Sunset Community Centre

Vancouver, Canada

Photo © Nic Lehoux

Photo © Property of Bing Thom Architects

Architects: Revery Architecture

Location: 6810 Main Street, V5X 1C7 Vancouver, Canada
Year: 2007

With its strong formal presence and engaging social spaces, Sunset Community Centre inspires and anchors its community. Designed as both a crossroads and a gateway, people cut through the Centre on their way to the elementary school or the plant nursery on site. A pre-school, gymnasium, exercise rooms and large multipurpose spaces host many community activities that make the building a major draw for members of the community.

The building’s playful design stands out from its setting of subdued, modest homes, while responding to the exuberance of the neighbouring Punjabi Market. Program components achieve a distinct formal identity through five separate but harmonious undulating leaf-like roof forms that respond to the adjacent nursery. The building curves are repeated on the interior, where wood ceilings rise and fall to shape the major program areas, creating a strong connection to the exterior landscape.

This sense of play was achieved through the creative use of three basic and economical building materials/techniques: tilt-up concrete panels, an open-web steel-joist roof system, and a glazed curtain wall system. All the earth excavated during construction was reused on site to form large rolling grassy berms. These hills form a natural outdoor amphitheatre for large summer events and festivals.

Since the building’s completion, membership in the Centre has increased 40%, a measure of the extraordinary community support and pride in the building.