Folder consists of 6 photographic prints of the Emily Carr School of Art. The Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design is located on Granville Island, a highly successful urban precinct on the waterfront in the heart of Vancouver. The building context ranges from the small scale of single-story shops to the industrial scale of a concrete plant and the superscale of a major high-level bridge which spans over the island. The natural context of the waterfront adds a marine character to the island and the buildings which occupy it, which has both industrial and recreational dimensions.

The fundamental design problem for the building was an urban one. The building program required 60 000 square feet of studios and associated spaces, including a library and large lecture theatre, and 255 parking stalls located across the street from existing college facilities. Because subsurface conditions make building a parking garage entirely below grade impracticable, the fundamental problem was to position a college building on top of a three-story parking garage while at the same time addressing the varying scales and pedestrian-oriented character of Granville Island.

The disposition of the building volumes mediates the building?s bulk and the impact of the parking garage on the surrounding streets. The library is located at ground level, screening the garage and providing a public amenity at street level. The remaining program components are located above street level and grouped around a double-height glazed concourse space.

As is typical of construction on Granville Island, corrugated metal cladding is used for insulated walls, services are generally left exposed, and detailing is direct.

Architect: Patkau Architects / Toby Russell Buckwell and Partners.