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Want to upgrade your home to a more sustainable way of living but don’t know how? You can learn all about building a green home or office at the Light House Sustainable Building Centre in Vancouver BC. Everything from meeting LEED requirements to green financing (you can earn up to $12,345 in government grants) and more can be found at this resource centre that has 5,400 sq. ft. of exhibit space and staffed by professionals specializing in sustainability about BC green building design and technology companies. Light House also provides professional education and training, market research, cost analysis etc. to those who request it.

The city of Vancouver has a Green Homes Program in place. For example, the city aims to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions by 33% by 2020 and to have all new homes GHG neutral by 2030. There was also the Challenge 2010 in which Light House picked 10 home-owners, gave them technical support and professional training in their respective green home initiative. Each project focused on four areas – water use, waste, electricity use and gas use. Light House published the results and what each candidate has learned.

An interesting aspect is wood which BC has plenty of. In this day and age of global sustainability, wood has gained a newfound popularity as a building material. Why wood? Wood is a renewable resource and a breathable material. It has very good insulation and soundproofing properties and relatively cheap. They also make good energy efficient windows too that reduce heat loss. Helping the BC economy is the sale of wood products in China which has doubled in 2009 with a market valued at $328 million. China is increasingly looking to build eco-friendly and energy-efficient homes to house its burgeoning middle-class. One of the most popular accommodations in China are the six-storey apartment buildings and that’s a perfect match for BC prefabricated wood-frame home building system. Canada and China have signed an agreement to collaborate together to explore this expanding market. Other than housing, there is also a great demand for hardwood lumber to make furniture as well.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre – 2060 Pine Street, Vancouver, BC.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre front entrance looking south. The narrow view is constricted by construction right in front of the building which has nothing to do with Light House.

Light House eco-friendly green products display area for Sunpod, Geotility etc.

City of Vancouver Green Capital info area about the city government’s green home initiatives.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre Sopranature green roof and underlying system.

Wood frame and triple glass glazed window system. Why wood? Renewable resource, good soundproofing, insulation properties and relatively cheap.

AspenClean green and natural cleaning detergent.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre, outdoor Green Cone food waste digestor.

Chopsticks lights, compact and eco-friendly lights that are powered by solar or kinetic energy.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre Sunpod Greenhouse for urban dwellers in small apartments and homes.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre Education centre for professional training.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre, learn what makes a Zero Waste Home.

Light House Sustainable Building Recycled Rubber Surfacing in a bathroom display.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre, resource and education centre.

Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) keeps air fresh and prevents build-up of moisture and contaminants.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre, Innotech glazed window and doorway system.

Light House Sustainable Building Centre, gifts that Light House have received from all over the world including China, Africa etc. On the left is a First Nations Talking Stick by Musqueam carver Joe Becker.


Light House Sustainable Building Centre – 2060 Pine Street, Vancouver, BC

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Closest to the shoreline at the northwest corner of the Olympic Village in Southeast Falsecreek is a building that has a ‘Design With A Twist’. The idea came about when Canadian premiere architect Arthur Erickson wanted to open up the middle of two properties to allow more sunlight in and to create a public space. It was decided that one part of the waterfront building’s backend would recline to avoid shading at certain times of day but another part would have to lean forward to counter it. In essence, it’s a building constructed on a rotating axis. It was perhaps easy for Arthur Erickson and Nick Milkovich, the two lead architects to conceive, but extremely complex and intricate for the contractors to build. One of the biggest challenges in construction was the cladding which cannot rely on conventional means. So the contractors devised a ‘fishscale’ approach. A series of metal panels (over 7,000 of them) each one different from the rest would follow the shape of the building as it twists its way to the top. The result was a pleasing and distinctive surface that gives this unique building a ’Design With A Twist’. Perhaps appropriately, this building was used to house the Canadian athletes during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games who altogether with those living in the Whistler Olympic Village too won an un-precedent 13 Gold medals in a winter games. Sadly, Arthur Erickson died in May 2009, and as a result, this Olympic Village building was the last design that the world-renowned Canadian architect had worked on. Erickson was quite fond of this twisting tower design, as he applied it to yet another still-in-construction luxury glass tower formerly known as the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Vancouver. Actually, Erickson’s work is all over the city: Robson Square, Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University etc. His other architectural designs appeared all over the globe.















Olympic Village, 181, 1st Avenue West, Vancouver BC, Canada


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In the 1930s when the Salt Building was built, only the SW corner of the building was on shore with the rest of the building supported on piles. The original shoreline of Southeast Falsecreek was about where the First Avenue is. That means much of the land that the Olympic Village sits on right now was landfill carried out over the years. Southeast Falsecreek was once a forest that had to be cleared to create land at the turn of the 20th Century.









Olympic Village, 181, 1st Avenue West, Vancouver BC, Canada

The Falsecreek inlet used to be much bigger than what it is today. Landfill reduced the inlet water to create more land at Southeast Falsecreek which became the industrial centre of the city of Vancouver. Sawmill, shipyards, coal yards, steel fabricators, cement factories, foundries, machine shops etc. have all operated here since the 1890s. During World War Two, more than 10,000 workers labored in Southeast Falsecreek to fabricate steel and build warships. This industrial centre became so important that when it came time to sell the Victory Bond in the 1940s, Susan Hayward, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Benny and other Hollywood entertainment stars came by and performed. With all that heavy industry activities came pollution and much of the natural habitat in this part of the city was destroyed. Wildlife such as seal, deer, sole, sturgeon etc. gradually left when the forest that was once here cleared to make way for the industrial revolution. Landfill also continually disrupted the shoreline, making marine habitat impossible to exist for extended periods of time. With the construction of the Olympic Village, all that have changed. Marine and other habitat are returning. Southeast Falsecreek becomes not only livable but is one of the most desirable locations for condos shoppers.













Olympic Village, 181, 1st Avenue West, Vancouver BC, Canada

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The city of Vancouver, the BC government and a Las Vegas company are working together to create a casino and hotel complex to help pay off the $563 Million dollars needed to install a retractable roof and some interior work to be done at BC Place.

The proposed mega gambling and entertainment site is located at Yaletown and adjacent to the BC Place stadium. The deal is almost as good as go, although there will be a public hearing later for zoning development. Yet there are some design issues that have to be ironed out.

The city government doesn’t like the initial design that Paragon Gaming had put forth.

Paragon, a Vegas company, owns the Edgewater Casino on the BC Place land and the license for the casino will expire in mid-2013. So Paragon is anxious to move forward with the project in time for Edgewater to movie into. And PacCo, the crown corporation that owns the land and arranged a deal with Paragon, promised to try and expedite the zoning process with the city.

The new casino complex will have three times the casino space for Edgewater to expand into or about 100,000 sq ft. However, any delay by the city would mean a lost of cash for Paragon. And here is Vancouver who wants green too but it ain’t about money.

City planning director Brent Toderian indicated this a great chance for Vancouver to build a ‘green urban casino’. Toderian also cited the new Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC) that housed the international press for the 2010 Olympics as a fine example of what Vancouver is looking for.

The waterfront structure has work spaces in the centre of the building while corridors and hallways circled around the outer edges of the building with floor to ceiling windows providing an unobtrusive harbour view of the great city of Vancouver.

I think the city probably would like it even more if Paragon can come up with some innovative ideas that have environmental values in them. For example, the VCC has a 6-acre living roof with local plants growing on it to mediate the temperature of the building so it can have a cooler summer and warmer winter and it helps in rainwater reuse as well. This together with some other features like an undersea habitat to sustain coral and other ocean lives earned the VCC a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Canada Platinum rating.

The new casino which is scheduled to be finished by mid-2012 will generate $130 Million a year in gambling revenue for the province. The BC Place is actually provincial land managed by PavCo, a crown corporation, so how much influence Vancouver can have in this matter will help decide how green the casino complex will eventually be.

Right now, after the 2010 Olympic Opening and Closing ceremonies, BC Place has one other show this year and that’s the Vancouver International Auto Show which is currently going on until Sunday April 04. Immediately after that, BC Place will close and renovation work will start in May this year to allow the retractable roof to be built.

BC Place will reopen again by mid-2011 in time for the Grey Cup games.

What surprises me the most is the easy acceptance of this casino/two hotel complex proposal in Vancouver. At least there is no public outcry just yet, unlike it had in the mid-1990s when a similar idea named the Seaport Centre was conceived. Perhaps Vancouver had indeed grown up. After the 2010 Olympics exercise that the city and its citizens had endured in the last few years, we realized what the pay-off of an event like that could mean to the city in terms of worldwide approval. Yes, we are now finally a world-class city that welds a certain power which other cities can only envy.

In the past, most Vancouverites focused on the negatives that such a gaming project can bring. Those adverse effects still exist for the critics, but citizens now seem more interested in the benefits and also expressed a quiet acknowledgement that if the city were to continue to prosper, it needs this kind of initiatives. So let’s get on with it instead of voting against it.

If that turns out to be true, I say that’s a welcoming change.