This Building Can Switch From Residential, Office, Industrial Or Parking ...

James Brittain

In today’s world efficiency is valued. A Calgary group has mastered that with a structure that can serve four purposes.

The building located in the city’s downtown can be used for residential, office, light industry, or parking purposes.

You might also like:
• Eyes on the sky: Telus officially opens 60-storey addition to Calgary's skyline (PHOTOS)
• Mass timber design for Kelowna International Airport expansion (RENDERINGS)
• 850 ft: Western Canada's tallest tower set for Lougheed SkyTrain in Burnaby (RENDERINGS)

Kasian Architecture, Interior Design, and Planning put the seven-story building together along with 5468796 architecture and the City of Calgary.

James Brittain

Kasian Senior Project Architect Joanne Sparkes says the idea for the building came from trying to maximize its usefulness.

“When we consider concepts for a project, we aren’t just striving for environmental sustainability, but also social and economic sustainability to increase the overall resiliency of the building, and by extension the community it serves,” Spakes said. “So, our team felt that unless the project was designed to be resilient, a new parkade was at risk of becoming redundant very soon.”

James Brittain

So…how does it work?

“The parkade structure is open in plan, with columns assigned to the perimeter. This allows for parking under the current use and a variety of configurations for future stages. The key components in the building were sized to accommodate future light-industrial, residential and commercial occupancies, minimizing the scope of work required,” Sparkes explained.

“In contrast to the typical parkade structure, the parking levels above the Platform Innovation Centre are sloped on a 1-2% shallow incline.  The shallow slope serves as a ‘flat’ floor within acceptable tolerances for class B or C office space, or light industrial space. The gradual incline also creates an ‘infinite’ floor plate, allowing for flexibility of use in the future.”

James Brittain

And while they planned for several different uses, Sparkes says there have already been events in the space they weren’t expecting.

“We have already seen and experienced uses that were not originally conceived at the design stage, including wedding photos, impromptu car shows.”

You might also like:
• Eyes on the sky: Telus officially opens 60-storey addition to Calgary's skyline (PHOTOS)
• Mass timber design for Kelowna International Airport expansion (RENDERINGS)
• 850 ft: Western Canada's tallest tower set for Lougheed SkyTrain in Burnaby (RENDERINGS)

GET MORE URBANIZED NEWSEmail AddressSUBSCRIBEI want to receive contest alerts and special offers from Daily Hive’s curated list of promotional partners.Sign me up for all Daily Hive vancouver newsletters

By signing up, you agree to receive email newsletters from Daily Hive.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the bottom of the email.

Daily Hive is a division of ZoomerMedia Limited, 70 Jefferson Avenue, Toronto ON M6K 3H4.

ADVERTISEMENTGET MORE URBANIZED NEWSEmail AddressSUBSCRIBE