THE INDEPENDENT

The Independent represents a 14 year campaign to bring an incredibly rich, community focused high-rise, transit-oriented development to Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.  Through a highly challenged, seven-year approval process, marked by two successfully overturned legal challenges,

The Independent represents an extremely successful commercial node (located at a future Skytrain station) and a successful design for thriving internal community. 

A focal design element for The Independent is the Back Yard, a 24,000sf courtyard purposefully designed to engage and build community amongst the approximately 500 residents.  The Back Yard features; a 3,000sf internal amenity and fitness centre, a hobby/work room, a guest suite, a dog wash room and fenced dog walk, dueling barbeques, urban agriculture, a kid’s interpretive play area, an elevated cantilever Kingsway walk and a sun deck.

The project architect, Acton Ostry Architects describe The Independent as:  “The project reinterprets, celebrates and reflects various aspects of the Mount Pleasant context, street life, materiality and colour through a bricolage of jumbled effects inspired by the diverse range of buildings from different periods and styles that are located throughout the neighbourhood. The form and massing is configured into five distinct building components, each featuring a unique character.

The triangular tower reflects the diagonal slash Kingsway makes across the city grid while a cascade of cantilevered penthouses celebrates the eclectic, independent character of the neighbourhood. A tree-topped crown symbolizes the height to which the first-growth forest once soared, marking the summit of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in Vancouver’s skyline.”