The proposed development has been designed considering the Official Community Plan, Hillside and shoreline neighbourhood.
The existing terrain grades conditions dictated the location of the building on the site, considering building siting and massing following the natural topography as much as possible to minimize the use of retaining walls and blend with the site contour lines.
The topography and the concept of clustering the development in order to be set back from and preserve natural areas pushed the building to have 3 parkades levels, which are partially exposed on the rear side of the lot.
The same reasons above, pushed the building to be 6 storeys of units on top of the parkades, having a 6 storeys presence to the front side of the lot.
The building lobby and elevators are located in the corner facing Sooke Road and Veterans Memorial Parkway, to create a glazed architectural element with a sloped roof that covers the elevators overruns that denotes the building entrance connected with the commercial space and the public open landscaped areas. With the purpose of offering a social gathering space to the community framed with an architectural landmark.
The height calculations show the building at 24.26 m, but is important to consider that this is calculated to the midpoint of the roof corner element that covers the elevators overruns. And at the base it is measure from the average finished grade. The steep slope of the site pushed the average finished grade to be almost 1.5 storeys below the street level. These two situations give the impression of a tall building with 24.26m, but the actual impression of the building from Sooke Rd is 6 storeys with a 20.44m height.
The parking requirements have been fully satisfied, based on the current by laws, regardless of the potential flexibility on parking requirements considering rental units. But this situation increased the parkades footprint, which affected the overall calculations for public/private open space and natural space.
the proposed 40.19% is based on ground open space plus open space of top of the parkades that create ground-oriented units feeling with generous patios, and also public space that could work together with the commercial unit to achieve the social gathering space to the community.
The result is a public space served by the commercial unit, connected to the bus stations on VMP framed by the building and the public natural buffer on the corner.
The building has a mass variation and individuality feeling concept, that goes together with the proposed materials and colors, this architectural expression is exposed to the different frontages, engaging and responding visually with the surrounding context, therefore creating aesthetically pleasing frontages.
The building has mostly flat roofs with different parapet walls heights that articulate and break the mass of the building together with the different siding materials.