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The Bespoke Kita Rolls Royce Dawn by Kengo Kuma. Photo Credit - Yoshitaka Kashiwada, Copyright Westbank (RR C4I1988RZ)

The Kita, Aerial.

The Bespoke Kita Rolls Royce Dawn by Kengo Kuma. Photo Credit - Yoshitaka Kashiwada, Copyright Westbank (C4I1140RT)

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The Bespoke Kita Rolls Royce Dawn by Kengo Kuma. Photo Credit - Yoshitaka Kashiwada, Copyright Westbank ( C4I3172RZ)

The Kita, Aerial View.

The Bespoke Kita Rolls Royce Dawn by Kengo Kuma. Photo Credit - Yoshitaka Kashiwada, Copyright Westbank ( C4I1203RT)

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The Bespoke Kita Rolls Royce Dawn by Kengo Kuma. Photo Credit - Yoshitaka Kashiwada, Copyright Westbank (RR C4I0605RGT)

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Awarded Future Project of the Year at the World Architecture Awards in 2015 for its innovation and beauty, and named one of CNN’s most anticipated buildings in 2020, Vancouver House has attracted attention from around the world. Set for completion in spring of 2020, the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) designed project includes both high-rise and low rise structures, with the tower rising 59-storeys at the corner of Beach and Howe above 3 additional buildings between the offramps of the Granville Street bridge. Vancouver House includes 375 residential homes, 106 rental homes, as well as new retail, workspace and amenity space, forming the core of a new waterfront community, the Beach District.

The design of any building should be a function of the particular constraints and characteristics of each site and in the case of Vancouver House, the solution that BIG arrived at is very much a direct response its site. To accomodate complex site restrictions, a slender base forms the nine-storey podium, ultimately widening into the residential tower as it rises to meet the sky. 

The net result is a unique building typology for Vancouver. From Vancouver House, to Vancouver's House, this is a project that has become quickly become a part of the city's identity. When the Beach District is complete and Rodney Graham's Spinning Chandelier is illuminating the vibrant public realm beneath the Granville Street Bridge, we hope people everywhere will recognize this as city-building at its best.


Vancouver House

While the story behind The Avior is one of blending, layering and gentle transition, these themes relate to the experience of living there, too. Inside, each of the 11 apartments and 2 penthouses is spacious, airy and open-plan, with  high ceilings and huge windows overlooking the  trees. This allows for smooth transition between  living areas, and suggests a soothing symbiosis with the natural world. The clarity and abundance of light is invigorating, yet, at the same time, cocoon-like softness is achieved through materials and beautiful detailing. Outside, Japanese-style gardens surround the building,  with undulating, mossy hills, a scattering of smaller rock gardens, a flowing stream and an abundance of bamboo, maple and cherry blossom trees. Very Japanese in its delicacy, yet  satisfying Western proportions and living expectations in every way, The Avior is a bridge between worlds.

Avior

Without the same abundance of beautiful, bespoke ultra luxury residences that other global cities enjoy, The Kita represents a rare opportunity for its residents to experience a way of life and a one-of-a-kind Penthouse named 'The Kita Tea House' unlike anything else that exists in Japan.

The Kita has sweeping, open living areas and an unprecedented amount of space and amenity for densely populated Tokyo. Offering only 12 spacious  ultra luxury residences, a dedicated concierge and true artistry of design by internationally renowned architect Kengo Kuma, The Kita sets a new precedent for Japanese condominiums and  offers a standard of living that will be difficult for  Tokyo to look back from. Intuitive, intelligent,  multi-textured, multi-layered and sumptuously  comfortable, it is both a place to live and a higher plane for living. Both an epoch-making piece of  architecture and a timeless work of art.

The Kita is a building that reveals itself softly, subtly – not just through sight but all the senses. It is a place where shadows dance, light metamorphosizes surface, textures gently  intermingle, views unfold, foliage enfolds and  materials unveil themselves in slow, compelling  ways. There is nothing explicit about it. Rather, it  is calm and unobtrusive. Yet it has a profound  sense of atmosphere. An atmosphere that envelops you, embraces you, stays with you  –  and is felt deep in your core.  

Private viewings available upon appointment. To learn more about The Kita Tea House and more, please contact us at tokyo@westbankcorp.com or +81 (0)3-6721-0531.


The Kita

the standard luxury property magazine interview: ian gillespie, founder of westbank, shares the "fight for beauty" to build a body of work in the world's most liveable cities, and the importance of building artistry

westbank presents its master vision for the sweeping transformation of san jose, redefining california‘s silicon valley. marking the world’s stage for innovation, silicon valley has long centered its focus on the digital space, leaving its built environment largely ignored. those who work in san jose spend too long commuting from other areas, only to find their work environments uninspiring and unhealthy. the team presents its newly designed westbank campus as a response to the structure of the city, and how it is failing its occupants and its natural context — finally bringing silicon valley’s built space into the future with a community-focused collection of residences and workspaces.

san jose has long hosted the ingredients for an intelligent and sustainable transformation, and westbank in partnership with urban community, peterson and OPTrust, has taken on the challenge. the sweeping westbank campus campus has been designed by a team of architects including kengo kuma, bjarke ingels group, james k.m. cheng architects, WRNS studio, and studio gang. the development addresses the city’s need for housing, a vibrant sense of community, and sustainable and performative buildings. the team commits to introducing thousands of low carbon residences within walking or biking distance from the inspiring, design-minded new workspaces.

park habitat by kengo kuma 

kengo kuma and associates designs its ‘park habitat’ as park of westbank’s san jose campus to hybridize green park space with living and working environments. the design was developed to address the urgent need to create residential and office spaces that embrace nature, rather than separate is users from it. the project integrates an engaging public realm, a ‘breathing green lung,’ pockets of nature, a responsive facade, and a rooftop park.

inspired by the organic condition of a mossy tree trunk, kengo kuma‘s ‘park habitat’ will recall the picturesque element of overgrown nature. the volume features pockets of green space, scaled to align with a typical office module. these modules are mixed and configured according to views, light, orientation, and function. the complex geometry is in fact shaped by light, itsshifting and stepping volumes informed by their relationship with the sun.

bank of italy by bjarke ingels group

bjarke ingels group will partner with westbank to revitalize san jose’s iconic bank of italy tower. the 95 year-old historically protected building has already seen its interior demolished and will soon be converted to become a new destination at the heart of the expanding city. the bank of italy will include retail, education, cultural club, and workspace programming. the design team at BIG seeks to approach the renovation project under the theme of adaptive reuse, expressing the heritage of the building while adapting contemporary ideas of living and working — resulting in a more dynamic hybridization of old and new.

bjarke ingels group’s bank of italy renovation will sidestep much of the harmful effects of the construction process while introducing a vibrant new sense of community. by reusing the foundation, structure, cladding, and roofing of san jose’s existing bank of italy, the team at BIG will avoid over 6,000 metric tons of CO2. at the same time, the exterior will see the addition of a stack of vegetated, cantilevering workspaces which taper away from the historic structure.

energy hub by bjarke ingels group

continuing its partnership with westbank, bjarke ingels group will realize an ‘energy hub’ as its second project for the san jose campus. surrounded by a network of alleyways, the hub will be located in the city’s heritage district at the convergence of a residential and commercial area. the team aims to maintain this fabric while introducing a porous and engaging mixed-use public realm. to do this, the density is shifted to the building’s upper levels, opening pedestrian access at the level of the street. 

bjarke ingels will divide the mixed use programming between three primary programs. with retail at the street level, the ‘legs’ of the structure will host residential units. above, the more dense upper half of the building will be occupied by workspaces looking outward across the city.

the orchard residences by james k.m. cheng architects

the ‘orchard’ will span two distinct projects within westbank’s campus in san jose. the orchard is comprised of two different sites at 300 s 1st street and 409 s 2nd street, that will be developed as an urban campus. the two sites delineate the major uses of the campus—workspace and rental residential—though the retail, alleyways and public spaces at grade. the residential at 409 s 2nd street by james k.m. cheng architects consists of a single tower designed to respect and celebrate the distinct roof of the existing bo town restaurant, previously on-site. habitable, active and sustainable rooftops with energy capture are common to both sites.

the orchard urban campus is designed in collaboration with james k.m. cheng architects leading the design for the residential component and WRNS, the workspace.

the smaller of the two orchard sites, the residential, will be designed by james k.m. cheng architects. the work will introduce rental dwellings at 409 S 2nd St. to be integrated into the surrounding SoFa arts neighborhood. the concept of the ‘vertical orchard’ is introduced to the urban site to celebrate the agricultural heritage of san jose. by integrating vegetation into the roofs and facades, the vertical orchard not only fully replaces the productive land displaced by the development, but further contributes to agricultural production through the facades of the building.

the orchard workspaces by WRNS studio 

the next ‘orchard’ site within westbank’s san jose campus will be completed by WRNS studio and will be entirely commercial. the larger of the two orchard sites, WRNS’ workspace orchard is split into two towers connected by a podium and will bridge a neighborhood activated by students and a vibrant arts and culture district. a street level market and food hall will be topped by a workspace podium divided between the two towers. the pair of volumes will be connected by a podium with large floor plate workspace and amenities above ground floor retail. The rooftop of the podium also provides an urban theater that can be utilized for public events as well as by the tenants of the building.

the two volumes of the WRNS-designed orchard workspaces are organized with an L-shaped configuration. this L-shape introduces a ‘pulled back’ condition to introduce a generous public plaza at the street level. meanwhile, the connective podium is pushed down to respect the scale of the building’s low neighbors. the rooftop of the podium provides an urban theater that can be used by the occupants and will host public events.

arbor by studio gang

studio gang looks to the ecology and geology of the san jose context in designing the timber ‘arbor’ workspace for the westbank campus. the project seeks to establish a new model for how a typical workspace can mitigate climate change by introducing a new and biodiverse ecosystem. the expressive wood structure will filter the sun and sound and provide access to plantings and terraces that connect its users with nature.

studio gang designs ‘arbor’ to be built with mass timber to substantially reduce both carbon emissions and the physical weight of the structure. the benefits of this construction include speed of on-site construction, seismic strength, and fire resistance, along with a warm atmosphere that celebrates a connection with san jose’s biodiversity and ecological heritage.

westbank is transforming san jose with a star-studded team of architects

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and Kengo Kuma have bridged the luxury automotive and architectural worlds with the unveiling of a first-of-its-kind Bespoke Rolls-Royce Dawn. The singular motor car will debut as a moving representation of the new luxury residence ‘The Kita’ in central Tokyo, designed by Kengo Kuma upon commission by global luxury property developer Westbank.

  - Bespoke Rolls-Royce Dawn in collaboration with architect Kengo Kuma
  - One-of-a-kind creation bridges luxury automotive and architectural worlds
  - Created for rare Japanese penthouse residence, The Kita Tea House
  - Dawn’s styling reflects residence’s clarity of structure with prevailing sense of calm
  - Architect famed for design of the reborn Japan National Stadium

*“It was an honour to collaborate with Kengo Kuma to create a serene and timeless motor car for a serene and timeless building. From the inception of the marque over 100 years ago, Rolls-Royce has transcended the automotive field, taking the tangible entity of a car and delivering its patrons the intangible: a truly unique experience. As this project demonstrates, through the authentic application of unique designs and materials, we can provide rare sensory experiences that reflect and enhance our owners’ multi-faceted lifestyles.”*

__Gavin Hartley, Head of Bespoke Design, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars__

The Bespoke Dawn was created for the exclusive use of the owner of the unique multi-level penthouse, ‘The Kita Tea House’, which sits atop the newly completed property in the tranquil yet central Kitasando neighbourhood. The penthouse is so named for its rooftop tea house which is framed by views of the Eternal Forest of the Meiji Shrine and Kengo Kuma’s reborn Japan National Stadium.

*“This is the first time I have consulted on a project of this kind and I am proud that I was able to do so for Rolls-Royce, a company with which I share a respect for traditional craftsmanship and a desire to bring out the best in natural materials.” shared Kengo Kuma. “Rolls-Royce has brought the essence of ‘The Kita’ into the car’s aesthetic, allowing the owner of ‘The Kita Tea House’ to take in their surrounding city environment. It is a great honour to see the car finally here at home in Tokyo.”*

As is characteristic of Kengo Kuma’s architecture, ‘The Kita’ challenges the relationship between interior and exterior. The open-top Dawn was therefore a natural canvas for the accompanying motor car, a peaceful and cocooning private space where you are conversely never disconnected from the outside world.

*“The Bespoke Dawn is a beautiful addition to our body of work,” noted Ian Gillespie, founder of Westbank. “Kuma-san’s influence on the Rolls-Royce Dawn is the embodiment of the serenity and beauty he has created in ‘The Kita Tea House’, as an extension of that memory for the individual to enjoy.”*

View the full announcement at [Rolls-Royce Motor Cars PressClub](https://www.press.rolls-roycemotorcars.com/rolls-royce-motor-cars-pressclub/article/detail/T0330431EN/rolls-royce-creates-bespoke-dawn-in-association-with-kengo-kuma "Rolls-Royce Motor Cars PressClub").

__About The Kita Tea House__

Without the same abundance of beautiful, bespoke luxury residences that other global cities enjoy, ‘The Kita’ represents a rare opportunity for its residents to experience a way of life and a one-of-a-kind Penthouse unlike anything else in Japan.

Designed inside and out by Kengo Kuma, ‘The Kita’ reimagines Japanese traditions, seeking new meaning for materials and singing an ode to the natural world. ‘The Kita’ not only reinterprets the traditions of Japanese design, but also brings Tokyo something wholly new.

A selection of residences are available at The Kita. Private viewings available upon appointment. For more information on The Kita, please visit [our body of work](https://westbankcorp.com/body-of-work/the-kita), contact us directly at [+81 (0)3 6721 0531](tel:810367210531) or tokyo@westbankcorp.com.

ROLLS-ROYCE CREATES BESPOKE DAWN IN COLLABORATION WITH KENGO KUMA FOR WESTBANK’S FIRST TOKYO PROJECT ‘THE KITA’

The Kita is the first luxury multi-family project in Japan entirely designed by Kengo Kuma, the award-winning architect behind the Japan National Stadium, created for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and the Nezu Museum in Tokyo’s Minato district.

Kuma has worked with Vancouver-based developer Westbank on several projects in Canada and the US. For the Kita, he’s created a “light well” that surrounds the building, with a slatted metal screen as the facade that allows residents to see out, as well as protecting them from the gaze of passers-by. The building has 11 residences, and a one-of-a-kind multi-level penthouse named 'The Kita Tea House'.

The Kita Tea House, features a total of 10,000 square feet of living space spread across three levels, half of which is private outdoor space. It features two private terraces and a roof deck with a 25-foot infinity pool and a tea house, which Kuma will design for the buyer. There are commanding views of the city, the nearby Eternal Forest of the Meiji Shrine and the Meiji Jingu Museum, also designed by Kuma which opened in 2020.

A private design session with Kuma is part of the rare design package. Buyers will be flown to Tokyo to meet the Kuma in his studio, and the residence will be designed to their exact specifications. To make the offering even more distinctive, the Tea House offering includes a Rolls-Royce Dawn convertible that was custom designed by Kuma, his first ever automotive collaboration.

4 Top-of-the-Line Luxury Penthouses From Around the World

In the heart of Silicon Valley, where the landscape is dominated by self-contained tech campuses and low-density car-oriented urbanism, a major new development is bringing in a team of world-class architects to add a collection of mixed-use projects to downtown San Jose. Concentrating modern workspaces and residences near the growing city’s key amenities and forthcoming regional transportation links, the sustainability-minded development could be the start of an urban revolution in the valley.

Led by the Vancouver-based developer Westbank, the development will feature five new or renovated buildings by Kengo Kuma and Associates, Bjarke Ingels Group, Studio Gang, and James K.M. Cheng Architects. In total, they’ll create about 700 new residences, 5 million square feet of office space, and room for an estimated 40,000 jobs. Westbank CEO Ian Gillespie frames it as a reinvention of Silicon Valley’s urban form.

“When you fly into San Francisco and drive through the valley, you drive past one industrial park after another industrial park after another industrial park,” Gillespie says. Though many of the world’s most influential companies are based there, he says few are really doing much to make their own footprint in the area a positive one. “The largest of them seem to be building tools for communications and at the same time they’re putting everyone in an industrial park and isolating them from the rest of the community,” he says. “I don’t know how that happened. I don’t know where along the lines that people decided that an industrial park was a good way to build a community.”

He’s hoping to counter that trend by building more connected office spaces in the center of San Jose—near San Jose State University, planned BART and high-speed rail stations, and all the existing residential, retail, and cultural spaces in a city that’s expected to grow by 400,000 people by 2035. The five buildings are scattered across the downtown core but focus on providing environmentally friendly architecture that extends onto the street level, with landscaping and pedestrian-centric designs that encourage a more tightly woven urban fabric. Each of the projects will run on electric systems and have net zero carbon emissions, with offsets for both their operational and embodied carbon. Construction has begun on two of the five sites, and the developers recently bought a sixth for what Gillespie hopes will be an ongoing wave of transformative development.

“This is not just about trying to build better performing buildings. That goes without saying, and is a pretty low bar,” Gillespie says. “It’s really around the idea that the entire thing is broken. Starting with the fact that housing is divorced from where people work, from where they work out, from where they hang out, from where they eat, from where they go to school, from how they get to and from, how they meet people.”

What Gillespie is trying to do is insert buildings into the urban environment to fix those things he thinks are broken. In contrast to a more built-up city such as San Francisco, he says, San Jose offered both the space and the potential to make this happen at a large scale. “There is a canvas there where we could really make a meaningful impact relatively quickly,” he says.

The plan is strategically important for downtown San Jose, according to Mayor Sam Liccardo. “If we can pull this off, through all of the extraordinary challenges of this pandemic, it could really transform our city in a blink of an eye, which I would define as about a half a decade,” he says.

Liccardo acknowledges that San Jose is not exactly a hotbed of architectural significance. He says the downtown has a “squatty skyline,” largely due to its proximity to the city’s international airport. “With a few notable exceptions, and those are primarily public buildings, our city is appropriately described as architecturally challenged,” he says. The proposed projects could help change that, both in terms of the city’s skyline and its pedestrian experience. “It will raise the bar for public expectations for what development should do for our urban environment,” Liccardo says.

Gillespie argues that world-class architecture is important to ensuring the project can have a significant impact on the city. He’s pulled in most of these big-name architects for other projects in cities such as Vancouver, Seattle, Toronto, and Tokyo, but this will be Westbank’s first collaboration with Chicago-based Studio Gang.

The firm’s principal, Jeanne Gang, says she was attracted to the project by its ambition but also Gillespie’s focus on social equity and climate issues. The building her firm designed for the development is trying to push some limits on energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable materials. Using mass timber as its main building material, the mid-rise office and retail building has low embodied carbon, and Gang hopes it can serve as proof that mass timber can work at scale. “We really have to make this complete shift towards these newer wood technologies. There’s no option. It’s one of these things that has to be embraced,” she says.

The building features a facade of blocks filled with angled wooden shading, a low-tech but varied way of controlling the amount of direct sunlight coming into the building. Its topographical shape also creates areas for green roofs and planted patio spaces that, though designed before the pandemic, are an even more important feature now. “The idea of indoor-outdoor workspace and more fluidity between inside and outside, especially in a place with a wonderful climate like San Jose, it makes total sense,” says Gang. “It should be mandatory to have outdoor space.”

Amounting to 750,000 square feet, the new building also includes and connects to an existing 1980s office building that Studio Gang is adapting for reuse as a more energy-efficient workspace. This kind of reuse, she says, is an important part of reducing the development’s carbon footprint and helped guide the future-focused design of the new building next door. “It needs to be flexible because there’s always going to be changes,” she says. “We’ve been really honing in on that with the structural system and the quality of the spaces. You could easily imagine this building becoming residential someday.”

This kind of adaptation may become more important as Gillespie’s vision for San Jose takes shape. His initial focus is on adding new and more-urban workspaces to the city to counter Silicon Valley’s industrial park past, but he knows that to truly make the transformation happen, office and residential will have to be better mixed. Future projects, he says, will try to augment the new office buildings he’s building with more residential spaces that can make the downtown core even more of a live-work community. Says Gillespie: “As we dug more and more into the shortcomings and the unique challenges that Silicon Valley has, we came to the realization that if we weren’t adding housing that was equally inspiring and was also net zero, then we’re actually contributing to the problem, not the solution.”

Sprawl ruined Silicon Valley. Can world-class architecture help fix it?

A project by an international developer in Tokyo is in itself a rarity. In the past year, Westbank has completed two, with more in the works. 

Designed in collaboration with world-renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and OSO, founded by two of Kuma’s protégées, The Kita and The Avior, Westbank’s first projects in Tokyo, are redefining luxury, offering a new way of living in the world’s largest global city. 

For the past several decades, Westbank has focused their attention on the five cities or areas they have chosen to make their mark in–Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle, Tokyo and most recently Silicon Valley. Their interest in Tokyo stems from their passion to raise the bar. “If we’re going to create projects worthy of a global standard, then we need to set out examples that compare with the best work being done in the world. Today, much of this is being done in Tokyo.” Explains Ian Gillespie, founder of the Vancouver-based development practice, which has projects completed or under development throughout Canada and on the West Coast of the U.S. including the only two Shangri-la Hotels in North America—the Shangri-la Toronto and Shangri-la Vancouver—and the highly awarded Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver.

The Kita and The Avior Set a New Standard for Luxury Residences in Tokyo

Vancouver House Tops CNN's List of Most Anticipated Buildings in 2020

Vancouver artist Rodney Graham’s Spinning Chandelier dazzles under Granville Street Bridge

Bjarke Ingels Group Completes Vancouver House, a Modern Twist on New York’s Flatiron Building

As a preview of what's to come at Vancouver House's Beach District,
Westbank is hosting our 2nd annual Shipping Container Summer Pop-Up
Series at Shaw Tower.

The pop-up runs from June 10th through September 21st. The container will
showcase one vendor at a time, operating daily with varying hours and
durations — pop in often to see who's in the box!

Dipped Doughnuts, Flourgirl Baking, BETH RICHARDS, Tacofino, The Juice Truck &
To Die For Fine Foods, MERcuterie, House Concepts, Ride Cycle Club and more!

Beach District at Vancouver House, set to complete in late 2019, will create a
new food & beverage destination under the Granville St. Bridge in downtown
Vancouver. To complement the existing retail, including a new Fresh Street
Market grocery store and London Drugs, five shipping containers are being
installed on site. These shipping containers will be curated by Westbank and
feature a variety of new and highly sought after culinary delights, fashion and
fitness concepts.

Pop-Up Shipping Container Summer Series 

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Residential entrance, gallery space and retail, street view

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A historic downtown landmark, Bank of Italy is one of the most iconic buildings in San Jose. With a rich history based upon Amadeo Giannini's legacy as the founder of Bank of America,the building is distinct in both appearance and location. Bank of Italy's conversion will restore and celebrate its historic architecture while bringing new, inspiring workspace and retail designed to reenergize downtown San Jose, and create a unique destination in the city. 

The tallest tower between San Francisco and L.A. until the 1980s, Bank of Italy is a statement building in the heart of Downtown San Jose whose podium offers some of the most high profile retail space in the city. We’re interested in using this project to bring something different to the city. We envision a mix of workspace, retail and cultural space as a way of bringing creativity to the built environment and also an amazing amenity for downtown San Jose.

Bank of Italy

The Energy Hub is designed to complement the adjacent Bank of Italy building also by BIG, while creating a mix of retail, rental residential and workspace with expansive floorplates. Connecting two alleys on either side of the site, an arch cuts through the project creating an expanded public realm and urban room that will activate the entire surrounding neighborhood. The Energy Hub’s name comes from the two kinds of energy it creates: the photovoltaic panels on the louvers and the roof harness energy from the sun and the public realm generates human energy, from the connections and interactions it helps foster. 

The Energy Hub

Broadway & Alma is a new rental project on Vancouver’s West Side, bordered by Kitsilano and Point Grey, and our first project to be completely designed by the boutique Vancouver-based design firm, Leckie Studio. A young, award-winning interdiscipinary practice whose past focus has centred on beautifully-designed single family homes, our collaborations with Leckie Studio to date have created some of their first multi-family residential designs.

We are committed to making a significant long term contribution to Vancouver’s rental housing supply and this project will bring approximately 164 secured rental units, with 20% of the residential floor area for to moderate income households. 

Broadway & Alma

The Orchard Workspace has been designed to allow for ultimate efficiency, flexibility and modularity, integrating nature throughout with a vertical orchard. The project is comprised of over 1.3M sf of workspace, adjacent to a separate residential building.

Through a collaboration with WRNS Studio, the design of 300 South 1st Street has evolved to be broken into two towers above a low podium which offers over 1.3M sf of workspace with expansive floorplates of up to 100,000 sf. We feel that this design change will provide a variety of offerings to the market and also create a unique opportunity for a rooftop theatre / amenity space. 

The Orchard Workspace

Designed to elevate and celebrate nature in downtown San Jose, Park Habitat is composed of workspace, retail and a museum, interwoven with vegetation and a verdant landscape. Bordered by the Convention Center, the Tech Interactive, San Jose Civic Center and Plaza de Cesar Chavez, the project blends deep sustainability, natural elements and an expansive public realm, to form a connection point and an anchor for a cultural district in the city.

Park Habitat

Arbor is comprised of two buildings: a mass timber structure and the adaptive reuse of the existing Davidson Building, providing over 500,000 sf of workspace and dramatically reducing the carbon emissions and embodied carbon of  
the project.

Designed to maximize connections to nature and the outdoors, through a mix of indoor, outdoor and semi-outdoor spaces, Arbor takes its name from the structure it is conceived as — a framework that is light on the earth yet provides robust support for a diverse ecosystem of healthy, inspiring habitats for  creative work. 

Arbor

The Orchard residential building (409 South 2nd Street) is part of a two project campus, composed of workspace and residential. The residential building is designed to integrate and celebrate the existing mid-century Bo Town restaurant structure on the site at the corner of San Salvador and S 2nd Street. The building adopts an L-shaped plan designed to both maximize the efficiency of its program and highlight the heritage of the restaurant, with its iconic folded roof and populuxe, space age-inspired elements. The residential building includes approximately 540 market rental homes. 

The Orchard Residential

The design for Museum House embodies the concept of “creative tension,” it consists of two seemingly leaning towers joined by an elegant, thin bridge, suspended 300 feet above the ground. A grand lobby will showcase rotating art pieces. Shifting screens on the building’s façade will create a pattern inspired by the placement of framed artwork in the Salon of the Frye Museum, allowing residents to interact with the building’s exterior animation.

Part of a broader contribution to the city of Seattle planned with our collaborators at Creative Energy, Museum House will mark the start of an aggressive approach to the climate crisis, to housing diversity, and inspiring design. A community of homes within one of Seattle’s great neighbourhoods. A project that hits well above its weight.


Museum House