BIG has unveiled its 52-story skyscraper in Canada, “Vancouver House”. Completed in 2020 but photographed only recently, the 155-meter-high building rises with a twisted shape from a triangular base alongside the ramps leading to Granville bridge Vancouver downtown. This peculiar form ensures the structure is 30-meters set back from the bridge at its base and avoids overshadowing the nearby park.

“In the tradition of Flatiron, the Vancouver House architecture is not the result of formal excess or architectural idiosyncrasies but rather a child of its circumstances: the trisected site, concerns for neighboring buildings and park spaces. […] The Vancouver House is a contemporary descendent of the Flatiron building in New York City reclaiming the lost spaces for living as the tower escapes the noise and traffic at its base,” said Bjarke Ingels, BIG founding partner.

Along with the creation of art spaces below the neighboring underpass, the project aims to serve as a blueprint for developing apparently constrained sites in urban fabric.

“Vancouver House emerges subtly from the ground and expands as it rises, appearing like a genie let out of the bottle. What seems like a surreal gesture is in fact a highly responsive architecture – shaped by its environment,” said the architecture studio.