A new luxury residential tower in Vancouver provides a twist on the typology

It’s not hard to imagine why developers flock to the waterfront of Vancouver, British Columbia. Concord Pacific Group has built many high-rise glass and concrete residential towers there, but the Erickson Building – a new 17-story, 61-unit development – stands out among their portfolio. Designed in the style of legendary Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, known for his modernist concrete structures, the Erickson’s twisting form rotates counterclockwise and then shifts clockwise, evoking the motion of the water below. Between concrete columns, expanses of glass capture panoramic views of downtown Vancouver, False Creek, the Strait of Georgia, and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

The fifth and final article in Buildipedia’s series on the Riverside Museum takes a look at some of the less visible aspects of this spectacular building: the HVAC system, acoustic engineering, and more.

“Complex geometry” is a phrase that successfully sums up Zaha Hadid’s Riverside Museum of Transport and Travel in Glasgow, Scotland – particularly its roof plane. According to Rod Manson, partner and engineer with Buro Happold, “The roof was commonly referred to as the ‘fifth elevation’ on the project.” Its zigzag form, coupled with the vast size of the exhibition space beneath, created several challenges for the engineers tasked with integrating the building systems while ensuring a streamlined look, both inside and out. “It was very important to the architect that the MEP systems be invisible and blend in with the overall building form,” explains Manson. He shared a few of Buro Happold’s clever solutions.

Second in a five-part series on Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, this article examines the building's structural engineering. International engineering firm Buro Happold provided structural engineering services. Follow Buildipedia throughout the month of March to read in-depth coverage of the Riverside Museum's various design and engineering systems.

Zaha Hadid is known for designing buildings with far-out forms. The recently completed Riverside Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, lives up to this reputation, featuring a zig-zagging profile in plan and section. Although seeming to defy gravity with its column-free spans, the building conceals some savvy structural maneuvers beneath its sleek skin of zinc. Engineering giant Buro Happold was the wizard behind the curtain.

A challenge of mining operations and any project that disturbs large volumes of earth below grade is the potential to generate contaminated water runoff at the surface known as acid mine drainage (AMD). Precious metal and coal mine shafts traditionally require excavation below the water table, exposing metal sulfides in the disturbed earth and waste soils to the atmosphere and water. Similar exposure can occur during major highway construction projects. Stormwater runoff and water discharged from dewatering pumps related to these construction activities can be very low in pH (acidic) and can contain harmful metal ions. Eric McCleary of Greenhorne & O’Mara helped develop the successive alkalinity-producing system (SAPS) process to treat this AMD water and shares insights regarding this innovative technology with the Buildipedia audience.

Downtown Toronto takes advantage of Lake Ontario's constant lake bottom temperature to operate a heat exchange system.

Toronto’s Deep Lake Water Cooling system offers the city’s downtown property owners a compelling alternative to their buildings’ air conditioning requirements. Instead of installing separate chilled water generators within their buildings, many are taking advantage of the Deep Lake Water Cooling system, operated by Enwave Energy Corporation. The Deep Lake Water Cooling system offers substantial cost savings if building operators forego a standard chiller plant and instead install heat exchangers to interface with it. We’ll overview the functional parts of the Deep Lake Water Cooling system, which has been in service since 2004: the Lake Ontario intake pipes, the Island Filtration Plant, Enwave’s Energy Transfer Station (ETS), and the closed-loop Deep Lake Water Cooling chilled water circuit that individual buildings can access with new heat exchangers.

Architects, engineers, and contractors streamline their process to ensure a quick delivery of the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ new home

Along the western edge of downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, lies the historic Haymarket District. An industrial and commercial area in use since the 1870s, the district had nevertheless become blighted and run down. In the 1980s, the Haymarket District began to attract some mixed-use development, including art galleries, coffee houses, and residences. In more recent years, rehabilitation efforts have extended westward, and an official redevelopment plan was established.

Throughout the last 10 years LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) has developed into an efficient and effective solution for building owners to reduce expenses and limit the environmental impact of their buildings. Although many LEED projects take the form of typical commercial, institutional, government, and healthcare facilities, LEED provides many other sectors the ability to differentiate and produce a truly rare project, none more so than the Twin Oaks Landfill in Grimes County, Texas, which achieved LEED Silver certification.

Boundary-stretching architecture is helping the once oppressed city of Baku, Azerbaijan, reinvent itself. DIA Holding has several major building projects underway; in addition to the high-profile Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre by Zaha Hadid Architects, the company is responsible for the Flame Towers project, designed by HOK.

The Marcellus Shale, a subterranean rock formation that extends to 10 eastern and Appalachian states as well as Canada, may well become the proving ground for hydraulic fracturing, an increasingly controversial method of drilling for natural gas, with Pennsylvania currently the flashpoint of this controversy.