NEWS Environmental Building News (September 2008) Features What's Happening Product News & Reviews BackPage Primers Opinion GreenSource Magazine EBN Archives

Performance and Value in British Columbia’s Sun Life Building

Architect Teresa Coady, of Bunting Coady Architects in Vancouver, is gaining a reputation for creating highly energy-efficient and environmentally responsible office buildings on tight, market-driven budgets. Coady attributes her success to the full participation of the design team throughout the process. She evolved her method with support from the Canadian government, which funded integrated design process development through its C-2000 program (see EBN Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 6). Coady has now applied that process, without government support, to the Richmond, British Columbia Sun Life Building, which is leased by Mobile Data Solutions, Inc. (MDSI).

The 95,000 ft ² (8,900 m ²) Sun Life Building is in many respects a typical suburban office building. It occupies an area that had been a centrally located greenspace for the surrounding Airport Executive Park. In order to minimize the negative impact of the building on the greenspace, the perimeter of the site is carefully landscaped with native plantings, creating a series of “miniparks” connected by a meandering walkway and interspersed with grass-paved parking areas. GrassPave2, a recycled-content plastic matrix from Invisible Structures Inc., was used for the grass paving (see EBN Vol. 3, No. 4). Coady is happy with the GrassPave2 product but is concerned about the subsurface characteristics: “We aren’t as comfortable with the engineering on the base,” she notes, “and we’re now working with civil engineers to make a more porous base for future jobs.”
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