouver’s old-growth forest regeneration gardens€¦ · old-growth forest regeneration gardens...

Beatty Street / Expo Boulevard 105

Vancouver’s Old-Growth Forest

Regeneration Gardens

Public Realm

ConceptThe 720 Beatty Street and 701 Expo Boulevard development is a unique example of ‘urban succession’. The steam plant facility was created to replace the City’s coal burning power plant and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and better suit its prime location in a modern urban environment. Now, this project proposes the next logical evolution of this facility, with the steam plant’s integration into a mixed-use urban development, layering new vitality to downtown Vancouver. Aspects of the new design will showcase the embedded infrastructure within, completing the narrative arc.

The landscape strategy takes its cue from an entirely different, yet related evolution - the premise of ‘natural succession’. A now bustling urban metropolis, Vancouver sprung up where old growth forest once stood, since harvested to fuel the city’s economic and physical growth.

This project aims to put this natural succession back in our collective consciousness, restoring a missing link to the city’s ‘roots’. A series of large scale landscaped ‘islands’ will showcase giant, salvaged trees from various local and regional sources in various states. Once collected and sited, their gradual decay will then support and accelerate new forms of growth, habitat and ecologies. New western red cedar trees (British Columbia’s official provincial tree) will be encouraged to grow up and claim their space, while ferns and mosses populate the sited fallen specimens below. The public will be invited to observe and interact with these living installations, watching as they evolve from season to season, and year to year, as cycles of death and new life are poetically expressed in the gardens.

A Stunning Gateway to Northeast False Creek

The incredible landscape of Stanley Park - the city’s old growth artifact - is linked via Georgia Street to the False Creek basin and waterfront where the timber resources were historically processed and the city flourished from a small lumber town to a contemporary global city

Expressing Natural Phenomenon of Growth and Decay..

Connecting One Vancouver...

... With the Other Vancouver

Beatty

Lost Lagoon

False Creek

Georgia

106 Beatty Street / Expo Boulevard

The Landscape that Preceded the CityOnly 200 years ago, Vancouver was a towering old-growth forest. It’s easy to forget. The landscape approach at 720 Beatty asks: “How do we remember how we came to be here, what we were? And, in terms of both urban and natural succession – what comes next?” The infill of a void in the existing urban fabric creates the opportunity to create new layers of landscape experience and meaning in the public realm. The proposed landscape brings a series of ‘Forest Regeneration Gardens’ expressing the natural phenomenon of growth and decay, producing generation upon generation of successional forest growth. Several natural icons will anchor the gardens. These are the ‘lost giants’ - trees that are +250 year-old artifacts salvaged from logging production or naturally fallen in the forest. They will become hosts for a series of experimental gardens of aesthetic, ecological and poetic force.

Foresters understand that a rotting tree in the middle of a canopied forest is, in fact, more supportive of biodiversity than a living tree. The 720 Beatty landscape invites the public to appreciate how these natural ‘hosts’ provide the basis for growth and new life out of death and decay. A series of forest regeneration experimental gardens will bring specific dynamics of successional growth to the forefront of public experience on site.

Thinking ‘Forestry’ as Landscape for Beatty

Resource Landscape

The False Creek area was traditionally used for fishing, harvest-ing and hunting by the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Wau-tuth First Nations for millennia. Each Nation had their own relationship to the area, including their own place names and uses for the lands and resources. In the 1850’s, settlers began to arrive in search of gold, then lumber, and as the immigrant population grew by the 1880s, large-scale forest clearing be-gan. The ancient forests were cut, their stumps dynamited, split and torn from the ground. Fire was used to burn deep into the organic soils. The ancient forests were practically erased, and mostly forgotten by the city, which has sprung up in its place.

Today: North-East False Creek On the verge of transformation

Not long ago...Memories of a Lumber-Hungry Town

Contemplating the Ancient Trees that preceded the City

Successional Growth Upon Growth Upon...

Vancouver Logs & Memory

Expressing a Phenomenon of the Forest

Hollow stump at Stanley Park

Coastal Driftwood

Logs & Leisure,Vancouver Beaches

1886 – The Town of Granville is incorporated as the City of Vancouver, population 1000.

Enter the Great Vancouver Forest...Only 200 years ago, Vancouver was a towering old-growth forest.

Public Realm


Stadium-Chinatown Station

CreativeEnergy

Terry FoxPlaza

BC PLACE

Beatty Street

Expo Blvd

GA

GB

GC

GH

West G

eorgia Street

Terry FoxPlaza

BC PLACE

New W

est Georgia Street

Expo Blvd

GA

GB

GC

GH

Stadium-Chinatown Station

Beatty Street

Existing Circulation - Stadium Pedestrian Flows

Proposed Circulation - Stadium Pedestrian Flows

GG

GG

Access and Circulation


Public Realm

Layers of the Public Realm

1. Mineral/Organic Floor

3. Five Memorable Gardens Moments

An organic floor of crushed stone aggregate, inlaid with a diffuse pattern of timber and gold planks. The pattern reflects the fluidity and smoothness of the architecture and the softness of the site landscape.It gives legible cues for pedestrian movement; the pattern helps to facilitate both intense flows of crowds during peak events, while also encouraging moments of pause for office workers and visitors to linger during typical weekdays. The fluidity of movement is further expressed with inlaid linear LED in-ground lights integrated into the patterned floor.

The regeneration gardens encourage people to stay and linger, with integrated seating and gathering areas, and to ultimately experience the nature that preceded the city juxtaposed against the city that continues to evolve in its place.

A sequence of garden experiences create a procession from Beatty to Georgia, threading through the site. Each moment offers a forest regeneration experiment expressing the phenomenon of growth and decay.

- ‘Root Fan Array’ Garden at Beatty - ‘Lost Giant’ Timber Garden at Plaza - Garden of Growth & Decay at Georgia- Sunken Expo Garden on Expo Blvd - Cascade Garden at Pavilion

5. Lighting

Linear Inlay LightingThe fluidity of movement is further expressed with inlaid linear LED in-ground lights integrated into the patterned floor. The density and distribution increases with proximity to the pavilion, drawing visitors along Georgia to the pavilion and heart of the animated plaza. The lights are both an animator of the environment and a guide to movement.

Theatrical Landscape LightingSimilar to traditional theatre, high contrast lighting in the gardens will enhance detail and direct attention towards the giant stump and forest floor planting that populate the gardens. Creating contrast by intensely illuminating the subject allows for new readubgs abd perceptions of the landscape.


Tree Candidate Species (Island Gardens) Western Red Cedar Thuja plicata Western Hemlock Tsuga heterophylla Douglas Fir Pseudotsuga menziesii Red Alder Alnus rubra Paper birch Betula papyrifera Understorey Candidate Species introduce a lush understory featuring a collection of plants native to BC that occur mostly at low to middle elevations in soil enriched by decaying wood and on rotten logs. establish a lush layer of ferns and thick carpet of mosses to anchor the ‘forest floor’ of an emerging plantation of Red Cedars, Hemlock and Douglas Fir. Red Huckleberry Vaccinium parvifolium Devil’s Club Oplopanax horridus Diverse Native Ferns and Mosses

Inlaid linear elements, including endgrain timber blocks, timber slabs and gold-tone metal planks, are distributed in a pattern of varying density across the site. They are set within a plaza composed of a resin-bonded stone aggregate surface.

Inlaid linear LED in-ground lights are integrated into the pattern and distributed in close proximity to the pavilion.


Public Realm

Layers of the Public Realm

5. Streetscape

To unify the corner of the block as a coherent stadium precinct, a consistent planting of Dawn Redwoods is proposed along Georgia Street. The Dawn Redwoods on Georgia will recall Vancouver’s old growth forest still encountered at the street’s north west terminus at Lost Lagoon, and will yield a great effect as a gateway experience to Northeast False Creek.

4. Roof

The main rooftop introduces a green texture and topography of sculpted hedges that highlight the fluid massing and curvature of the building. Weaving around the perimeter of the roof, this live edge creates both introverted and extroverted spaces to support a combination of active recreation and passive programs. The rooftop experience introduces a theme of health and wellbeing of mind and body through programming embedded in the landscape.

The pavilion green roof will be used in part to support an edible landscape, which will in turn provide seasonal herbs, vegetable and fruits to be harvested for use in the restaurant kitchen.


Georgia Streetscape Planting Dawn Redwood Metasequoia glyptostroboides

The project aims to contribute to an increase in food system assets on-site. A rooftop kitchen garden will support the pavilion restaurant and be used as a demonstration of urban agriculture techniques.


Public Realm

Plan

Beatty Street

BikeParking

Area Not Included in Submission

50 10 20m

Planter with Seating Edge

‘Root Fan Array’

Garden


‘Lost Giant’TimberGarden

Pipe-Shaped

Seat

GoldPlaza

West G

eorgia Street

BC Concourse

TimberPlaza

‘Root Fan Array’

Garden

Growth and Decay

Garden

Property Line

CascadeGarden


Public Realm

‘Lost Giant’ Timber GardenBetween BC Place and 720 Beatty Street, ‘Lost Giant’ Timber Garden will encourage people to stay and linger, with integrated seating and gathering area, and to ultimately experience the forest regeneration in the city’s bustling urban centre.

Facing BC concourse is a welcoming double bench and invitation to climb and engage with this unique timber topography. A showcase of salvaged trees are situated to support the growth of new western red cedar trees, while ferns and moss are interspersed among end-grain timber logs below.The south-facing promontory creates an organic gathering area and memorable meeting place and moments to catch some sun.

View looking ‘Lost Giant’ Timber Garden in the plaza


Bleacher and Play Lost Giant Garden Timber Topography


Public Realm

Cascade GardenA sloped planted with cascading shrubs, ground cover and vines appear to tumble below the concourse, revealing the three-dimensionality of the cityscape - and Expo Boulevard below.

View looking toward Pavilion and Cascade Garden


Circular Pavilion Patio with Garden Edges Vines and Ground Cover tumbling below BC Concourse


EXISTING OPENING(FUTURE GARDEN)

GROWUP

GROUND LEV.

EXPO BLVD LEV.

Public Realm

OpeningsThree openings invite visitors to look below and encounter the three-dimensionality of the cityscape - and Expo Boulevard below. The openings have potential use of sun light and air intake to the lower level.

West-East Section


GROWDOWN

GROWUP

CASCADEGARDEN

GROWTH ANDDECAY GADEN

Expo Boulevard Growth and Decay Garden


Public Realm

West Georgia Street Streetscape

View looking toward North of West Georgia Street

The October Glory red maples of Georgia Street are fittingly bookended at the Lost Lagoon with Stanley Park’s old growth forest. The Beatty landscape proposal will complete this move, anchoring Georgia Street to the False Creek with a spectacular row of Dawn Redwoods which will recall Vancouver’s old growth forest.


West GeorgiaOctober Glory Maple

Dawn RedwoodBookend

Stanley Park

Lost Lagoon

False Creek

720 Beatty

West Georgia St.

Connecting Lost Lagoon with False Creek along Georgia Street View looking toward Lost Lagoon along Georgia Street

vancouver’s old-growth forest regeneration gardens€¦ · old-growth forest regeneration gardens...

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