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ACDF Unveils The Pacific:

A High-Rise Building

Entrenched in Vancouver's

Public Realm

Vancouver, Canada

ACDF Architecture, a progressive Canadian firm internationally
recognised for designing a new generation of meaningful and
impactful buildings, is proud to unveil The Pacific, a residential tower
rising proudly, but quietly, into Vancouver’s skyline.

The Pacific reflects ACDF’s evolving approach to developing high-
rise buildings entrenched in the public realm. With a succession of
projects in the west coast metropolis, including PARQ, and the on-
going Barclay project, The Pacific represents a progression of the
firm’s innovative rethinking of the human-scale role of skyscraper
development and its contribution to neighbours and pedestrians.

Located at the corner of Hornby and Pacific streets, in a cityscape
framed by the Granville Street and Burrard Street bridges, The
Pacific features 224 condominiums across 39 floors. The building was
developed in collaboration with IBI Group, a Canadian architectural
consulting firm, for Grosvenor, a private real estate group with
holdings in many urban centres throughout the world.

“Grosvenor is very respectful and refined in its embrace of quality,
but also in its deep consideration of the impacts that its developments
have on surrounding streets and neighbourhoods,” explains Maxime-
Alexis Frappier, partner and co-founder of ACDF. “We wanted to
propose a different approach in the form of an urban gesture that
contributes something much more than just a building.”

Quiet distinction
As one of several new additions to the Vancouver skyline, The Pacific
has earned its place alongside cutting-edge buildings designed
by some of the world’s most renowned architects. Rather than
competing within Vancouver’s already dense and varied landscape
of tall buildings, ACDF adopted a more complementary approach,
prioritising clean, subtle, and human scale elements to provide a
wealth of urban experiences among the more dramatic architectural
gestures of neighbouring buildings.

“A philosophical alignment with the client provided us with the
freedom to express our belief that sometimes quiet and humble
architecture can be even more elegant and relevant,” says Frappier.
“Our role was not to create noise, but rather to provide our building
with a quiet, but recognisable identity.”

Human-scale dialogue
That approach began with numerous elemental considerations,
including a strong focus on creating a dialogue at street level with the
neighbourhood and its pedestrians. They focused the development
of shape and form on simple massing that would capture attention
through its textures, the quality of its assembly, and the transposition

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