VanDusen Garden Visitor Centre
VanDusen Botanical Garden continues to grow as a vibrant centre of botany, horticulture and environmental learning.
- Location: Vancouver, BC
- Status: Complete 2011
In Brief:
As one of Vancouver’s renowned tourist destinations, the VanDusen Botanical Garden has been a landmark for over 30 years, creating a picturesque landscape year-round with its unique plant collection. The facilities renewal project includes a new garden pavilion designed to support VanDusen’s vision of providing an inspiring and enjoyable environment for visitors by constructing a ‘living building’ that aims for a net-zero ecological footprint.
Cobalt was retained to provide mechanical and electrical consulting services for this target LEED Platinum recreation project. The strategy behind this 2,000 m2 living building involves taking into consideration the building’s natural surroundings to ensure a harmonious balance between the built and natural environment. A living building (net-zero) generates all of its own water and energy on site on a net annual basis.
Key innovative features:
- Target LEED Platinum
- Natural and displacement ventilation
- Building orientation for maximum energy performance
- Free cooling via an integral heat stack effect
- Net-zero energy onsite
- Solar collectors for energy re-use and exportation
- Heat recovery
- Radiant floor heating
- Private sanitary treatment system
- Rainwater collection and re-use onsite
- Ultra low-flow plumbing fixtures throughout
- Green roof
- Pursuing the Living Building Challenge
