It would have been nice to read an analysis or see photos or some of the winning Quebecois projects: how were they better?

This would help debunk the argument-from-resentment that the GG award is more political than merit-based.

WM:

I am interested to learn about the type of work you do. I am involved in the materials supply business.

Though I am not an expert in development, I do know a little about it given that some of our customers are developers.

Their project leaders seem to believe that every bit of extra detail adds up very, very quickly and can make the difference between a profitable and unprofitable development.

In higher end developments, people are willing to pay a premium for this detail. However, in most newer developments - people are not.

So I would believe that these costs wouldn't be so small after-all. You have to realize that these people operate on margins, which are actually quite low. However, the projects are so big that a 5% margin can equal a $10M profit for the developer.

Every $10K you spend here and there - is 10K the risk taker doesn't make! So, as a cost of the project - this cost might be small. However, the percentage of the profit may be much, much larger.

Now - this article seems to give private developers are free pass and focus on the government builders. To this, I say I agree.

I have no problems spending more money to improve the face of our city. Take the Library for example - this thing would have never been built by a private developer. It is an inefficient use of land and was very expensive. However, it brings Vancouverites a little bit of pride!

I have no problems with spending on sky trains, nice buildings, etc. - these will return the favour in the increased flow of goods, less congestion and increased tourism as Vancouver's international reputation excels.

That is very, very true. I work in specialty concrete products, mostly on small scales. Ever seen to cute leaves on the sidewalks in Yaletown? That was us! We also do motifs or art cast into any concrete surface of any size.

The library is a masterpiece and I agree that a private developer would have never done it. Government designs buidling that will last for 200 years or more. I love working on government projects for because there is so much to learn from them. The specs you'll see on these jobs are spectacular. They are not that profitable but there is little risk as the project financing on my end is much cheaper on a public site.

Anyway, I love what I do. I actually got my inspiration from the Commonwealth Pool in Saanich, built for the 1994 Commonwealth Games. What a masterpiece, one that my great grandchildren will enjoy!

It's interesting where the money goes sometimes. Speaking of government projects, my wife and I are just finishing separate aspects of a new ICU at a local hospital in Vancouver. As a government project, I'm not sure I agree with some of the previous sentiments that a little extra material and thought always costs more.

On this project, a plain-jane design was developed and the first quantity survey was for just over $1 million. And then the staff got hold of it. They redesigned the workflow, moved walls, deleted some equipment we thought necessary and added others that we ("we"? perhaps I should say "they" - I wasn't involved yet) hadn't thought of.

The next quantity survey ended up at $1.7 million. The hospital looked for additional funding and decided what to do - and in the meantime, a proper survey was made of the mechanical systems (where I came in) and we proved that the existing design not only wouldn't work on the hottest and coldest days when the medical isolation equipment was functioning, but could be made more efficient with slightly older, larger equipment and a better control strategy. (high-tech isn't always best!) The next quantity survey ended up at $2.2 million. As they began work (a year-long project) the architect squeezed the budget a bit and began to finalize some of the interior finishing. I have to admit, they earned their keep in making functional some of the more complicated aspects of the space.

A budget reappraisal was conducted by an oversight authority (a bunch of lunatics, if you ask me) and came up with $2.4 million, with most of the increase coming in the mechanical quote, but declared they would fund it. We also came in with an energy budget at this time that announced $40,000 per year in utilities savings over the old design we redid - enough to pay back the cost of the mechanicals increase in 6 years. Which was true, even if we were the ones that came up with the figures....

We are now a month away from occupancy, and with all kinds of improvements in lighting, materials, equipment and even allowing for staff time to redo some of the supplies and storage areas, we are coming in at $2.3 million. Clearly the architect's work cost not a penny extra, and I tell you, this unit really is a work of art. Not quite worth getting sick perhaps, but a panacaea if you are.

Details do add up on projects. To design great buildings costs money. But when selling condos (which most of these buildings are in Vancouver) they sell for half a million, 3 million and up. The money made does not reflect the money spent if they sell for this much then the buildings should be great but buildings in Vancouver are bland or lame copies of something somewhere else. Not much inspires or creates the great city that we are all told we live in now. But then great buildings look good but if it does not work on a street level then it is all a failure anyway. Hence the lack of great new neighborhoods in Vancouver. The infrastructure is built with the idea that people will move in and make idilic neighborhoods. But most of these new areas are cold, generic and lifeless compared to cities that have grown slower with buildings build based upon a social, cultural need not a need to make lots of cash by developers.

As with the comment on the projects in Quebec, it would have been nice if this article came with photos of the gasbar/store in Moricetown, and the projects in Prince George.

"Sameness" is a curse of the pseudo-suburbanization of a lot of small BC towns; which used to have their own visual identity, with Penticton even having a different atmosphere from Kelowna, and Mission from Maple Ridge, and so on. What's the difference between the new Save-On plaza in Mission, and the one in Langley? Zilch. Does a minimall in Richmond look all that much different from one in Coquitlam; no - except for the dominance of Chinese-language signs in one, and Korean-language signs in another.

I was struck by the car-based plaza shopping in Japan and Korea on my travel through there, how much it looked pretty much like anything here; same with a lot of the new and supposedly "hip" London, where glass and steell and neon are supposed to be "cool", relative to the graciousness of the old-style British architecture....

It doesn't help that builders and investors are always trying to cut costs, so going with established building/design formats rather than shelling out for something new; or simply finding a builder who has new ways of building things and nice ideas about what things can look like (i.e. who needs an architect if you're got a creative craftsman running the job?). Bernard Thor, who built the "troll house" aka the "mushroom house" in Emerald Estates in Whistler is a good example; just a hippie contractor with a lot of daring.

Conversely, despite all Whistler's stringent design and materials by-laws, can you tell any one part of the village from any other part of the village? And despite the variation throughout private residential design in that most over-designed of all municipalities, there's an unfortunate "sameness" to the whole. But it's an exception; a glance at the new strips in Squamish gives a foretaste of what's to come in the spread of suburbanization in the new MegaLowerMainland the government is having wet dreams about.

Parting shot: a couple of months ago I made a stab at trying to work at ItalDecor in Burnaby, which is near where I live; turned out to be backbreaking work and I couldn't keep at it (I'm 50) but it was fascinating. One facet of their work is restoration/preservation of old ornamental architecture - sculptural friezes and the like, and occasional new design. Working there re-tuned me in to all the fine detail on the older buildings around Vancouver - art deco, Edwardian, Victorian and otherwise. I still don't understand why "modern design" discounts the value of organic design - floral motifs, human shapes, geometric elaborations - and prefers blank, blank, and blank, and big blocks of same; and steel and glass; all so inhuman and DEADENING to urban life and psychology. What's with that, anyway?

Second parting shot: for over 15 years or more the Lillooet Tribal Council has been trying to raise funds for a St'at'imc Cultural Centre in downtown Lillooet; the design is an elaboration of the pit-house design - a semi-sunken earth pit capped by a log-frame dome. Nice design, beautiful if ever built; and definitely needed and worth it. But for some reason Whistler gets all the heritage dough in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District; for their museum (for a town that has little history) and a tourist-oriented "native cultural centre".....

Funny Cap. that you so staunchly support SkyTrain, when the owners of the proprietary system refused to let it compete with LRT for proposed transit lines, in a true free enterprize system. Ah Cap. it is a true Capitalist transit system, pure monopoly. Elevated transit systems are ugly and is one of the main reasons very few cities build them. of course RAV isn't SkyTrain, but when the free enterprizers in the PPP wanted to build the subway on the cheap, they went for a generic metro system.

Cap. why wouldn't TransLink and the Libs let much cheaper LRT into the fray? Well let me tell you in true capitalist language - Campbell and Co. wanted to funnel more than $1.5 billion into his friends pockets legally, well you only fund a $2.5 billion subway and not a $800 million LRT line. Tou see Cap. Liberal free emterprise is the fine art of overpaying for mega project in such a way to deliver more taxpayer dollars into your political friends pocket legally. See Cap. this wahat Capitalism was, is, and forever will be, legal rape of the taxpayers dollars!

Skookum, Moricetown gas bar is photo 6, PG airport 9 and 10, if memory serves.

Remember the book by Kuntsler: Geography of Nowhere.

Template architecture and planning.

Wellherewegoagain:
I have loads of problems with the construction boom at this time: 1 - It is impossible for any city to really look at the architectural, mechanical, electrical etc plans and approve it properly (no personal, no time, no money); 2- Profit stop inovation and creativity; 3 - Safety is a non-existent item in most projects meetings, besides of : You will meet the existing level of governemnts safety regulations. 4 - I heard the following comment from an engineer that has more than 20 year experience in Vancouver: "30 year morgage, with a 5-10 year warranty for windows and doors and building envelopes, as well as insurance on envelopes that cover less than half of the actual cost of the envelope at the present time... uhmmm we are heading for disaster. In 5 years the leaky condo scandal will seems like a small problem, compared with the scale of problems city and owners will face every where. I agree with Grumpy.
I witnessed the following comment, not long ago: "Hey you guys, Gordo is great. He promised to shake the money tree and we needed only to vaccum the public money that came down. And he kept his promise. We are making money like crazy."
And we taxpayer are loosing money like there is no tommorrow.
Why didn't someone place Gordo in jail for drunk and drive?

I wonder what criteria are used to establish the winners of these awards. I wonder if the mainenance people are ever asked what they think.
I work in a mausoleum which has good space, looks good but is a dog to heat/aircondition and is a nightmare for the maintenance and cleaning people.
The problem is that probably all architects have had no floor time in the operation and maintence of buildings. This can result in thngs like tables and chairs stored on floors other than where they are used. I deal with this sort of thing daily and would like to smack the architect's head against one of his beautiful ceadar beams.
Cheers:
Bob

You know those little decals near the front of BC Transit buses? The ones that saw "award-winning transporation system" or "best of.." or whatever? The organization that "granted" them is composed of BC Transit/TransLink and some other smaller transit monopoly somewhere else; sounds fancy, but it's a party of two...

Same deal with Global's brag that Kevin Newman's National broadcast was "voted best news program" and "best investigative reporting" and yadayada. But who else is in the lineup for such awards? CHUM and CBC, and who has more votes? Uh-huh, y'see. Same deal with the Junos; voting in-house is a sure-fire deal, and people get to pretend (but only pretend) that it's as important as the Oscars and Golden Globes. And the Golden Globes, they're all puff'n'stuff and something of a joke; but it's the glamour, baby; it's tinsel, so who cares?

Same deal with these awards architects give each other. I'd say a "people's choice" award would be much more relevant; or, better yet, throw it over to the art critics and don't let "architecture critics" in on the vote.

They're responsible for such atrocities as declaring the "classic Bauhaus" or whatever it is of the Vancouver City College building at Hamilton & Pender as having significant heritage value, as if it were beautiful, which of course it's not (being boring and crass and stale and downright ugly, as a lot of modernist work tends to be, especially once it ages; ditto, big-time, with SFU).

I still can't get over the retro-futurism of the new Whitecaps Stadium. That's supposed to be forward-looking and eye-catching? Gimme a break; looks like rehashed Expo-era design, which itself was a rehash of Expo '67 and even older spaceframe designs from the 1950s. They could have at least asked Frank Gehry to design the stadium; same deal with the expanded "new and improved" Trade and Convention Centre, which is another big glass box that might as well be a WalMart or a Canadian Tire.

Thanks, Charles; didn't see the "Photo Gallery" link. Of all of them I'd take the Moricetown thing as the best. BTW it's Skookum1 ("Skookum-one", not "Skookum"). There's other Skookums out in cyberland, y'see....

Strange to not see much comment on this article, that talks about the look of our public places. Perhaps the largest 'things' that we create to form our cities, towns and parks are not much discussed yet we see them, go inside and through them, work in them and live in them.

It reminds me of the NDP minister saying that there would be no more 'candy arsed architects' building fancy and elaborate schools in BC. What a statement! As though an attractive and carefully considered environment for learning was, without question, not what our children should have. One would expect a comment like this from a silly uneducated child, not from a minister.

The recent exhibition of educational facilities in Finland, at the Pendulum Gallery, clearly shows inspiring places and spaces that are a pleasure to be in.

BC has many good architects, more articles from Helena Grdadolnik and others will hopefully stimulate discussion and encourage people to consider the values and benefits to our society that are derived from fine architecture, and also ensure that our architects are appreciated.

This is the link for more information on the awards and how they are chosen:

http://www.raic.org/raic/honours_and_awards/awards/gg-2006recipients/index_e.htm

By the way, I found that quote, it was by Hon. Paul Ramsey, NDP Education Minister, page C8 Globe and Mail, September 5, 1998. "the first thing you do when you build a school is you don't hire a fancy-assed architect", he went on saying that future schools "are not going to be monuments to architectural inventiveness". Naturally, the NDP cut the schools construction budgets by more than 20% and demanded more "cookie cutter" designs.

In her Globe article Adele Weder says that Ramsay was aiming his wrath particularly at the award winning Strawberry Vale School, by Patkau Architects which had been published in a dozen prestigious design journals. Note, in the article above,

The NDP clearly forced local architects to look outside of BC for commissions.

Let's hope that Paul Ramsay, his NDP comrades and his depressing and uninspiring basic-boxes-for-kids ideology stays in the boonies!