Vancouver Convention Centre West living roof, Burrard Inlet view from Coal Harbour
Framed by Coal Harbour high-rises, this view looks out over Burrard Inlet toward the North Shore Mountains, with the Vancouver Convention Centre West forming the foreground. The building’s angular, planted roof is not decorative trim. It is the West building’s six-acre living roof, designed as a working environmental surface and planted with more than 400,000 indigenous plants and grasses. The Convention Centre’s West building opened in April 2009, and became the first convention centre in the world to achieve double LEED Platinum, a detail that helps explain why its waterfront architecture is often discussed as infrastructure rather than just venue space. In the distance, ships and small craft track across the inlet, placing this scene in the Canada Place and convention district that sits directly on Vancouver’s working harbour edge.