On February 7th, the Swiss Canadian Chamber of Commerce invited members to the ‘European Technologies Meet West Coast Aesthetic’ event at the New Exchange Building – a $120 million heritage and office tower project in Downtown Vancouver. Over 20 SCCC members joined the entertaining event, guided by the leading Architects of the Exchange Building project.
Older Vancouverites may know the building as the Old Stock Exchange in the middle of Downtown Vancouver. Today the heritage building appears in a new light with a massive tower, a spectacular entrance, and an artistic floor.
Our SCCC member, who joined the event, were impressed by the decorative entrance hall and its appearance. After a short welcome speech, the two architects Graham Coleman and Daniel Hawreluk took over and guided the group through the New Exchange Building. On one of the upper floors, Daniel & Graham took us on a journey through the 8 year project – starting at the initial idea and ending at the grand opening of the building.
The old Stock Exchange Building was bought by Franz Gehriger, founder of SwissReal and member of the SCCC. Together with the Swiss Bank Credit Suisse, the architect firm Iredale, and the Swiss architect Harry Gugger, they developed a building being named “the greenest building in Vancouver”. The building deserves the title due to several factors such as; 60% reduction in energy consumption, 85% reduction in CO2 Emissions and sustainable use of rain water, as well as sunshine.
After the presentation, the participants got the chance to walk through different floors of the building to see the ongoing construction and to ask further questions about the building. The participants took the opportunity and the architects faced a lot of questions about the sustainability, the process of development, the location and the costs.
At the end of the tour, the participants gathered at the new Lindt store on the ground floor of the Exchange building. Lindt sponsored a gift basket for a draw, won by our lucky longstanding member Jacqueline Banz.
However, everyone received also a souvenir from Franz Gehriger: a coin with the Old Stock Exchange Building on one, and the New Exchange Building on the other side.
CanBIM had the opportunity to tour the Exchange building earlier in the afternoon. After the tour and the presentation, all SCCC members were invited to join the social event of CanBIM, a council that focus on Building Information Modeling technologies and practices.
This was a great opportunity to network with people from the architecture and construction industry.
We would like to thank SwissReal, Daniel & Graham from Iredale Architure, the Lindt store and CanBIM for their support, effort and teamwork.
If you would like to read more about the New Exchange Building, please browse the following link: