Vancouver Centre II (VCII), a 370,000-square-foot office tower, has been honoured with a Digie Award for the Most Intelligent Office Building.
VCII is a 33-storey AAA office in the heart of the city’s central business district. The building’s design reflects a commitment to energy efficiency and tenant wellness. It also features a wide array of amenities, including a fitness centre, a tenant-only dog park, and a rooftop deck with sweeping views of the city and surrounding mountain ranges.
“Creating a cutting-edge office tower both from a sustainability and technological standpoint was top of mind for us throughout the development process,” said Geoff Heu, GWL Realty Advisors vice president, development, Western Canada. “By designing the building to achieve the highest levels of building certifications, including LEED Platinum, WELL and WiredScore, we set the bar for new office buildings in Vancouver and across Canada, and we thank our co-owners for their support throughout the process.”
The development process for VCII was unique in that the new structure had to be integrated with the existing 40-year-old Vancouver Centre I (VCI) tower beside it. Now, the buildings are interconnected through a 4,000-square-foot atrium that includes a spectacular 320-foot art installation created by renowned artist Douglas Coupland and a 30-foot-high green wall.
The building’s technology stack integrating 16 different cloud-based and on-premises systems helped cinch the award in a crowded field of more than 20 nominees. The integrations – which include electricity, thermal, and water meters, occupancy sensors, elevator systems, EV charging stations, and more – create an optimal experience for tenants and allow the team to have better visibility into all aspects of building operations via the Building Intelligence platform.
The technology architecture developed for VCII is designed to scale up the building intelligence platform and the tenant experience platform, which will enable the property team to deliver operational and sustainability benefits across both towers in the future.
Launched in 1999, the Digie Awards by Realcomm recognize outstanding companies, real estate projects, and technologies. The Most Intelligent Building Projects Awards go to extraordinary “buildings, projects and communities that best demonstrate smart, connected, high-performance intelligent building concepts.”
