Canadian Architect RAIC Gold Medal (June 2014) by IQ Business Media

RAIC GOLD MEDAL 2014足 PETER BUSBY

pAtH tO pRACtICE An in-depth interview explores the formative years of Peter Busby’s practice and its evolution over three decades. IntERVIEwER elsa lam

14 VAnCOuVER VIsIOnARy A series of architectural projects reveal the lasting impact of this year’s RAic gold Medallist on contemporary Vancouver. tEXt sean Ruthen

Nic Lehoux

pEtER busby

24 An InFLuEntIAL VOICE Architects, engineers and other collaborators tesify to Peter Busby’s leadership.

26 ROAD wARRIOR An architect describes working with Peter Busby on the official adoption of leeD in canada. tEXt Barry Johns

19 FIGHtInG spIRIt

Nic Lehoux

Peter Busby’s zealous personality has empowered him to forge his essential place in the design community. tEXt Adele Weder

COVER A detail of the Telus House atrium in Vancouver by Perkins+Will (formerly Busby + Associates Architects). Photograph by Martin Tessler.

THe NATioNAl ReVieW of DesigN AND PRAcTice/THe JouRNAl of RecoRD of ARcHiTecTuRe cANADA | RAic

canadian architect

RAic golD MeDAl 2014

Viewpoint

vInCE klassEn

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

the LeeD platinum-targeted Dockside Green in Victoria, British Columbia aims to reclaim 15 acres of industrial waterfront, setting a model for urban redevelopment. opposite peter Busby at work. above

Peter Busby has for the past 30 years been influential in reconciling environmentalism with contemporary architecture. Long before LEED became an industry buzzword, he was figuring out how to make buildings that consumed fewer resources. He thinks big: leapfrogging over straw-bale houses and rammed-earth walls, Busby is known for his green high-rises, wood SkyTrain stations, and daylit university facilities. Busby once designed an energy-efficient Walmart with wind turbines on the roof and natural light inside. It never went ahead—but it showcases the sometimes-tense meeting of contemporary realities with a sustainability agenda on which Busby has built his career. The lessons of Busby’s practice are especially resonant this spring, with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s fifth assessment report. One volume of the report focuses on mitigating climate change. Architecture has a crucial role to play. In 2010, buildings accounted for 32% of global final energy use and 19% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions (by comparison, the transport sector was responsible for 27% of global energy use and 23% of greenhouse gas emissions the same year). The energy use of buildings may double or even triple by 2050 as billions of people in developing countries gain access to adequate housing. To keep these numbers in check—and to attempt to push them into decline—the IPCC urges the broad dissemination of energy-saving construction techniques and technologies. The strategies they suggest have been advocated by Busby throughout his career, and include using low-embodied-energy materials,

installing energy-efficient appliances, and employing passive solar heating and cooling measures. The report also discusses lifestyle changes, like relaxing business dress codes to allow office workers to shed stifling suits in the Editor summer. The West Coast, Busby’s extended Elsa lam, mRaIC home base, was miles ahead of the game on AssociAtE Editor lEslIE JEn, mRaIC that front. EditoriAl Advisor As urbanization increases—from 52% in 2011 Ian ChodIkoff, oaa, fRaIC to an expected 64-69% of the world’s population contributing Editors annmaRIE adams, mRaIC in 2050—one of the biggest opportunities for douglas maClEod, nCaRb, mRaIC mitigating global climate change will be in rEgionAl corrEspondEnts Halifax ChRIstInE maCy, oaa the building sector. Co-locating high-density Regina bERnaRd flaman, saa residential uses with employment, investing in MontReal davId thEodoRE CalgaRy davId a. down, aaa public transportation infrastructure, and creating Winnipeg lIsa landRum, maa, aIa, mRaIC VanCouVeR adElE wEdER compact urban forms are all recommended. In publishEr this context, Busby’s current work on transittom aRkEll 416-510-6806 oriented developments incorporating district Account MAnAgEr faRIa ahmEd 416-510-6808 energy systems could become integral to climate circulAtion MAnAgEr action plans. bEata olEChnowICz 416-442-5600 ext. 3543 The IPCC analysis affirms that today’s custoMEr sErvicE malkIt Chana 416-442-5600 ext. 3539 best practices in sustainable building will more production than pay back their investment cost through JEssICa Jubb grAphic dEsign energy savings. As green building enthusiasts suE wIllIamson know, sustainable buildings also yield myriad vicE prEsidEnt of cAnAdiAn publishing alEx PaPanou side benefits: improved indoor and outdoor prEsidEnt of businEss inforMAtion group air quality, productivity gains for building bRuCE CREIghton occupants, and increased energy security—an hEAd officE 80 vallEybRook dRIvE, important concern in many intemperate cities, toRonto, on m3b 2s9 where low-income people are at risk because telepHone 416-510-6845 faCsiMile 416-510-5140 they can’t afford adequate heat. However, notes e-Mail editors@canadianarchitect.com Web site www.canadianarchitect.com the IPCC, “Strong barriers hinder the market uptake of these cost-effective opportunities, Canadian architect is published monthly by bIg magazines lP, a div. of glacier bIg holdings Company ltd., a leading Canadian information and large potentials will remain untapped company with interests in daily and community newspapers and businessto-business information services. without adequate policies.” Obstacles such as the editors have made every reasonable effort to provide accurate and lack of awareness, transaction costs, and inadauthoritative information, but they assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the text, or its fitness for any particular purpose. equate access to financing remain rampant. subscription Rates Canada: $54.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; $87.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (hst – #809751274Rt0001). Policy changes are essential to spurring the shift Price per single copy: $6.95. students (prepaid with student Id, includes towards sustainable construction. taxes): $34.97 for one year. usa: $105.95 us for one year. all other foreign: $125.95 us per year. single copy us and foreign: $10.00 us. Energy-efficiency programs have, historically, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Dept., Canadian Architect, 80 Valleybrook Dr, toronto, achieved 25-30% improvements at a low cost. on Canada M3B 2S9. Building codes, when climate-appropriate and postmaster: please forward forms 29B and 67B to 80 Valleybrook Dr, toronto, on Canada M3B 2S9. printed in Canada. All rights tightened over time, are even more powerful. reserved. the contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in full without the consent of the copyright owner. Currently, a large number of jurisdictions are From time to time we make our subscription list available to select considering strengthening energy performance companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. if you do not wish your contact information to be made requirements in their building codes. Even the available, please contact us via one of the following methods: notoriously polluting China has adopted codes telephone 1-800-668-2374 facsimile 416-442-2191 that seek a 50% reduction from pre-existing e-mail privacyofficer@businessinformationgroup.ca levels, with increased provision for enforcement. Mail Privacy officer, business Information group, 80 valleybrook dr, toronto, on Canada m3b 2s9 There’s urgency to these discussions. MeMbeR of tHe Canadian business pRess Because of the long lifespan of buildings, MeMbeR of tHe allianCe foR audited Media publiCations Mail agReeMent #40069240 approximately 80% of the global energy use issn 1923-3353 (online) issn 0008-2872 (pRint) of buildings from 2005 is “locked in” until 2050. It’s critical that today’s best practices rapidly become the standard in new building Member of construction and existing building retrofits. In the decade since merging his practice with Perkins+Will, Busby has been bringing what he unabashedly calls “the gospel of sustainability” to an increasingly global set of clients. Demand for Busby’s breed of expertise is set to grow, and that’s a good thing. The world needs to get on wE aCknowlEdgE thE fInanCIal suPPoRt of thE govERnmEnt of Canada thRough thE Canada PERIodICal board with the gospel of sustainability, and fund (CPf) foR ouR PublIshIng aCtIvItIEs. soon, if it hopes to be saved. Inc.

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PERkIns+wIll

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

Martin tessler

Path to PractIce Peter BusBy descrIBes the ProgressIve exPansIon of hIs offIce, and shares InsIghts on Present challenges and oPPortunItIes. IntervIewer

Martin tessler

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

Elsa Lam

Peter Busby was born in 1952, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto in 1974. He completed a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of British Columbia in 1977 and established his own practice in 1984, teaming with Paul Bridger to form Busby Bridger Architects in 1986. Busby + Associates Architects followed in 1994, and in 2004, his firm merged with the US firm Perkins+Will to form Busby Perkins+Will. He was appointed Managing Director of Perkins+Will’s San Francisco office in 2012. Canadian Architect recently caught up with Peter Busby in a twopart telephone interview. We reached Busby at his office in San Francisco and in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Perkins+Will is designing eight rail transit stations.

Perkins+Will

Martin tessler

Completed with Frits de Vries Architect in 1995, the renovation and expansion of the District of North Vancouver Municipal Hall reoriented the facility around a three-storey atrium; the new entrance to North Vancouver Municipal Hall. aBove, left to rIght Designlines produced custom components for the APEGBC headquarters; the Ebco Aerospace Centre was an early collaboration with Paul Fast. oPPosIte, toP to Bottom

you started out studying philosophy at university. what ﬁrst interested you in architecture and the built environment, and who were some of your earliest mentors?

I studied political science with a major in philosophy at the University of Toronto. What I got out of that was a strong moral and ethical conviction that’s stuck with me over the years. To be quite honest, I was a hippie. As a group, we wanted to ﬁx the world, we wanted to do the right thing. How I got interested in architecture? I was working construction on some renovations of older buildings in downtown Toronto. I also took an architectural history course from Professor Douglas Richardson at U of T, and he just opened my eyes to architecture. I thought: maybe architecture is right for me in that I can take my ethical position and actually have an impact on the world, actually build things, spaces, places—places to work and so on—that are more just, that are more environmental. In the spring of my ﬁnal year, I applied to all of the schools of architecture in Canada. I chose to go to the University of British Columbia because I wanted to live on the West Coast—and it also had the shortest course.

At UBC, Ray Cole became a friend and a collaborator—he just connected the dots with this environmental approach, this ability to do the right thing. He’s a powerful lecturer. Every class was just a rocket ship. Started with a deep breath, and he’d wind up and he’d go for one hour and ten minutes like a freight train. He came to UBC as a 22-year-old PhD with a long ponytail. He got me started on the road to environmental responsibility. tell me about your career path after graduating.

I graduated in ‘77 and went to work for Rhone & Iredale, which at that time was quite a firm. Rand Iredale and Bill Rhone ran an interdisciplinary practice. A guy named Art Cowie was a landscape architect and planner. Peter Cardew was lead designer in the firm. Both Bobby Hull and David Miller (who later founded Miller Hull in Seattle) worked there. It was a vibrant place. We had 70 employees. It was far and away the biggest office in the city, with this interdisciplinary approach. In 1979, a recession was biting pretty hard and there was no work, so I got on a plane and I went to England. I was very interested in the high-tech movement in the UK, and decided I was going to work

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

steven evans

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

with one of the big high-tech guys: Nick Grimshaw, James Stirling, Norman Foster or Richard Rogers. I spent three weeks in London and in the country looking at their work, and I decided Norman Foster was the best one. I went to his office and applied for a job and, of course, they wouldn’t see me. Everyone was applying for a job. At that time, the office was 26 people. Today, it’s about 2,600 people. I camped in the reception. I went there at 8:00 every morning and I left at 5:00 —for a whole week. At 4:30 on the Friday, Norman said, “Okay, I’ll see you.” By 5:00 I had a job. I turned around and went back to Canada, my wife quit her job, we sold two cars, rented a house and we were in London two weeks later. I worked for him for two years in London and a year in Hong Kong. I worked on his own house, and then I worked on the Hong Kong Bank competition. We won the competition, and I worked on the early stages of the project, had principal design responsibility for the Banking Hall. My wife and I decided we wanted to have a family and London and Hong Kong aren’t that kid-friendly, so we decided to go back to Vancouver and set up a home. Again, it was another recession, so I worked for the government—a public Crown corporation called BC Place. We worked on a plan for what’s now Concord lands. We were the client—we worked with Arthur Erickson and Fisher-Friedman out of San Francisco as the architects. Then Expo ‘86 was coming along and I figured it was time to start my own practice. In November of 1984, I opened the doors to a one-man shop. I spent five months building the shopfront, as I wanted it to represent my own talent. It was on Granville Street, which at that point was a derelict place where you picked up hookers. I decided that I wanted to have this kind of social intervention aspect to my practice, so I deliberately opened in a place where there was a lot of poverty. I formed the Granville Street Merchants’ Association and lobbied for changes at City Hall—eventually it got rezoning and became the Entertainment District for Vancouver, which it still is.

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summer 1 rooM teMPerature 25°C (77°F) 2 suPPly Cool air 12°C (55°F)

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sPrIng/fall 1 FresH air FroM outside 2 outdoor air

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wInter 1 rooM teMPerature 21°C (70°F) 2 suPPly Hot air 32°C (90°F)

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7.5M

The York University Computer Science Building, completed with Van Nostrand DiCastri Architects, demonstrates the potential of green design in a cold climate; a lobby tucks underneath the lecture theatre. aBove Natural heating and air circulation strategies for the building.

toP, left to rIght

what was the atmosphere of practice like when you were starting out at that time? Well, in those days, it was all PoMo —Postmodernism. Everybody

wanted us to put hats on the buildings. It was soul-destroying because what I was doing was an environmental approach, and the British high-tech inﬂuence that came from Foster was really out of favour in North America. It was a struggle to establish the practice. It grew

Martin tessler

Following their conversion of the 1948 Willliam Farrell Building to TELUS House in 2001, Perkins+Will was invited to convert an existing segment of the top of the building into an atrium space in 2007; the new interior space acts as a solar chimney, and features a six-storeytall glazed wall supported by a bespoke system of cast steel arms and vertical tension rods.

aBove, left to rIght

slowly. I got a partner, Paul Bridger, in 1986. We practiced together for the best part of eight years. We got to about 10 people by 1992. Then he moved on, and I built a practice up to about 45 people by 2004, which is when I merged my practice with Perkins+Will. I want to stay in the ‘80s and ‘90s a little longer. many of the environmental strategies you were advocating for were about reducing, reusing and recycling building materials. I’m wondering if you could speak about the reception to these strategies.

As a young architect with a small practice, you don’t get clean buildings to work on. You start with whatever you get. One of my first clients was the Granville Island Brewing Co., which was a renovation and an insertion of a brewery and bottling plant in a bunch of ramshackle industrial buildings. That building is still there today, much as I designed it. But there’s not much capital A architecture in there. It was more piecing together and making functional space by recycling industrial buildings. The North Vancouver Municipal Hall was a renovation and an addition to a very tired 1950s building, and it was really the first strong environmental approach to a building. There are shading devices on the windows. The windows are operable. There is natural ventilation. The extension was built around a beautiful beech tree, which we preserved. From every place in that building, you can see the outside and nature. I didn’t know it then, because we weren’t doing this kind of analysis, but because of the shallow floor plan for cross-ventilation, it’s actually 100% daylit. the north vancouver municipal hall starts to use customized building components, like canopies to control daylight and

bespoke mullion caps. what was the role of designlines, the industrial design practice that you founded in 1987 and that continued until 2010?

When I came back from Europe, there was no such thing as pointﬁxed glass or castings for this, or extrusions for this, that and the other thing—it was British Columbia and it was 30 years ago. So I got into industrial design to give my architecture the kind of detailing that I’d been used to working with in Europe. I set up a company called Designlines to do industrial design and manufacturing. At one point, I had seven industrial designers working for me under Designlines. We started to get outside contracts—we even designed a set of telephones for Nortel. We designed furniture, and a lot of things for our projects: lighting, handrail castings, pointﬁxing castings, extrusions, break forms, laser cuts. Designlines got quite busy and was quite successful, but I couldn’t give it the kind of energy that it needed, so I phased it out. We had created another company called Components, which was an actual manufacturer. Components continued to do well, and we started concentrating on just industrial design that related to architecture. The experience with Components was up and down. But eventually I sold that business. speaking of allied design, you’ve had a longstanding working relationship with Paul fast.

Paul Fast set up his practice just months before I did in 1984. It was called Fast + Epp Structural Engineers, located just a few doors away. We became good friends and his practice built up at the same time as mine. We think the same way—there is just a really good chemistry there.

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

toM arban Perkins+Will

toM arban

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

We went through a lot of different things using wood, for example. The ﬁrst project we used wood for was in 1986, a lab for MacMillan Bloedel, where we used parallam to make the stair structure. In 1994 we used composite parallam and steel trusses for an atrium over the District of North Vancouver City Hall, which is absolutely the ﬁrst of its kind in Canada. We’ve always been interested in hybrid structures, modular approaches, prefabrication. Just like I set up Designlines and Components, Fast + Epp set up StructureCraft to build the things that we were inventing. That’s been a successful business for them, and it continues to this day. It’s very similar to a relationship I’ve had with Kevin Hydes and Blair McCarry, both from Keen Engineering (now merged with Stantec). We were on the same wavelength in terms of realizing that the smaller mechanical got, the more you could use architecture to solve sustainability issues. They fed off our ideas and we fed off their ideas. Between the three of us we made all the early watershed green buildings in Canada—and often Paul Fast was the engineer. In many of your early projects, it sounds like it could be a challenge to convince clients of basic sustainability principles— like using natural ventilation, or that having a temperature range was okay.

Starting out in BC, we said, “Well, we don’t need air conditioning.

Let’s not have it. What can we do to make these buildings stay cool?” Shade them properly, have natural ventilation, windows that operate. We were on this operable windows kick for 15 years, trying to convince a lot of clients they actually needed windows that opened. It sounds ridiculous today, but that was an uphill battle for 10 or 15 years. Still occasionally we hear, “Aw, no, we don’t need those. We’ll just put fans and ventilation in.” Coming out of the ‘70s, the thermostat on a wall was God and it had to read 21 degrees day and night. The breakthrough building was York University Computer Science, where we had an agreement with the client as to the temperature ranges that were permissible for the type of space. So, work spaces, where people were sitting and working eight hours a day, had a tighter range. There’s a great big lobby there with a thousand students pouring in and out. We said, in the wintertime these students are wearing coats, and in the summertime they’re wearing T-shirts. They can handle a much wider range. So we embedded gradients of allowance in the design principles for the project. This saved enormous amounts of energy. Until LEED came along, the whole angle on sustainability was energy savings, and therefore performance mattered. It was the only argument you had: “We can save you money.” Of course, after LEED the conversation got richer and we started looking at other issues— water, materials, material health, recycling, salvaged materials.

niC leHoux

Completed in joint venture with J.L. Richards & Associates Ltd., the Vale Living with Lakes Centre at Laurentian University is a lakeside research facility; particular attention has been given to shoreline management and water flows across the site; the facility is designed as a restorative building that has a positive effect on its surroundings. aBove The merger with Perkins+Will allowed Busby to reinforce his academic portfolio, which continues to grow with stand-out buildings such as Samuel Brighouse Elementary School. rIght Completed in 2011, the school incorporates a wave-form roof developed with the help of structural engineers Fast + Epp. niC leHoux

oPPosIte, clockwIse from toP

tell me about your decision to merge Busby + associates architects with Perkins+will, and what kind of opportunities opened up as a result.

Perkins+Will had decided in 2003 that environmentalism was a future need in their practice. USGBC had been around for 10 years at that point, but the traction wasn’t what it is today. In the US, I was known through work in Seattle, and through publications and lectures. When Perkins+Will came looking for me, I told them it had to work from the top as well as from the bottom. I said, “I’ll join your ﬁrm when all your principals and associate principals become LEEDaccredited professionals. I mean everyone. I mean the CEO and everybody.” It took them about 12 months, and about six months after that we tied the knot. The reason I did it was for opportunity. At that point, I was pretty

well-known, but the market in Vancouver for environmental approaches to buildings wasn’t that deep. I saw Perkins+Will as a vehicle for spreading my knowledge and my ability to work nationally, for infecting others with my ideas. Inside a year, we’d developed an approach to education internally within Perkins+Will, and an approach to demonstration projects. I led off an internal education program and we got over 1,000 employees LEED-accredited. So, I had a profound impact on their practice. At the same time, they made a longer ladder for me and my ofﬁce in Vancouver. They were able to work on more interesting projects in a wider geographic base than you would ﬁnd just from Vancouver. That practice, as a result, grew from about 45 people when I joined Perkins+Will, to being about 90 people when I went down to San Francisco two years ago.

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

Perkins+Will

Three renderings convey the ambitious scope of the Blatchford redevlopment, developed with Group 2. The master plan re-envisions the Edmonton City Centre Airport Lands as a leading sustainable community. oPPosIte, toP to Bottom Perkins+Will partnered with T.Y. Lin Engineering to design a modern transit hub for the Chinese city of Chongquin; developed with the Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative, the design for the new Eau Claire Market district in downtown Calgary optimizes residents’ views to the Bow River and maximizes daylight for a public plaza and for existing buildings.

toP to Bottom

Perkins+Will

what opportunities became available with the move to san francisco?

The Bay Area is the most exciting marketplace in the US. Think about head ofﬁces that are within 50 miles of where I sit right now: Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Genentech—it just goes on and on and on. Think about the kids that work for those ﬁrms. What’s their number-one priority in life? Environmentalism. All these companies are being driven to reposition their businesses, reposition their facilities, to have a strong environmental mindset, and they’re listening to what we have to say. Those opportunities don’t exist in Vancouver, but they do exist in the Bay Area. with these larger projects and new opportunities, how are you bringing your practice beyond leed?

Perkins+Will

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

I always felt that LEED fell short in terms of environmental performance as measured. The point-checking system is great, and certainly LEED has had a profound impact on our industry, and I’m very supportive of it. But I’m always interested in the cutting edge, so for me it was about investigating further ways to develop sophisticated approaches to energy performance. I’ve worked in collaboration with Keen Engineering, and gradually, we started to get to the position where we could really get close to

Perkins+Will Perkins+Will

net zero. The CIRS Building is 85% below ASHRAE 90.1. At that point, you can put renewables on the roof, capture some waste steam from adjacent buildings and you’ve gotten to net zero. I never realized there was a whole conversation going on out there about trying to reach net zero. I realized that we had the skills to do that and that it was achievable. Then the Living Building Challenge was published by Jason McLennan and it had this further relationship with nature in it that I found intriguing. I went back to Ray Cole and we developed this approach to regenerative design. To me, that’s the most interesting and profound part of what I’m doing at the moment. It goes all the way back to an ethical and moral position, working with nature, getting us to think and act responsibly. Our biosphere is fragile: the carbon count is going up, the environmental conditions have not been solved. We have to do more radical solutions, we have to do more inventive solutions, we have to be more committed than ever to make sure that the building sector and the community design sector carries its weight in terms of carbon reductions. how do you manage being involved in so many projects globally at this time?

I don’t really author very much. I’m a design critic. Depending on the phase of a project, I’ll be meeting daily or weekly or monthly with the

design team, they’ll put their ideas up on the wall and we’ll kick them around. I’m good at selecting ideas that I think are going to be progressive, and encouraging new ideas. Of course, I bring a wealth of experience in terms of sustainable design, so the charrettes that we have at the beginning of projects are ways for me to move the project into the sustainable design theatre that I think it should be in. I rarely sketch. I don’t have a pile of sketchbooks. It’s more of a studio. It’s a conference. It’s a pinup. It’s a crit. That’s the way I control and develop the projects I’m responsible for. I didn’t invent this. When I worked at Foster’s, I saw it there. Certainly Richard Rogers works the same way, Renzo Piano works the same way, Raymond Moriyama worked the same way. These are all people that I’ve watched design. what are your next plans for the san francisco office?

We’re about to move into new office premises here that’ll be net-zero energy—we also leased the roof and we’re putting photovoltaics all over it. I’m having fun. I’ll stay there until I feel the studio is restructured and they’re able to stand on their own feet. Much like leaving Vancouver, which is a practice that can survive on its own now without me. It’s a time of growth and change in my own career. I’m not retiring soon—and I don’t want any more lifetime achievement awards because I’m not done yet.

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

vAncouver visionAry A series of ProjecTs in And Around vAncouver showcAse The evoluTion of PeTer BusBy’s work over The 30 yeArs since he founded his PrAcTice. TexT

Sean Ruthen Martin Tessler unless otherwise noted

PhoTos

In the early 1950s, young architects in Vancouver aspired to work for the idealistic, innovative firm of Thompson, Berwick & Pratt, then including among its ranks a young Arthur Erickson and Ron Thom. Half a century later when I was graduating from architecture school, the go-to firm was Busby + Associates Architects, founded by this year’s RAIC Gold Medal winner, Peter Busby. Busby’s body of work forms one of the greatest inspirations for my generation of Vancouver architects, and his influence goes far beyond the West Coast. A visionary and pioneer in sustainable design, Busby helped lay the foundation for the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), setting standards for sustainable building design across the country.

Likewise, his inﬂuence in city development has been far reaching, starting with his work on Vancouver’s view cones in the 1990s and extending to urban planning for Abu Dhabi in 2030. Alongside the macroscale of the city, Busby has also innovated at the microscale of the building detail. His ofﬁce has long been known for its dedication to materials exploration and for developing intelligent building systems and components. Then, of course, there are the buildings themselves: projects that are icons of Canadian architecture, from the Brentwood SkyTrain station to One Wall Centre. More recent buildings of note include the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre, the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) at the University of British Columbia (UBC),

Nic Lehoux oPPosiTe In 1998, Busby + Associates Architects with Robert Lemon Architecture & Preservation retrofitted a downtown newspaper printing press building into the AIBC’s headquarters. The architects added a central atrium to provide natural light and ventilation to all three office levels. ABove Brentwood SkyTrain Station, opened in 2002, is widely admired for its elegant use of curved wood-and-steel ribs.

along with larger urban developments like Dockside Green in Victoria and Marine Gateway in Vancouver. These are all game-changers, buildings that rethink the footprints we leave as we build cities, and that challenge us to improve building construction and operational efficiencies. With his latest projects, Busby asks the audacious question: what if a building could give back to the environment, employing low-impact methods of fabrication and ultimately recovering energies that would otherwise be wasted? Two of Busby’s earliest projects demonstrate his office’s commitment to the city. In 1989, when the District of North Vancouver asked him to design a new municipal headquarters, Peter assessed the soundness of the existing City Hall’s concrete structure and determined it could be incorporated into the design of the new building. By avoiding the demolition of a 1950s building, he significantly reduced the material waste that would have otherwise been part of the project. Across Burrard Inlet in downtown Vancouver, Busby was also responsible for the retrofitting of the old Edgett Building into the headquarters for the Architectural Institute of British Columbia (1998). With both projects, Busby’s office

sensibly reused pieces of the city’s fabric, very much in keeping with the conversion of Francis Rattenbury’s Law Courts building into the Vancouver Art Gallery (Arthur Erickson, 1983) and the transformation of the McCarter & Nairne post office into the Sinclair Centre (Richard Henriquez, 1986). For many architects in the Vancouver area, One Wall Centre (2001) and the Brentwood SkyTrain Station (2002) were design landmarks for the new millennium. One Wall Centre cuts a striking profile on Burrard Street, kitty-corner to Erickson’s Law Courts and directly across from Thompson, Berwick & Pratt’s BC Electric Building (itself a modern wonder when it first opened its doors in 1957). The floor plate of Busby’s tower slips through the city skyline so as to preserve views to the mountains south of the downtown peninsula, as well as to and from the BC Electric Building. With its sleek (and now mono-coloured) curtain wall, it’s one of the most remarkable towers in the downtown skyline. Conceived as an eco-skyscraper, One Wall Centre was constructed at precisely the time that other sustainability-minded architects, including Busby’s former employer Norman Foster, were investigating the ecological

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

impacts of large buildings. Certain green elements were compromised on the way from the drawing board to the job site, but the 48-storey tower was commendably built with triple-glazed high-performance curtain wall, operable vents to help with summer cooling loads, high-fly-ashcontent concrete and finishes with lower embodied energies, along with energy-efficient fixtures. Most importantly, it demonstrated at the time how much a competitive marketplace would be willing to absorb the upcharges associated with sustainable design. In the wake of the many large-scale developments that Busby’s office has completed since then, it’s curious to reflect on the fact that at the completion of its workingdrawing phase, One Wall Centre was the largest project Busby’s office had undertaken at that time. Brentwood SkyTrain Station is the most exquisite of several stations

that Busby’s office completed for Metro Vancouver’s rapid-transit Millennium and Canada Lines. It presents an ingenious composite steel and glulam wood structure, made possible by the new BIM software of the time along with the structural wizardry of engineers Fast + Epp. Brentwood Station received multiple awards, giving the firm greater international exposure. One Wall Centre and the SkyTrain stations formed stepping stones for Busby to tackle larger issues of city-building. The eco-district—a subsequent major project type—was born from these initial projects that sought to make cities smarter and more efficient in the way their myriad systems worked. Inside and outside of work hours, I often find myself in Busby’s buildings. Last month I visited his LEED Platinum and Living Building

Nic Lehoux

Challenge-targeted VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre (2011) for an AIBC event held in a large multi-functional space. Students and the public at large are welcomed into the CIRS building at UBC (2011). CIRS is conceived as a functioning showcase for virtually every available sustainable building system: grey-and black-water recovery, rainwater and solar energy harvesting, waste heat recovery, and a carbon-neutral structure calculated by balancing higher-energy building components against a wood structure. The opening of CIRS marked the culmination of a 10-year building process by Busby along with Dr. Raymond Cole and Dr. John Robinson (see CA, March 2012). Busby’s larger-scale urban interventions while working with the City of Vancouver and developer Concord Pacific on a variety of projects through the 1990s gave him the opportunity to extend his office’s geographic reach. This was especially the case after Busby + Associates Architects merged with Perkins+Will in 2004. The resources of the global firm have allowed Busby to realize community-based sustainable designs for cities in Canada, the United States and the Middle East. In the early 2000s, Busby was invited along with several of Vancouver’s former city planners to assist in producing the 2030 urban structure framework for Abu Dhabi in order to foster sustainable growth in the region. Closer to home, Busby’s office has realized city-building projects in the form of Dockside Green in Victoria (Phases 1, 2 and 3 were completed by 2009) and Marine Gateway in Vancouver (under construction), capitalizing on two distinct but parallel strategies for responsible urban growth. In the case of Dockside Green, Busby with Perkins+Will is creating a 1.3-million-square-foot mixed-use community on a post-industrial site within walking and cycling distance of the city centre. Thanks to a biomass plant providing district energy, Dockside Green will be carbonneutral in its greenhouse gas production. The community also treats its sewage on site, using the cleaned water for its toilets, irrigation, and the ponds and streams in its landscape. By employing these and other sustainable building systems and strategies, Dockside Green is set to give the old suburban model a run for its money. Situating itself somewhat differently in the spectrum of sustainability,

Nic Lehoux

oPPosiTe, clockwise from ToP lefT CIRS incorporates a greenhouse for processing wastewater; the structure makes extensive use of carbonsequestering wood; photovoltaic panels cast stippled shadows; a lush green roof tops the auditorium. ABove Completed in 2011 with Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, the VanDusen Botanical Garden Vistor Centre is pursuing the Living Building Challenge. righT Inspired by flower petals, the undulating wood roof culminates in a central oculus.

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Marine Gateway in Vancouver is one of the first large-scale transitoriented developments along the Canada Line (see CA, March 2011). Its key feature will be accessibility to public transit, encouraging many of its occupants to forego their reliance upon cars. Currently, 90 percent of all new development in the city is within 500 metres of public transit— so once again, Busby has led the charge on a progressive trend. Throughout all his projects, Busby deploys a no-nonsense functionalist aesthetic that’s become synonymous with contemporary West Coast architecture. In part, this aesthetic can be traced back to Designlines, the industrial design firm Busby founded in 1987 to complement his architectural practice. The streamlined style is seen in the louvre brackets, glass guards and stainless-steel spider fittings that have become emblematic of his buildings. When applied to sustainable features, this sensibility premised upon clean detailing can result in poetic moments—such as the grid of shadows cast by the rooftop solar panels onto the top floor of CIRS. As architects practicing in Metro Vancouver, we work in a world that has been shaped by Busby’s legacy. Whether parsing a LEED checklist, detailing a glulam beam connection, or edging towards a net-zero carbon structure, Busby’s fingerprints are on our everyday practices, and we are the benefactors of his vision. It is not surprising that Busby chose another visionary, environmentalist David Suzuki, to write the foreword to his 2007 monograph. What best exemplifies Busby, what makes his work most commendable, is his unflagging commitment to a sustainable built environment. His contributions to the profession are of the highest order, as demonstrated over the course of a career that continues to make new advances and sets the bar ever higher. Busby’s work is truly an inspiration, and will continue to be for generations of young architects to come, determined more than ever to help turn the tide on climate change through the conscientious design of our built environments. Sean Ruthen is a Vancouver-based architect and writer.

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ABove, ToP To BoTTom Scheduled for completion in 2015, Marine Gateway is the first large-scale mixed-use development at a new transit node in south Vancouver; the buildings comprising Dockside Green are linked to on-site wastewater treatment and a district energy system fuelled by locally sourced wood waste.

peter busby

Fighting spirit peter BusBy’s Fearless personality is essential in pushing Forward his vision oF powerFul paradigm-shiFting architecture. text

Adele Weder

Peter Busby is one of our country’s major forces in the crusade for a paradigm shift in sustainable design. But making that happen is a formidable task, not for the faint of heart; in Busby’s case, he has pursued his goals with mercurial zeal. “When someone like Peter comes in to a firm like Perkins+Will, he can take over and shake everything on the tree,” says Martin Nielsen, a former principal at Busby Perkins+Will. “Like Steve Jobs, he’s an industry visionary with a ballsy persona.” It’s the kind of steely persona that’s handy—and possibly essential—for making an impact in a world of sclerotic conventions bound with red tape. This much is clear: on architecture’s battlefield, he is warlord. Busby’s Vancouver ascent began in the mid-1980s in a small office on the southern periphery of downtown. Norm Shearing, who worked for Busby from 1985-87, recalls the Busby-designed office as “this jewel, a big sheet of glass with a steel cross-truss holding it in place,” nestled in a bleak stretch of Granville Street in a then-marginal neighbourhood.

Its very presence bespoke Busby’s emerging value system, in which architecture should be a powerful presence everywhere and architects should be fearless. “It was a very clear statement of his architectural aesthetic and how it would knit into the existing urban fabric,” says Shearing, now president of Dockside Green. “It marked the direction he wanted to take the firm.” Shearing worked for him as his lone staffer, to be followed soon enough by Paul Bridger (his partner from 1986 until Bridger’s untimely death in 1995) and Jim Huffman, who has remained one of Busby’s foremost designers ever since. Busby then began the process of negotiating his place in the design community. It is rarely easy for any young firm, but particularly treacherous for those firms stickhandling their way through the minefield of Busby’s first office at 1216 Granville Street, which he constructed himself in 1984. opposite A recent photo of Busby at work.

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perkins+will opposite Completed in 2001, One Wall Centre is a 48-storey tower pairing a hotel with residential condomiums. It raised the bar for skyscraper design in downtown Vancouver. aBove Busby favours a working method involving intensive design charrettes, discussions and debates with his team and collaborators.

big-city real-estate forces. Shearing recalls Busby grappling with pressure from a developer-client who had cut corners to the point where Busby felt the building would no longer meet the requirements of the development permit. He walked away from the project, recalls Shearing, rather than compromise its architectural and ethical integrity. Not every project has been so easy to walk away from, though, nor has the “right thing to do” always been so unambiguous. The first major project of his career, Vancouver’s Wall Centre tower, was also the most controversial. After construction commenced, the glazing turned out to be much darker than what the City of Vancouver believed it had agreed to as part of a complex negotiation for additional building height. Busby defended his role, and that of his client, but many of his colleagues believed he had deferred too much. To those familiar with the project, it was clear that in his client, Busby had encountered a personality even more forceful than his own—to his potential destruction. The ensuing scandal temporarily threatened everything he had worked for, and darkened a moment that should have rightfully been nothing but glorious, his debut on the national stage as a major player. During this time, he projected the aura of a man defeated, or nearly so. As part of my interview for a National Post story on this subject, I relayed some of his peers’ armchair admonitions that he should have relinquished the Wall Centre project rather than condone any perceived sleight of hand (or sleight of eye). He was not defensive but wearily resigned: What purpose would it serve for him to walk away from the project, he replied, when there is so much left to do that only his firm could accomplish? It was a saga right out of Lord Weary’s Castle, with Busby grappling against the light or against the dark, depending on your perspective. The resulting compromise of dark glass on the bottom third of the tower and light glass on the top two-thirds seemed like a Pyrrhic victory to some, a Solomonic decision to others. For Busby, it was Nietzschean: the Wall fiasco could have killed him professionally, but he survived it, and it made him stronger.

As with many great sagas, this one ended in great achievement with nobody much caring in the end who might have been the bad guy. The Wall Centre was a turning point not only in Busby’s own career but also in Vancouver’s urban identify. More than any other building of its time, it raised the shamefully low bar of architectural quality in fin-de-siècle Vancouver. In a final bit of irony, the current city council recently acquiesced to the developer’s renewed insistence on dark glass, citing environmental reasons. But on the bright side, there is no turning back. From that point on and to the present day, with the vaunted Vancouver House (Bjarke Ingels Group with DIALOG) set to rise between the limbs of the Granville Street Bridge, the city learned that high-calibre design was something worth fighting for. The fighter in Busby is well-known to admirers and detractors alike. His ferocious obsessiveness is the stuff of legend. A stint at his office is renowned as trial by fire, wherein only the hardiest souls survive and thrive—be it there, or elsewhere. Former associate principal Brian Wakelin attributes Busby’s formidably tough manner with helping him develop his own skill set when it came time to start his own practice. “He would grill me, and force me to defend my approach,” recalls Wakelin, who worked with Busby and then Perkins+Will before leaving to establish his own firm, Public: Architecture + Communication. “Because of that, I developed a rock-solid process for every project.” Busby’s sense of realpolitik prompted him to establish Designlines in 1987. At the time it was an unusual move: the incorporation of an industrial-design subsidiary within an architectural practice. Now such professional structures seem logical. “He’s a very strategic thinker,” says Alfred Waugh, who partnered with him in 2001 to form Waugh Busby Architects, a side business to Busby + Associates Architects. “He’ll have a meeting before each [client] meeting to map out the give-and-take, figuring out how a client is going to react, what the cost issues are going to be and how we could propose to solve them.” Because many of his ambitions involve non-

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

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michAel bednAr

Busby discusses a transportation project with collaborators. The Squamish Lil’Wat Cultural Centre was completed by Waugh Busby Architects in 2006. right The Centre acts as a doorway to a forest territory shared by two First Nations. opposite

conventional and innovative approaches, Busby has developed a methodology that takes extra care to communicate the firm’s ideas. Like Designlines, Waugh Busby Architects—conceived as a 51%Aboriginal-owned firm with a view to pursuing First Nations work— was an innovation in a model of practice. The partnership, however, dissolved when Perkins+Will bought out Busby + Associates. Though Busby’s forceful personality has occasionally ruffled feathers, some colleagues observe that he has evolved into a calmer, more relaxed soul in recent years. Perhaps with six Governor General and 13 Lieutenant Governor Awards, plus another 100-plus design honours, he no longer needs to prove his mettle. “He’s got the Order of Canada, he’s got the RAIC Gold Medal, nobody can take that away from him,” observes Shearing. When things are going his way, his grinning optimism and charisma energize a room. He donates time to public talks on green design and to unpaid community activities, such as the City of Vancouver’s FormShift urban density ideas competition. And he quietly contributes in other ways, such as helping establish the Vaughn Berg Memorial Prize at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture, in memory of a young graduate architect at the firm who succumbed to cancer; he also named a conference room at his Vancouver office in Berg’s name. “It takes a while for him to develop trust in someone,” says Huffman, currently the design director at Perkins+Will Vancouver, “but once he does, that trust is forever.” Even those who felt compelled to get out of Busby’s looming shadow have few regrets about investing their formative years and gleaning the benefits of his audacious talents. “It’s been an absolutely incredible 15-year ride,” says Nielsen, now a principal at DIALOG. “Without Peter, it would have been like any other office.” Adele weder is an architectural curator and critic based in british columbia.

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RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

AN INFLUENtIAL voICE CoLLEAGUEs AND CoLLABoRAtoRs DEsCRIBE PEtER BUsBY’s UNIQUE CoNtRIBUtIoNs to thE PRoFEssIoN. Photos

Perkins+Will

Larry Beasley, C.M.

Peter Busby’s work is amazingly sophisticated—at the creative edge. His buildings and community design schemes uniquely combine an expressive beauty, a truly responsible sustainability, an elegantly respectful urbanism, and a solid business practicality. Having watched his inventiveness for many years, I have observed his struggle for what is right over what is easy; his persuasive dialogue with clients and government for better solutions; his inspiration of colleagues and how he has been inspired by them. With every commission I have seen his architecture become more and more special to its time and place and people. Larry Beasley is former Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver.

over the years he has remained a trusted friend, offered wise counsel and provided generous support to our School. No other Canadian architect has devoted so much time and given such professional leadership to bring environmental issues to the forefront of our profession. Peter’s entire portfolio of work and accomplishments make him Canada’s most notable leader and ambassador for the architectural profession in the area of sustainable building design practices. For me, and I am sure for many others teaching building-related environmental issues, Peter has reinforced their importance as critical design considerations and provided continuing inspiration for our students to engage and embrace sustainability imperatives in their studies. Ray Cole is the Academic Director of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustaina-

Ray Cole, Ph. D., FRAIC, Hon. AIBC Peter Busby—what can I say? In 1977, as one of my students at UBC:

bright, brash, big hair, deeply committed to social and environmental responsibility. Today, now as my teacher: savvy, highly influential, still well-coiffed, an international and respected leader in green building design. Watching Peter’s career unfold over the past 35-plus years since he graduated from the School of Architecture could not be more gratifying. It is not solely the success of Peter’s professional practice and extensive portfolio of distinguished, innovative and elegant work that makes him a very special person and architect. He has consistently committed time and energy in championing the case for significantly improving the environmental performance of buildings, in a wide range of Canadian and international forums. This contribution and influence has had an enormous impact on professional practice and architectural education. Peter has also had significant influence on me personally, as

bility and Professor in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia.

Paul Fast, P. Eng., Struct. Eng.

Whenever Peter calls about a new project, my heart skips a beat…we know we are in for more adventure and another interesting and exciting design challenge. Projects with Peter are never boring. He sets the bar high for the entire design team, is always encouraging fresh out-of-thebox thinking, never averse to accepting risk, and has the “nectar”…a sharp discerning eye for good architecture. His pioneering work on the sustainability front is equalled by few, if any, and his love for sensibly designed exposed structure has bonded us on many a design trail. Great choice for the RAIC Gold Medallist! Paul Fast is the Founder and Managing Partner of Fast + Epp.

Blair McCarry, P.Eng., FASHRAE, Hon. AIBC

I have worked with Peter as an engineer for over 20 years. During that time, we developed parallel skills in green sustainable buildings and communities. I both love and love to hate working with Peter. I love it because we work on fascinating and challenging projects that are truly making a positive impact on the built environment. I love to hate it because Peter will always push for higher levels of project performance. I might say, “We can probably get a 50% reduction in energy.” Peter would say, “Come on, you can do better than that—let’s get to 70%.” So off I go, to ﬁgure out how we can get there—or better. Now he uses terms like net-zero energy, carbon-neutral, net-zero waste, and netzero water. We are working on projects that incorporate these terms. It is a blast! Blair McCarry is former Vice President and Director at Keen Engineering, former Principal at Stantec, and former Principal at Perkins+Will.

Susan Gushe, Architect AIBC, AAA, SAA, MRAIC

In the atrium of our office hangs an elderly canoe. When viewed from above, you can appreciate the complex elegant shape formed by the bent wood planking. The brightly coloured canvas cladding can only be imagined, as it is no longer there to protect the exterior. When viewed from below, the interior is revealed. Its structure—ribs, gunwales and thwart—is a lesson in the absolute harmony of material, form, function and beauty. It is difficult to imagine another object that more aptly describes the principles that lie at the heart of Peter’s determined pursuit of design excellence. In hindsight, it was not just “another day at the office” when 15 years ago, on a beautiful summer afternoon, Peter negotiated the canoe off the roof of a car outside our office. His infectious delight in acquiring such a beautiful expression of design, encapsulating his values, is a strong memory. It comes to mind often, when I meditate on the canoe that occupies our atrium and serves as muse to our ongoing journey of excellence. Susan Gushe is Managing Director at Perkins+Will Vancouver.

Brian MacKay-Lyons, Architect, NSAA, RCA, FRAIC, Hon. FAIA

Peter Busby is an excellent choice for the 2014 RAIC Gold Medal. He has been a respected colleague and friend for more than 20 years. We served on the National Capital Commission’s Advisory Committee on Planning, Design and Realty together for many years. Quite simply, in Canada and in the US, Peter has brought the environmental sustainability movement out of the “horseless carriage” phase. In contrast with the current corporate “greenwashing” bandwagon, he gives a voice to

the possibility of green design along with strong formal design skill in the modern rational tradition of his mentor Norman Foster. He sees environment as a form generator.

RAIC Gold MedAl 2014

Brian MacKay-Lyons is Founder of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects.

Vivian Manasc, Architect, MBA, FRAIC

What’s great about working with Peter is that he’s not afraid to be challenged—and not afraid to be challenging. His clear, rigorous and authoritative manner has framed the discourse of what sustainable architecture is in Canada. Starting with the Sustainable Buildings Canada Committee and later the CaGBC, I recall Peter being willing to take unpopular positions. He chaired an acrimonious (and longforgotten) meeting in Victoria on September 14, 2002, where a large group of passionate advocates for sustainable design gathered to decide that Canada would adopt LEED and the GBC model. The motion was carried by a single vote in majority. The following spring, we celebrated the launch of the CaGBC in Vancouver. Apart from Kevin Hydes’ signature sing-along pub gathering, the single memory that stands out from that night is of a bunch of us sitting in the Yale Hotel, drinking too much scotch, talking about philosophy…and sustainable design. Peter has the courage, chutzpah and vision that many architects aspire to—the courage to push the agenda, the chutzpah to say things that need to be said, and the vision to realize that architectural work leaves a mark beyond just the building. Congratulations, Peter—a welldeserved honour. Vivian Manasc is Senior Principal of Manasc Isaac Architects and a Past President of the RAIC.

Douglas MacLeod, Ph.D., Architect, MRAIC

I had the pleasure of travelling with Peter in South Korea and China in 2010. As I watched his presentations, I was struck by the thoughtfulness of his approach to architecture. As his career shows, he is carefully building a strategy and a platform for transforming the profession and the environment. Peter is a true visionary in suggesting that our buildings can actually enhance the environment, and his ideas about regenerative design are revolutionary. More than that, he has demonstrated again and again that it is possible to transform those ideas into reality, through groundbreaking buildings such as the Visitor Centre at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens and the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. Douglas MacLeod is Chair of the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University.

oPPosItE Busby works on a competition charrette with collaborators. BELow, LEFt to RIGht Two images show the Perkins+Will San Francisco team planning the renovation of 2 Bryant Street, where they are scheduled to relocate later this year. Intended to serve as a showcase for Bay Area clients, the new office incorporates rooftop photovoltaics, abundant daylighting, and locally sourced toxin-free materials.

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NIC LEHoux

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Road WaRRioR TexT

Barry Johns

RAIC ChAnCelloR BARRy Johns RemInIsCes on long houRs spenT woRkIng—And CeleBRATIng—wITh peTeR BusBy.

One of my most memorable encounters with Peter Busby was in Halifax at the 2001 RAIC Festival. It was the site of meetings foreshadowing the official adoption of LEED measuring tools in Canada and the eventual birth of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) in 2002. Many of us there were already intimate with LEED—we were members of the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and had several of the first-generation LEED-accredited buildings in Canada completed or underway. We believed the ultimate selection of LEED in Canada to be inevitable, but competition with other models yielded spirited discussion at the time. Busby, a central figure in those discussions, would ultimately become a founding member of the CaGBC. As is often the case at RAIC Festivals, there were many unscheduled post-mortem events, including a gathering of LEED proponents— Busby, Vivian Manasc, Kevin Hydes and me. Our animated musings soaked into the walls of a number of watering holes that night in party-famous downtown Halifax. Near dawn, with all of us quite, er, relaxed, we found ourselves in front of a terrific live band playing at a high decibel level. My last recollection was

of Busby in his ubiquitous white shirt, fist pumping, eyes closed, head shaking, as all of us danced like no one was watching on a very drenched and slippery wood floor. Fortunately no photographs exist (iPhones would arrive some time later) but the entire occasion was commemorated by Kevin, who weeks later gifted each of us with a black T-shirt shamelessly emblazoned with the moniker “Road Warrior” across the back. Fast forward to Busby today—still the road warrior—but now, a road warrior newly based in San Francisco, whose work takes him around the planet. Having nurtured the sustainability movement from its roots, the tree is spreading further and further afield. He and his team are proving that touching lightly on the earth anticipates a better world, and that beautiful buildings, campuses and cities can be the result. Ever the collaborator, we worked together for three years on Blatchford, an international competition-winning, carbon-neutral community for 30,000 people in Edmonton. My friend and project colleague Joyce Drohan leads the urban design group in Perkins+Will’s Vancouver studio, and was in charge of Blatchford. She says, “Peter’s genius is his

ABove a canoe hangs in the central atrium of perkins+Will’s Vancouver office at 1220 Homer Street. completed in 2000, the design repurposed a 1946 warehouse.

ability to open everyone’s eyes to the inherent potential of a project—building, community or city—to enhance the lives of those affected, through extraordinary sustainable thinking.” In the shadow cast by the old canoe hanging beneath a skylight in the Vancouver office, we toiled long hours on the project with experts from around the world. This is a culture of uniquely driven excellence, with no restriction on doing the right thing, and with constant research underpinning how to get there. Through it all we find an inordinately serious leader: Busby regularly involved around the edges, pragmatic, terse, never letting go until all options are pursued and everything is to his satisfaction. Yet we also find a leader who knows how to celebrate work well done: Busby is always on the lookout for a good time. Congratulations from all those who couldn’t keep up that night in Halifax, Busby, and from three others who somehow did. Barry Johns, FRAIC, (Hon.) FAIA, is Chancellor of the College of Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He is the founder and principal of Barry Johns (Architecture) Limited in Edmonton.