2 minute read
Editor’s Letter
Building Beauty
Leading North American developer Westbank merges artistry, sustainability, and functionality to elevate everyday life.
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Canadian real estate development practice Westbank defies categorization. Par t patron and par t pioneer, as well as one of Nor th America’s leading private proper ty developers, the organization—which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year—is also a multi-platformed champion of net-zero carbon initiatives, culture, technology, and the ar ts. By deploying bold thinking and design, they create singular experiences, eco-driven solutions, and enduring communities in the places where their projects reside. In the words of Bjarke Ingels, the renowned Danish architect who has collaborated with Westbank on numerous projects, “[Westbank] is summoning some of the most talented and visionary architects from the east and the west to join [them] in raising the bar in contemporary cities.” Take Oakridge, which for decades has been among Vancouver’s highest-per forming shopping centers, and is now being reimagined as an ambitious mixed-use campus with residential homes designed by such international design luminaries as Piero Lissoni and Clémande Burgevin Blachman. Or the company’s soon-to-be-completed Alberni project: a 43-floor high-rise designed by powerhouse Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, sheathed in aluminum shingles that give the structure a magical, shimmering quality. Additional projects in the works with Kuma include Hawaii Beach House, a premium water front residence on the coast of Oahu, and Park Habitat, a cutting-edge office and commercial proper ty in the hear t of Silicon Valley that is designed to achieve net-zero carbon across its lifecycle and is positioned for LEED Platinum cer tification.
Guided by the twinned ideas of “Gesamtkunstwerk,” the German principle that considers every detail in a project as par t of the total work of ar t, and “tsumikasane,” the Japanese principle that approaches
a project through the accretion of layering, Westbank is continually expanding into new areas of possibility and grow th. For example, they are one of Canada’s largest public ar t contributors, with over 60 commissions that have ranged from Dale Chihuly’s luminous Persian Glass to Stan Douglas’s provocative Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971. Their por tfolio of brands and additional initiatives include the premier Canadian dance school, Goh Ballet Academy; one of the country’s most expansive private collections of 20th- and 21st-century couture fashion; a bev y of thoughtfully craf ted live-music venues; and a trio of top-tier hotels—the Shangri-La Toronto, the Shangri-La Vancouver, and Vancouver’s Fairmont Pacific Rim.
All of these pursuits are fueled by a passion for excellence and innovation and a commitment to ar tistry, integrity, and sustainability. “It seems to me that while we have many goals to achieve, Westbank has two main roles,” says founder Ian Gillespie. “First, to create as much beauty as we possibly can, and second, to help people appreciate beauty, so that they in turn will demand more of it and accept nothing less.”
