Marine Gateway is a mixed-use development that stands on a formerly underused industrial site in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The $372 million site, which was completed in April 2016, is home to two neighborhood plazas, 15 stories of office space, a three story retail podium, a movie theater that houses 11 screens, and two residential towers which stand at 25 and 35 stories each, with a transit hub passing through the development. Marine Gateway's architectural design is the first of its kind in British Columbia; rather than constructing the site near a central transit center, architects Perkins+Will, with PCI Developments, created a design that would flawlessly incorporate a transit hub and the South Vancouver Bus Loop within the community.
The center of Marine Gateway is an elevated walkway, which offers easy accessibility to visitors. Ryan Bragg, principal at Perkins+Will, elaborates on the design of this central walkway, “The design of the high street was an important aspect to the success of this development,” says Bragg, “by providing a clear connection from transit to the neighborhood's major thoroughfare, the high street brings people into the pedestrian environment and into the retail spaces, creating a vibrant community.”
The incorporation of pedestrian accessibility in a transit-oriented mixed-use town center provides people with a central location where residents and visitors are able to shop, commute, play, and live.
Marine Gateway is an exemplary model of sustainable design, as the development is leed Gold certified. The project uses more than 200,000 square feet of 4mm alucobond® Plus aluminum composite material (ACM). Alucobond Plus features a fire-resistant core that adheres to the higher fire regulation requirements in architecture, specifically in important high-rise construction.
Marine Gateway's residential towers' exterior's contain a rather unique design. The Alucobond Plus panels featured on the towers come in Bone White, Clear Anodic Mica, and steel City Silver colors, in addition to four custom shades in the spectra color finishing system.
Alucobond Spectra, a dynamic, hue-changing finishing system, has a topcoat that utilizes Lumiflon FEVE resin technology. The low-VOC, long-lasting fluoropolymer resin that exists in the topcoat reinforces the structural integrity of the coating system on the ACM panels, so the coating system will endure UV radiation, water, salt, and other elemental deterrents that contribute to coating degradation.
Information and Photos courtesy of Perkins+Will, Alucobond, and PCI Developments