V.I.A. Community Sponsor TELUS opened the doors of their much awaited TELUS Garden building this week! Their goal was to blend architecture and art with environmental sustainability in order to demonstrate their commitment to the City of 麻豆传媒映画and its mission to make ours the greenest city in the world by 2020, and they've certainly met that goal.
A $750 million investment, it's the first substantial office tower in Canada built to the new LEED Platinum standards and some of the green features include 10,000+ square feet of outdoor space on six different levels, including a community garden where employees will grow vegetables to be donated to local charities. A district energy unit that collects waste heat from telco equipment to heat the office and the attached residential tower, reducing heating and cooling energy demands by 80% when you compare to conventional office buildings. High-efficiency lighting on motion sensors to reduce energy consumption. Of course there are charging stations for electric cars as well as plenty of bike storage. Oh, and Vancouver's largest solar system: 288 panels that'll end up producing around 65,000 kilowatt hours a year, lighting the exterior of the building. Whew. Below are a few photos that offer a look inside "Canada's most sustainable office tower".
