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Architecture of the Vancouver 2010 Games

Jim Sutherland

| January 4, 2011

Image by: VANOC

Report card time! Nine architecture experts review Vancouver 2010's contributions to the city – and the impression the structures made.

For the 2010 Olympics, Vancouver made a conscious decision to eschew big-deal architecture in favour of sustainability, both economic and environmental (and, sure enough, there were definitely no iconic Bird’s Nest Stadiums or Water Cubes).

The extent to which economic sustainability was achieved is definitely an unanswered question, but there is also another one: Did the world leave with a positive impression of our architects and their designs? In an effort to bring something of an expert analysis, we asked a panel of nine experts to assess five of the highest-profile projects from the Olympics era.

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Since the only thing architects like less than losing a job to someone else is to be caught dissing that someone else, we promised them all complete anonymity. We also asked them to focus on design and planning, ignoring the economics and politics that ultimately figured so large. 

Project: Olympic Village  Grade: B+   (Highest: A; lowest: D+)  All panellists but one awarded the village an A or B, but even the fans disagreed on whether specific features were good or bad. “A laudable and ambitious green precinct within the city whose generous public plazas and relationship to Vancouver’s Seawall . . . is a jarring contrast to the scale of its interior streets,” wrote one. Meanwhile, another cited the scale, where “streets are narrower . . . intersections are more compact” as one of the outstanding features.
Project: Olympic Oval   Grade: C+  (Highest: B+; lowest: C)  High marks for the clear-span roof made from pine-beetle-infested wood and for the interior in general; lower for the exterior, “a clunky shed,” as described by one expert.
Project: Convention Centre Expansion   Grade: B-   (Highest: A+; lowest: D)  The middling mark is a little misleading for a project that in fact received no B’s at all, only A’s, C’s and D’s. If there was a hint of agreement amid all the love and hate, it’s that the interior is better than the exterior (and that includes the famous green roof, which panellists tended to regard as something of a sham). “Mediocrity on one of the most magnificent sites on the planet,” summed up one of the detractors.
Project: Woodward’s Redevelopment   Grade: A-   (Highest: A+; lowest: C+)  An almost clean slate of A’s was marred by a single detractor, who liked the “brave and urban” towers but couldn’t abide the ground-level interior courts and their “strange commercial juxtapositions.”
Project: The Canada Line   Grade: B+   (Highest: A; lowest: E [for the stations])  Everyone lauded the line, but most criticized the utilitarian stations and their lack of platform space. That said, one optimist noted that “the simple concrete shells allow us to reconsider and reclad in an imaginative way in the future, if we collectively wish.”