Over two years later and the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre in Vancouver, B.C., hasn’t stopped raking in the awards.
The 19,000 sq ft LEED Platinum center—and a Living Building Challenge applicant—designed to resemble a plant with five undulating petals wowed both architecture lovers and garden visitors from the moment it opened in 2011. The single-story building houses a café, library, volunteer facilities, garden shop, offices and rental space and includes a prefabricated roof that “appears to float above the building’s curved rammed earth and concrete walls.”
From the net-zero energy use to the transition between landscape and building, the structure hasn’t failed to produce awards, winning recognition from Architectural Institute of British Columbia, the Engineering Award Winner from World Architecture News, the Wood Innovation Award from Wood WORKS! BC and more awards for excellence in sustainability. The latest nod for the Vancouver structure comes from the Metal Construction Association for the $21.9 million building’s roof.
3A Composites USA of Statesville, N.C., used aluminum composite material panels that continued aluminum cover sheets theromobonded to a polyethylene core to cover almost 12,000 sq ft in a pitch ranging from two to 55 degrees.
The project was designed by Perkins+Will Caada and built by Ledcor Group. Keith Panel Systems Co. of North Vancouver installed the 1,500 individual Alucobond panels.
Tim Newcomb is Engineering News-Record’s Pacific Northwest contributor. He also writes for TIME, Popular Mechanics, Sports Illustrated and more. You can follow him on Twitter at @tdnewcomb or visit his website here.