The design for a controversial glass tower on Vancouvers waterfront that has been called everything from origami to the blob to the icepick didnt get approval in its first pass at the citys urban design panel.

The panel, a group of architects and engineers who provide advice to the city planning department, said the 26-storey tower crowded too close to the citys heritage Waterfront Station, a former train station that is now a central transit hub.

The current design, by internationally renowned Chicago architects Gordon Gill and Adrian Smith, shows a glass building rising from a narrow base close to the east side of the station and curving over its roof, with windows angled like the facets of a diamond.

I admire your work and Im very happy to see you working on a project in the city, Vancouver architect Matthew Soules told the two. But, he said, the proximity and overhang of the tower to the station is ultimately a disservice to the dignity of the station. By positioning the tower so close, it appears that (a future connecting road on the other side) is more important than one of the citys civic structures.

Mr. Soules, like others on the panel, said the 1914 station is one of this young citys few historic buildings and needs to be respected.

As well, the building, on a site that is currently a private parking lot between the station and the Steamworks restaurant and pub, doesnt do enough to make the public feel welcome, the panel said.

They noted that, whether owner Cadillac Fairview likes it or not, the public has come to see that parking lot along with the view of the mountains and water from it as their space. Cadillac Fairview also owns Waterfront Station.

Architect Jennifer Marshall suggested creating a winter garden that would extend through the lobby of the building, turning the whole ground floor, as well as the plaza outside, into a public space.

In spite of the criticisms, almost all the panel members agreed that the building fits with the citys future waterfront plan to have an office tower of that height and density there.

They also didnt have a problem with the very modern design next to the station, saying that many cities have shown that the blend of old and new can be attractive.

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Controversial origami glass tower struck down by Vancouver urban design panel

Tim Emanuel | Architects - Gravedigger | Drum Cover
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Updated: 01/26/2015 11:28 PM Created: 01/26/2015 11:13 PM WDIO.com

The Duluth City Council heard from the architects on Monday night who put together the remodel and rebuild plans for the Duluth Public Library.

Architects outlined each their four major proposals; the cheapest option on the table only brings the building up to code and fixes costly energy inefficiencies, while the most expensive calls for a complete rebuild.

"It is really struggling to keep itself in that condition," said Stephen Bellairs with MSR Architecture, the group who completed a report on the city's options. "But what is happing behind the skin of the building is not what the city needs in the future."

MSR's report recommends building a completely new facility of roughly the same size at the existing library site. The report estimates the project, known as 'Option C,' will cost $34.7 million.

The report says that the overwhelming majority of public responses favored that option. 63 percent voiced support for Option C, while none of the other three options received more than 16 percent.

To read the full report, click here.

Library manager Carla Powers says a citizen committee will make its plan recommendation to the council in two weeks.

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Architects Recommend Complete Rebuild of Duluth Public Library

So while the 2008 financial crisis has been a disagreeable hiccup for tower-building, corporate architects who just took the intervening time to dream up taller versions, it has been something of a blessing for a generation of younger London architects. It is a generation that has, in any case, begun to kick back at the bubble-shaped (and often bubble-headed) digital creations of their globalising predecessors.

The profession has been increasingly dividing into huge and slick international firms and sole practitioners with the creative middle squeezed out.

Alongside guerrilla knitters, DIY clothing customisers and vinyl record enthusiasts, London practices such as Architecture 00, Carl Turner Architects, vPPR, Assemble, Studio Weave and We Made That the clue is sometimes in the name are, to varying degrees, emphasising the process and involvement of the users of their designs, the crafted, the improvised and the down to earth.

In some ways it mirrors the counter-cultural explosion of the Sixties, in the face of the Space Age. With its lo-fi solutions, whimsical ideas and co-operative values, it is a riposte to the direction that architecture has taken in the past few decades.

What the latest generation of activist architects have in common is commitment to peoples needs rather than stroking their own egos by building a stylistic brand.

They are the heirs to studios such as Muf and the now-disbanded FAT, which refused to play the corporate game, and their choices have not so much been driven by a changed economy as a desire for a new vision. Necessity has not so much mothered as matched invention for three practices, in particular.

DIY diehards: the Assemble collective work from their self-built hall near Bow, created for 80,000 out of standard timber and concrete tiles made on site (Picture: Assemble)

Assemble is an architectural collective born out of collective frustration at the way standard architecture offices often work. Hierarchical with malignant presenteeism, leading to late nights but little creative input for younger designers.

The collective has a core of about 14 members, half of whom teach architecture part-time. Most are Cambridge graduates many had got sick of working in other practices.

They are stressful places and theres not enough discussion of architectural merits. Wed been taught to have more involvement than that, says one member.

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Meet the activist architects: why young designers in London are going back to basics

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