The Salient Group

Insertion Points – Gair Williamson Architects
cdnarchitect.com
Tevor Boddy
August 2009

A view of Williamson's own suite in the Paris Block. Photo Credit: Ed White

A small architecture firm is well-known for nimbly grafting and inserting new architectural elements into the existing urban fabric of Vancouver.

Clients turn architects from dreamers into schemers. Williamson has had a close and positive relationship with Salient Development, which is headed by the successful Robert Fung (son of the former Toronto Waterfront Commissioner of the same name), often sharing office space with the firm. Salient took more advantage of the transfer of development rights (TDR) policy than any other Vancouver developer, and now finds itself controlling nearly half the unplaced density benefits nearly a year into a city council embargo on their sale (the issue for City Hall is the mounting store of potential building density without sufficient sites to “land” it on specific locations in a developing-out downtown).

Williamson is responsible for one of the best applications of these Vancouver heritage mechanisms in his adaptive reuse and rooftop addition for Salient to the Bowman Block, part of a line of early 20th-century warehouses on Beatty Street south of West Georgia Street. Williamson’s design cut back the window-side floor plates of timber-beamed and wooden mill floors to open up two-storey lofts, with bedrooms set back to increase the sense of space, while revealing original elements of the 1906 structure–for example, the former beam seats are retained as a marker of the building’s past.

Similarly, designer and developer resisted invisibly bricking-over the line where the subtracted floor plate was excised, intending it to be left visible. In some of these loft condos, the location of the former floor plate is marked with a very contemporary steel I-beam, which also helps with seismic stiffening of the masonry shell building.

Read the full story at cdnarchitect.com

The City of Vancouver Heritage Commission has awarded four of the Salient Group’s developments for building rehabilitation as follows:

The Flack Block, 163 West Hastings Street, an Award of Honour for structural, seismic and building systems upgrading, sustainable interiors, locally crafted stone façade components, reinstated areaways, extensive exterior restoration, and a compatible contemporary rooftop addition.

The Bowman Block, 528 Beatty Street, as Award of Merit for the mindful, restrained exterior preservation, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse to commercial and residential, including a compatible contemporary loft addition.

The Paris Block, 53 West Hastings Street, an Award or Recognition for its rescue, rehabilitation and adaptive reuse, and for the social and economic benefit the project provides to the downtown neighbourhood.

The Lumbermen’s Building, 509 Richards Street, an Award of Recognition for its rehabilitation and structural upgrade, including exposing the original banking hall ceiling, and providing high quality ground floor use and office space.

>> See the complete list of our awards on the Awards page.

Paris Block, Suite 303 - Click image to see a larger version.

The Paris Block is one of several Salient/Gair Williamson Architects projects that are transforming Gastown into Vancouver’s center of artistic activism. Unit 303 at the Paris Block was conceived and executed by our team as a prototype for inner city living.

Holding a library, study, commercial kitchen, bedroom/gallery, and lounge with a 12’ dinning bar within 702 sq.ft.,  the apartment is only slightly wider than a parking stall.

Functioning as a live-work studio, the bed folds away, transforming the space into a gallery and event venue.

The unit contains a volume of storage that is three times the size of a standard condominium; Closets for coats, laundry, his/hers clothing, and a bathroom with a 10’ high shower.

In the long established tradition for completed GWA projects, a group of 28 B.C artists and film makers celebrated the completion with a spontaneous feast, before releasing the apartment into the community.

Unit 303 is a critical exploration into the larger issues pertaining to the architecture of affordable urban dwelling. This exploration is one of many undertaken in conjunction with Salient as we continue our investigations into urban densification.

Densification is fundamental to sustainable design; however, it often comes at the cost of dignity. As with other Salient/GWA projects, Unit 303 is an interpretation of how we can maximize livability in small urban spaces, within the context of the contemporary city.

To learn more about Gair Williamson Architects, please visit their website.

Paris Annex: A Juxtaposition Of Old And New
The Globe and Mail
January 23, 2009

By Thomasina Barnes

After last summer’s one-day sellout at its Paris Block condominium – a renovated, century-old build-ing in Vancouver’s Gastown – Salient Group decided to expand the development with a modern addition. 

While the unstable global economy may prevent the new development, called the Paris Annex, from selling as quickly as its precursor – seven units have been purchased since its release in October – Salient president Robert Fung says he is feeling confident. Continue reading “Paris Annex: A Juxtaposition Of Old And New” »

Paris Annex in Vancouver – ’Field of Dreams’ grows within gritty Gastown 

Barb Livingstone
Calgary Herald
Oct 25, 2008 

CAPTION: Robert Fung of Salient Group in Vancouver. 

CAPTION: Courtesy, Salient Group: An artist’s rendering of the proposed Paris Annex project on Hastings Street.

PROJECT: Paris Annex, which is offering 16 suites in the all-new minimalist concrete/glass building that will be attached to the adjacent historic Paris Block – a building that is being refurbished to its 1907 elegance. The Annex units have clean, compact lines and range rom 645 to 10400 square feet. The suites have floor-to-ceiling windows in an open-space loft design with 10 to14 feet ceilings, polished concrete floors, private outdoor balconies and elegant, integrated kitchens. The residents will share a common area roof top deck. 
DEVELOPER: The Salient Group 
LOCATION: Hastings Street in the Gastown area. 
PRICES: Prices start in the high $300,000s and rise to the mid $400,000s. 
INFORMATION: www.parisannex.com or www.thesalientgroup.com

Robert Fung does not pretend to be building and selling condos in a “white picket fence” neighbourhood. 

But the young developer’s rehabilitation efforts of many heritage buildings in the evolving, but still gritty, Gastown area of Vancouver, are seen as the tide that may turn that part of downtown into a healthier postal code.

“While others might try to mask the neighbourhood, we sell the neighbourhood and its depth and diversity,” says Fung, who has been crowned everything from King of Gastown to one of Vancouver’s bright lights by various magazines and newspapers. 

“We take the Field of Dreams approach – if you build it, they will come,” says Fung. “Our buyers come with their eyes wide open and are helping to create balance.” 

Indeed, the buyers are coming. All the projects that 42-year-old Fung and his eight year-old company, Salient Group, are building, have sold out – some in less than a day. 

His latest project, the Paris Annex on Hastings Street, was released this month. 

It has only 16 suites available in the all-new minimalist concrete/glass building and will be attached to the adjacent historic Paris Block, which is being refurbished to its 1907 elegance. 

“Some buyers want the heritage and some want only modern, but all like the mixture,” says Fung from his office in Gaolers Mews on Water Street in the midst of his Gastown construction zone. 

Originally, The Annex was te be another refurbishment project, but the building had suffered too much neglect from past owners. 

Instead, the 16 condos will have floor-to-ceiling windows in an open-space loft design with 10 to 14 foot ceilings, polished concrete floors, private outdoor balconies and elegant, integrated kitchens. 

The residents will share a common area rooftop deck. 

Like Salient’s other condo projects, The Annex units have clean, compact lines and range from 645 to 1,400 square feet. 

Prices start in the high $300,000s and rise to the mid $400,000s. 

The interior design is by Evoke International Design, recent winners of a 2008 designer of the year award from Western Living magazine. 

The Annex will share a corridor, stairs and elevator with the Paris Block. 

Most of Salient’s projects combine the beautiful brick/sandstone of the historic buildings with the modern elements of sleek, top of the line kitchens and bathrooms that ensure every space has multiple uses. 

But it is the history of Gastown, Vancouver’s original neighbourhood, that is reflected in almost every building Fung has touched. 

It makes sense that a developer who has a vision of how an area can become a stronger community through residential mix, should have studied anthropology in university. 

After I graduated, I travelled for a year, looking at the ways people live and interpret space,” says Fung. “We need to retain some of our built heritage because if we lose elements of it, we lose elements of ourselves.” 

The Salient projects include: 

• Taylor Building: Salient’s first project in Gastown, the condo building has original 1911 architecture and the company sold 22 units in the fall of 2003. 

The condos have refinished original wood floors, large opening heritage windows, 10- to 14-foot ceilings and a common rooftop deck. 

• Terminus: One of the 10 most endangered buildings in Vancouver, it used to be the Grand Hotel, but it had deteriorated into a rooming house. 

“It was in abysmal shape,” says Fung. “We dismantled it, retained the facade and put in geothermal heating.” 

The 46 condos, all of which are two-storey suites and of which there are no two alike, will be completed by November. 

• Garage: Thirty-four live/work residences are to be built around the Gaoler’s Mews courtyard in Gastown. 

There are architectural elements from five different years (1889, 1930, 1970 and 2007) in a modern/heritage mix of what Salient describes as “killer design that raises the bar for urban habitat.” 

It includes 10,000 square feet of office space and a similar amount of retail. The project sold out in an hour and a half. 

• Bowman Block: Winner of a Urban Development Institute award of excellence, the original building was the first brick one on Beatty Street, which straddles Gastown, Chinatown, Victory Square and Vancouver’s entertainment district. 

It was first built in 1906 and added to in 1914. It has 38 suites, some of them two-storey lofts, in a nine-storey building. There is a common rooftop deck. 

• Paris Block: The most recent of Salient’s projects, the Paris Block was, for 60 years, home to Pierre Paris and Sons, a logging boot manufacturer and retailer. 

The 100-year-old, five-storey building will now be home to 29 condos located just down the block from the Woodward’s building redevelopment. 

The project sold out in two hours and 45 minutes. 

In addition to the Paris Annex, Salient is also working on a heritage refurbishment of the Trapp Block on the main street of New Westminster. 

Originally owned by the Trapp family and formerly housing an Army and Navy store, the Trapp project will be Salient’s biggest to date. It will offer 190 suites in a mixture of heritage and modern residences, and 12,000 square feet of retail space. 

Units are expected to be released to the public in spring 2009.

Prices are not set, but Fung says they should start in the low $200,000s. 

For more information, visit www.thesalientgroup.com

Paris Annex: C’est bonne
New building and 1907 Paris Block next door are ‘fraternal twins’

Barbara Gunn, Westcoast Homes
Published: Saturday, October 11, 2008

The affable Robert Fung, founder of a development company that has been largely focused on restoring Vancouver’s historic downtown district, can think of three reasons that drive his passion for social sustainability.

They are six, five and three years old — and they are his daughters.

“I love this city and I’d like them to grow up here,” says the 42-year-old president of the Salient Group, sipping an Americano in one of his favourite Gastown eateries.

“I’d like it to be a city that they want to live in, where they can make a living, where they can accommodate the cost of housing, a city that’s diverse and where there’s a great deal of understanding, where there are options in places to live, and where, environmentally, there’s an understanding of the impact of the things we do on the bigger picture of the world.”

Fung, an Ontario native who developed a fondness for Vancouver soon after he moved here 20 years ago — “It gets in your blood pretty quickly,” he says — is doing his best, a project at a time, to shape parts of the city he envisions for his little girls.

His company currently has some 100,000 square feet of heritage office space complete, or nearing completion, in some of Vancouver’s most historic neighbourhoods, and a project list that includes Gastown’s Alhambra, Garage and Terminus buildings, the Flack Block on Hastings, the Bowman Block on Beatty and the Taylor Building on Water Street — the latter two winners of Urban Development Institute’s excellence awards.

Continue reading “HouseHunting.ca: Paris Annex: C’est bonne” »

Evoke is Robert Edmonds, graphic artist (on left) and architect David Nicolay (right).

We’d like to express our congratulations to David Nicolay of Evoke International Design for being named Western Living Magazine’s Interior Designer of the year.

Evoke has worked on several of our latest projects including terminus, Garage on Water Street and The Paris Block and Paris Annex buildings on West Hastings Street.

David Nicolay talks about the terminus project from The Salient Group on Vimeo.

See the story below:

From award-winning homes to neighbourhood watering holes and hip T-shirts, this design firm redefines casual modern living.

By Jim Sutherland

Some interior design partnerships are headed by highly focused individuals possessing intimidating training and credentials along with a laser-like sense of purpose. Other partnerships consist of, well, an architect and a graphic artist who branched into interiors primarily to outfit the bars and restaurants they wanted to hang out in.

The latter partnership describes Vancouver’s Evoke International Design, headed by David Nicolay, the architect, and Robert Edmonds, the graphic artist. And while the duo’s route to running a seven-person interior design practice may have been circuitous, that doesn’t take anything away from their work, lauded by judge Kelly Deck for its “authentic flair” and “attention to materials and atmosphere.”

terminus kitchen

Today, residential work takes up a large chunk of Evoke’s design energy. As a double-threat architect and interior designer, Nicolay was responsible for a Vancouver home (seen here) that in 2006 was named a North American Home of the Year by Metropolitan Home magazine. Other residences are at various stages of design—in some cases, Nicolay notes, their progress hampered by local zoning regulations that penalize contemporary design Much of Evoke’s recent work has been on condominiums, particularly collaborations with Acton-Ostry Architects for Vancouver developers Townline and also the Salient Group, which specializes in converting warehouses and other heritage buildings. Judge Raymond Girard lauds what he calls “real” (as opposed to “soft”) lofts. “How clever to turn utilitarian spaces like kitchens and bathrooms into sculptural elements, spicing up smaller loft spaces without cramming them full of stuff, materials and textures.”

The seed of the Nicolay and Edmonds collaboration dates to the mid-1990s and a memorable Vancouver restaurant in the Kitsilano neighbourhood called Tangerine, which Nicolay and family members launched to fill what he describes as “a keenly felt void of cozy, stylish places to eat and drink.” That soon led to other restaurant work, both as designers and proprietors. Vancouver’s Figmint and Metro restaurants are recent projects, each displaying sophisticated takes on neo-modernism. Evoke and partners also designed Main Street haunts Habit and the Cascade Room, the latter a slightly off-key riff on post-war England. Both continue a tradition of rooms that, true to the company name, suggest rather than accurately describe a style or period. Paul Lavoie describes them as “fresh spaces with thoughtfulness for heritage and reality.”

The firm was recently hired for a condominium development in Victoria. A line of T-shirts featuring vivid graphic treatments by Edmonds is also ready to go. Not everyone can live in an Evoke product but at least we can all wear one.

See the original story here, and an article the Globe & Mail posted here.