Completion date: 1995
Budget: $110 million

Overview

Occupying a full city block, Vancouver’s Library Square complex includes the city’s main library branch, a federal office tower, retail concourse, and three levels of underground parking. This downtown centrepiece of urban life has become a much-loved meeting place and tourist destination, and a workspace for a broad spectrum of community uses.

The DA Difference

Our team collaborated with Moshe Safdie Associates Ltd. on development and construction. While Moshe Safdie authored the design approach, DA developed it to accommodate the myriad programs housed in this 710,000-square-foot complex, and to meet the functional requirements of a main branch library in a major city. The result was a network of vertical and horizontal conveyors to move the library’s holdings of 1.3 million books and audio/visual materials throughout its seven floors, and a series of walkways to help Library Square’s 2.5 million annual visitors navigate the building’s interior and exterior public spaces.