Shangri-La Vancouver

The Shangri-La Vancouver, to this day the tallest tower in the city at 646 feet, comprises a 119-room hotel and 307 residential homes. The first Shangri-La Hotel to open in Canada, it has consistently been one of Vancouver’s most-sought after hotels and one of the top three in the country.

The full-height grids of luminescent panels on the corner façades are proprietary to this project. They are a composite comprised of a luminescent coating, chromatic film and textured glass that absorb energy from daylight and surrounding light sources and then glow from that energy in the evening. They change colour when viewed from different vantage points and under different weather conditions. These luminescent grids are intended as veils, held off the glass surface on the corner façades and in practical terms, they conceal the building exhaust vents in the curtainwall skin behind. They require no wiring and consume no energy.

The Shangri-La Vancouver is an anchor for Alberni Street, having led the street’s transformation into the city’s luxury row and the most desirable downtown address for residents and retailers by bringing a global brands and fine dining to the street. Today, the project features a mix of retail and restaurants at the podium including an Urban Fare and on the second floor, the newly opened Miantiao, by our collaborator Kitchen Table Restaurants.

The Shangri-La is also home to the Vancouver Art Gallery - Offsite, an outdoor public art exhibition space curated by the Vancouver Art Gallery, which transforms the hotel’s public realm every few months with rotating installations by local and international artists. Located on Georgia Street at the entrance of the hotel, Offsite serves as a platform for contemporary artists to explore issues and subject matter of the current context in the midst of an active urban environment.

As with all of our hotels we are constantly renovating, updating and revisiting each and every aspect, in the goal of creating something that could be considered as among the best in the world. Over the next few years we will be conducting a significant renovation of the public areas of the hotel, with architect James Cheng.