Green buildings in British Columbia gained a lot of recent attention from the Winter Olympics that were held in Vancouver in February, and the province’s capital city, Victoria, has a LEED project of its own that is marking some Canadian firsts. Parkside Victoria is a downtown condominium and resort that was completed in July 2009 and is targeting LEED Platinum certification, which will make it Canada’s first LEED Platinum resort hotel. The green resort even offers a LEED tour of the facility!
Parkside Victoria, which was designed by the Hulbert Group, also includes features such as a spa, a 25-meter swimming pool, a fitness center and retail and office spaces. Two 8-story midrise blocks in the facility are connected by a wintergarden atrium filled with tropical plants recovered from the Crystal Garden building in Victoria.
The building lacks some of the more ostentatious accessories of some green buildings, although it does have 3000 square feet of vegetated roof covering the atrium of the building. Rainwater is collected and reused for irrigation, and sunshades and operable windows also aid with cooling. It also gets LEED points for being “one of the most energy-efficient, sustainable works of architecture in Canada,” and is able to eliminate rooftop cooling equipment by using the storm water storage tanks and landscape ponds as a heat sink.
Parkside Victoria is located in downtown Victoria, giving it easy access to the many downtown amenities in that city, including the nearby convention center and Victoria’s Inner Harbor area.