Thread by @TalktoARYZE

Happy Tuesday hope you had a nice long weekend!

Today is a special one (IMO anyway), I want to show you the anatomy of a project, from S to F. The project we will cover is Pearl Block at 2910 Shelbourne.

Grab that coffee and enjoy a thread with a peek behind the curtain 👇👇👇

1/
Every good story has to go back, waaaay back. Starting in 1932, the year the BBC started broadcasting, our little piece of land sat vacant. It would remain vacant in 1946, 1964, and 2018. AFAIK it has never had a building on it. As an pure infill developer, this is a rarity!

2/
So now we know the history, not much. So we look at geometry/context to start informing what we are doing. When we layer on the constraints, our building area on the triangle lot starts to shrink, not good b/c wxisting SRW, City wants huge new SRW, and the WW1 boulevard trees

3/
Further to that the area is built-out with everybody oriented to our site, not the street. So we want any new building to be friendly to our new neighbours, which means maintaining privacy. This site is beginning to be a massive design challenge...but hey, let's start drawing!

4/
Do we do a land assembly?

Meh, turns into generic project...constraints breed design excellence, let's keep going.

5/
We are oriented to the street but site doesn't take advantage of its size. Plus our future buildings due to width requirements, land zero lot line on a future SRW and our drive aisle is where bikes/peds will be one day, not good. Next!

6/
Oooh starting to make progress, we manage to fit a 10 unit apt building that conforms to the constraints, except for one. We have too much glazing facing the northern neighbours plus the building form is out of step with the new dev being TH along the corridor...lets try again

7/
Ok so we got a 5 unit townhouse project, we solved the building typology problem but we made the north glazing problem 2x worse. Sometimes you can only take things so far and then you need to ask for help. This is that moment for us! @darcy_jones to the rescue!

8/
We go to Vancouver, meet up with @darcy_jones for the first time. I walk out of that meeting thinking "he is not the guy for this project." hahahah

I have never been more wrong in my entire life.

A few weeks go by and we get this by email.

9/
Me: D'Arcy, I kind of get it but...
D'Arcy: Let me build you a model you small minded yokel

Ok he didn't say that part but I know he thought it 🤣

We go to Vancouver and he shows us this 😍

10/
He solved the glazing by angling the building with the large windows facing the street. On the south facade, the windows are all angled crossview to avoid the existing neighbours. Outdoor space is provided for on the roof and a large parking court doubles as play zone.

11/
Amazed, we ask him to keep going and a few weeks later get some additional Sketch-Up exports showing how the building details are getting resolved. We are coordinating all the other consultants and things are progressing well. Everybody is happy except for...

12/
our structural engineer @LeonPlett who is looking at this big cantilevers as a needing support either with a column or a ton of steel. Steel it is! Check out this video for Leon's explaination 🤓

vimeo.com/415650964

13/
Finally, it's reveal day with some renderings for the whole team to review as we are super excited at the direction this project is taking. Obvs, its love at first sight. Sadly, the City does not feel the same way haha!

14/
I'll skip the year long approval process and summarize:

1. Planning did not support
2. We were turned down at COTW
3. We fought to explain the design
4. Project got revived via recall vote
5. We go to Public Hearing and get approved, phew!

It was a stressful approvals...

15/
We could not be happier at how the project turned out. The very talented @EmaPeterPhoto came over to photograph the building and she killed it 😍

16/
Comparing the original renderings to the finished project, I think we outperformed the renderings which is hard to do 🤣

17/
Same goes for the interiors by @darcy_jones , models are our kids so maybe that is why we are so biased hehe.

18/
When finished a high design project like this, its always good to reflect back on the lessons learned:

1. If you are moving against convention, budget/plan for resistance and setbacks...but never fking give up.

2. Work with amazing consultants, it saves you money

19/

3. Steel is expensive but it enabled the initial project vision

4. Bold architecture can create community, the residents who live here have built relationships with the broader community using the building design as a conversation starter

20/

5. Find a way to communicate your design. This was the hardest part of this project, nobody could understand it.

We had @darcy_jones draft up some drawings to convey the moves.

- Horse blinders, building orientation to street
- Play under the overhangs in the rain

21/
- Solid construction (steel, LWF, rock dash stucco)
- Home as a safe place
- We had tall parapets for the roof deck so you couldn't look over and infringe on neighbour privacy

22/

Hope you enjoyed a peak into this project, we couldn't be happier with the results and the six families who live here love their homes.

Have a good week!

23/
I forgot one thing, over lunch one day we got the itemized bill and thought, wouldn't it be interesting to itemize a home purchase like you would your lunch bill. So we did a case study in transparent home ownership and used it as the basis of our marketing campaign.