Archive for November, 2006

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Lululemon to anchor new Crossroads project at corner of Broadway and Cambie

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Bruce Constantineau
Sun

This artist’s rendering shows the Cross Roads project at Broadway and Cambie, slated for completion in 2008.

Yoga wear retailer Lululemon Athletica will occupy all 80,000 square feet of a new Vancouver office building near Broadway and Cambie — creating an expanded global headquarters when the structure opens in late 2008.

The successful Vancouver-based chain joins Whole Foods (55,000 square feet) and London Drugs (37,000 square feet) as major tenants in the mixed-used Cross Roads development that will also contain 88 condominiums.

Lululemon community relations manager Sara Gardiner said the expansion-minded retailer needs more space as its operations are currently spread among various Vancouver-area facilities.

“The company is growing very quickly and we simply need more space,” she said in an interview. “It will make things a lot easier by allowing us to consolidate a lot of operations under one roof. There are so many synergies that can be created by doing that.”

Gardiner said the first floor of the new office building will house a Lululemon store where employees can be trained. Other amenities will include an auditorium for presentations and training, a yoga studio, a fitness centre and possibly a daycare facility.

About 350 Lululemon employees are expected to work in the new building.

Gardiner said Lululemon founder Chip Wilson is committed to keeping the company in Vancouver and likes the location because it’s close to transit, such as the Canada Line which is now under construction, and close to the Olympic Village.

The yoga wear company founded by Wilson in 1998 sold a 48-per-cent interest in its operations last year to U.S.-based private equity firms Advent International Corp. and Highland Capital Partners for $108 million.

Lululemon has 29 stores across Canada, 10 in the U.S., two in Japan and one in Australia and the company plans to open its first New York City store next month. It generates more than $100 million in annual sales and employs more than 1,200 people.

Dan Turner, senior vice-president of Cross Roads project developer PCI Group, said it was important to get a high-profile tenant like Lululemon to take the office space.

“They’re a great tenant and a great Vancouver story,” he said. “They like the green theme of the building and they also like Whole Foods, which is a very organic company.”

GOING DOWN TO THE CROSS ROADS

The Cross Roads project near Broadway and Cambie won’t open until late 2008, but when it does it brings a lot to the area.

80,000 square feet of office space for Lululemon

140,000 square feet of retail space, including:

55,000 square feet for Whole Foods

37,000 square feet for London Drugs

88 condominiums

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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Planet Earth is star of Smithsonian display

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Stunning satellite images show the planet as astronauts see it

Randolph Schmid
Sun

Streetlights on Earth at night are seen in an image from an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Photograph by : Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Science and art merge in a stunning new Smithsonian museum exhibition featuring planet Earth as seen from above.

Some of the satellite images show the home planet as only astronauts can see it; others taken with special instruments show things even they can’t see.

There’s a myth that the Great Wall of China is the only manmade object that can be seen from space, but that’s not true, exhibit curator Andrew Johnston said.

And he proves it, pointing out satellite images of the Great Pyramids, downtown San Francisco, New Orleans while flooded by hurricane Katrina, container ships in the harbour of Hamburg, Germany, and a nighttime view of the globe with city lights.

Johnston, a geographer at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, organized the exhibit, which opens Saturday. It will remain at the Air and Space Museum until Jan. 7 and then begin a tour of cities around the U.S.

The images were made by a variety of satellites operated by government and private companies. Most of the satellites circle the globe at around 1,000 kilometres altitude; captions on each picture show the satellite that took it.

One unique shot shows Mount Taranaki, New Zealand, surrounded by what looks like a circular shadow.

It turns out to be Egmont National Park, which was created by drawing a circle around the mountain. The dark area inside the circle is forest reserve, the lighter surrounding lands are farms.

For people who have vacationed in the Caribbean, there’s a view of those islands highlighting the shallow water around them and the darker deep water nearby.

Clouds blowing along the ocean break into great swirls and twists where islands reach up into them, images reminiscent of the bow-wave of a giant vessel.

Also evoking the ocean are wave after wave of sand in Yemen, contrasting with blue rocky land nearby.

The picture is said to include the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, though in this uninhabited area that line has yet to be surveyed.

Perhaps the most striking image is the multicolour picture of the great delta of the River Lena in Siberia. The dark blue river divides into twists and turns and threads through the green land in this summer view of the area.

The Nile Valley glows with light in a composite nighttime image of the Eastern Hemisphere.

The great cities of Europe — London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin — sparkle. It’s possible to trace railroad lines in Russia, and at the far edge Japan is a bright crescent.

Most of the images in the exhibit come from Johnston’s 2004 book Earth From Space, though new ones, such as flooded New Orleans, have been added.

– – –

ON THE NET

Earth From Space: http://www.earthfromspace.si.edu

National Air and Space Museum: http://www.nasm.si.edu

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service: http://www.sites.si.edu

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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Concrete floors finishing by Richmond’s Smart Surface Technology – new way to refinish concrete floors

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Cool concrete: It’s not dull, grey and boring any more — concrete with colour has that wow factor

Joanne Blain
Sun

An understated, burnished look in a contemporary residence, above, and a more colourful treatment, below, both created with Colormakers concrete products.

Gary Jones of Smart Surface Technology in a house in the Main Street corridor that had its rough concrete floor replaced with a polished, warm beige one.

One or more colours can be combined to create a wide variety of colours and effects — and homeowners can even apply the dyes or stains themselves.

Get over the idea that concrete floors belong only in the garage or the laundry room. With a shot of colour and a polished sheen of a finish, they can work in any room of the house.

Just ask Gary Jones. The Richmond-based president of Smart Surface Technology was brought in to finish the concrete floors that run from top to bottom of a $20-million San Francisco house.

Think Yaletown loft rather than sidewalk and you’re on the right track. The type of floors Jones’s company creates are smooth, burnished canvases of colour, without a square inch of dull grey concrete in sight.

Growing numbers of homeowners are noticing decorative concrete floors in commercial buildings and realizing they may be the answer to their quest for a practical, contemporary-looking floor.

The wow factor is also a big draw, Jones says.

“A lot of people want concrete because they want to be unique,” he says. “They don’t want to be like the guy down the road — they want something cool.”

And Jones has lots of ways to achieve that look. Under the Colormakers label, his company markets both stains and dyes that can be used to colour an existing concrete floor, as well as colour-enhanced resurfacing treatments.

All three types of products are water-based and sink right into the concrete rather than sitting on top of it like paint, which tends to chip and flake over the years, he says.

Colormakers has eight shades of stains, which are spread over an existing concrete floor and create an irregular pattern of colour by reacting with the lime in the concrete. These generally produce earth tones like copper and bronze, Jones says.

Water-based dyes come in 25 shades, many of them vivid, and are sprayed on top of the concrete for a translucent effect.

Colormakers also makes resurfacing treatments — essentially a thin coating of concrete, pre-coloured in eight shades — that can go right over ceramic tile or concrete that’s irregular or in poor condition.

That was the situation in a house in the Main Street corridor with rough, uneven concrete floors. The homeowner chose a resurfacing treatment in a warm beige colour to smooth out the floor and add a up-to-date look to the fairly conventional home.

Even though the floor is in a below-grade basement, it’s warm to the touch. When properly insulated from below, Jones says, concrete floors absorb the ambient temperature of the room, making them far more comfortable underfoot than unheated ceramic tile.

Concrete also breathes, he says, meaning that it doesn’t trap moisture and become musty like carpets often do when installed in basements.

As well, if you get bored with the look of your floor, it’s relatively easy process to change it.

“If in five years you want to change the colour of the floor, we can do that,” Jones says — just remove the sealer, apply a new colour and re-seal it.

And you’re not restricted to just a stain, a dye or a resurfacing treatment — you can combine one or more to create a wide variety of colours and effects. “You end up with a thousand combinations if you really play around with it,” says Jones.

You can also vary the intensity of the surface sheen by putting down just a couple of layers of finish or a dozen, he says. And maintenance is easy — clean up spills quickly and then every year or two, mop on a liquid wax “to give it a nice sheen again.”

Jones says he’s seen decorative concrete floors that are 14 or 15 years old and still look great. “You can’t really degrade one of these surfaces if it’s put down right.”

And it doesn’t take a huge amount of expertise — homeowners can apply the dyes and stains on existing concrete themselves for as little as 50 cents a square foot, says Jones. If they’re ambitious, they can even put down a resurfacing treatment for about $1.50 a square foot, he says. Hiring a contractor will bring the cost up to between $4 and $6 a square foot, depending on the treatment.

About 70 per cent of Jones’ customers in the U.S. and Canada are commercial, including retailers like Whole Foods, Starbucks and Bootlegger. But the residential market for decorative concrete is growing, he says.

“Many homeowners have seen it in a restaurant or store and they want that floor,” he says. And seeing finished concrete on the floor of a high-traffic business “tells you that it can take a lot of wear and tear.”

Smart Surface Technology is offering half-day workshops at their Richmond headquarters for do-it-yourselfers who want to learn how to stain or dye existing concrete floors and how to apply a coloured concrete overlay to an existing floor. The workshops run every Saturday starting Nov. 25 and cost $75 (discounts for groups available). For more information, call 604-244-3122. The Colormakers product website is www.colormakerfloors.com.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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Costco opens Yaletown warehouse store

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Official calls new store ‘most unique’

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Costco employee Jessica checks over stock as part of final preparations before the new store on Expo Boulevard is opened. Photograph by : Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun

Vancouver’s downtown dwellers will no longer have to trek out to the ‘burbs for their big box shopping with the opening today of Costco’s first warehouse in a core urban residential area.

“It is the most unique Costco in the world,” said Robin Ross, Costco’s regional marketing manager for Western Canada.

Ross said while San Francisco has a Costco downtown, this is the first project of its kind where the warehouse has been built as part of a residential and commercial project in the heart of the city.

Part of Concord Pacific Group’s Spectrum project, the new Costco warehouse on Expo Boulevard anchors a residential development of four highrises being built on the edge of Yaletown.

Outside, the 127,000-square-foot retail outlet won’t much resemble its suburban siblings that come in on average at a heftier 140,000 square feet. Instead of being surrounded by asphalt, the store has two floors of underground parking.

Inside shoppers will still recognize the familiar towering Costco shelves of merchandise — complete with cases of soup, a selection of cereals in sizes geared for the average fraternity and bread by the loaf or by the dozen.

But in a twist that caters to downtown demographics, the new store will add a selection of products Costco shoppers won’t find in the suburban warehouses.

“In terms of merchandising it is going to be pretty different from what you would find in another Costco,” said Ron Damiani, Costco’s assistant vice-president of corporate communications. “It is going to tend to be higher end and recognize that a lot of people in the downtown core are condo dwellers.”

The regular food offerings will be augmented with an expanded deli selection of “home ready meals” or HRM’s — the grocery buzzword describing the shopping needs of multi-tasking downtown families and singles.

The cheese selection has been expanded to bring in products that might appeal to shoppers who aren’t just looking for cheese to slap on a school sandwich.

In clothing, a popular area for Costco shoppers, the brands will include such upscale names as Louis Vuitton, Ross said.

“This is a place where you can buy tires and a two carat diamond ring for $19,699,” he said.

Ross said the decision to open a store in the downtown core was made to meet the demands of “one of the most densely populated areas in North America.

“I think sometimes there is a misconception that Costco is always about bulk food products,” he said. “Coming into a Costco, the first thing you hit is major appliances and electronics, plasma TVs, iPods and high end electronics.

“I think that fits very well into the downtown market.”

Ross said the store won’t just attract downtown dwellers, but he said the retailer realized many of those in the densely populated core wouldn’t bother heading far from home to find a Costco warehouse.

“What is unique about the marketplace are the travel patterns,” he said. “People who live downtown don’t really leave downtown to shop.”

The new outlet brings the number of Costco warehouses across Canada to 69.

Costco memberships are $55 a year plus GST for consumers and $50 a year plus GST for business memberships, with both memberships including a free spouse card.

Ross said until Sunday, new members joining at the downtown location will get a $10 Costco cash card.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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Royal LePage targets seniors

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Agents to be schooled to meet expectations of aging buyers

Mary Lamey
Sun

MONTREAL — Royal LePage is sending its agents back to school in a bid to grab a bigger share of the lucrative and growing 50-plus real-estate market.

“The days of the one-size-fits-all seniors market are over,” said Phil Soper, LePage’s president and chief executive. “Today’s baby boomers look at the world quite differently than their forebears did. Our job is to meet those new expectations.”

Beginning early next year, LePage agents will be able to earn Seniors Real Estate Specialist certification, a designation that means they can offer informed advice on matters above and beyond simply selling a house. They will be versed in matters like annuities and reverse mortgages and other financial planning and estate planning strategies.

To qualify, real estate agents will have to follow a two-day course, score 75 per cent or higher on a written exam, and close three transactions with seniors in 12 months. If they meet those requirements, their business cards can sport a new SRES logo, designating their expertise.

The LePage program is modelled after California’s Seniors Advantage Real Estate Council, in operation since 1998.

Zeroing in on aging buyers and sellers is a no-brainer, said Soper. The 50-plus demographic controls as much as 70 per cent of the money in Canada’s savings accounts. The boomer cohort is growing — 10 million strong today and expected to hit 12 million within four years.

While earlier generations might have expected to work with a single company for their entire career and then collect a company pension after retirement, today’s retirees and empty nesters may rely on other strategies to fund their sunset years. “We offer a broader perspective on how real estate fits into later life planning,” said Soper.

LePage’s research indicates that 28 per cent of homeowners over 50 intend to sell their homes as part of their preparation for later life. Two-thirds say they fear the burden of maintenance will be too heavy as they age. Others say they want to free up equity for other projects, while some say they want to be unencumbered so they can travel.

LePage is joining with other partners as it targets the seniors market, including Home Depot, TD Canada Trust and CARP, Canada’s Association for the 50 Plus. Home Depot has begun a pilot program in two stores, offering advice and resources to help independent seniors stay in their homes as long as possible.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

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Chef Claire offers supper solutions

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Claire May, who has been catering for six years, sells frozen meals as well as daily selections

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Claire May at her shop, Chef Claire’s, where she sells frozen meals as well as fresh daily selections. Photograph by : Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun

For most of us, at the end of the work day, up pops that pesky question: What’s for dinner?

Sometimes, when you’re sick of cooking but want something better than a limp and pale pizza, let Chef Claire take that question.

She’s a relative newcomer to Main Street and she’s got meals like osso bucco, pulled pork, Thai chicken curry, braised lamb shanks, Moroccan braised chicken, chicken marbella, chipotle beef chili, as well as soups, desserts all ready to go. Single portion entrees are $7 or $8 and doubles are $15 to $17. If appetites are within reason, the meals for two can feed three.

She sells frozen meals as well as daily selections. A beef bourguignon I tried from the freezer section was very good — gently stewed for hours, tender and intensely flavoured. And the same goes for the braised lamb shanks.

Chef Claire is Claire May, who had been catering for six years when she added this retail store in September. She took over the spot from Anona, renovating the space so the kitchen is in full view. “I wanted people to see the chefs at work and see that everything’s made fresh on site.”

She says selections in the freezer section change every couple of weeks, especially as she’s feeling out the neighbourhood. The fresh section changes daily.

Her food, she says, is eclectic as she has lived in different parts of the world. “My parents were foodies so we ate in restaurants all the time,” she says.

Chef Claire’s is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

CHEF CLAIRE’S

3610 Main St. 604-875-6400.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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Fewer condo projects started

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

CMHC reports the number for Greater Vancouver is down by half

Derrick Penner
Sun

Greater Vancouver’s roaring condominium market hiccuped in October with developers starting construction on only half the number of units they did in the same month a year ago, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Wednesday, contributing to a 37 per-cent drop in housing starts.

CMHC counted starts of 783 multi-family housing units compared with 1,573 a year ago. The federal agency recorded another 473 single-family-homes started in October for a total of 1,256 new units, compared with 2,009 in October, 2005.

“That’s not that surprising,” Andy Ni, an analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing said. “It’s very common to see 40-50 per-cent drops month-to-month.”

Ni added that multi-family projects can have hundreds of units each, so if in one month if fewer projects start than in the same month a year ago, that can cause wide swings in the number of starts.

Condominium starts to the end of October, 11,010, were still seven per cent behind the same period in 2005.

Ni said that decline has more to do with “supply-side constraints” — the lack of available land, shortages of skilled labour — than slipping demand.

Currently, there are 18,400 multi-family housing units under construction in Greater Vancouver, Ni said, which is close to record levels.

“Those developers and builders do have to compete for themselves for skilled labour,” he added. “[So] I don’t think they have any spare capacity to build more housing starts.”

Maureen Enser, executive director of the Urban Development Institute, said tight supplies of both affordably developable land and skilled labour have affected the industry, but added that there hasn’t yet been a drop in demand.

Enser added that developers are also seeing “a lag between the time it takes to put a project together and get it to a point where CMHC counts it.”

Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association, said housing construction was expected to moderate in 2006, and 15,993 starts falls in line with forecasts made at the beginning of the year.

Greater Vancouver housing construction peaked in 2004 at 19,433 units dipping to 18,840 last year, Simpson said. The projection for 2006 to end with 18,450 is another slight dip, but still way ahead of the 8,200 units built in 2000.

“We’re still going to see labour prices and land prices escalate,” Simpson added. “We don’t see any declining house prices.”

However, Andrey Pavlov, a Simon Fraser University business professor currently visiting at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of business, argues that builders may also be sensing the overall slowdown of sales that has hit the Vancouver market over the last year.

“[Slowing construction] is a good thing, because we’re less likely to get into a severe oversupply situation,” Pavlov added. “That’s how we’re going to get out of the current slowdown.”

Pavlov said B.C.’s economy is still strong, with near full employment and rising wages even before the majority of pre-Olympic Games infrastructure projects are under construction.

“Put this all together and demand in the long run is going to be strong,” he added.

– – –

VANCOUVER’S CONDO CRAZE HICCUPS

October was a slow month for developers building condominiums and townhouses, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Wednesday. For the year, however, numbers are close to pacing 2005’s results.

October 2006

Single-Family homes: 473, up 8%

Multi-family units: 783, down 50%

Year-to-date

Single-family homes: 4,983, up 20%

Multi-family units: 11,010, down 7%

Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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Housing plan set to go before council

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Scheme could see Pennsylvania Hotel become social-housing complex

David Carrigg
Province

The Pennsylvania Hotel at the corner of East Hastings and Carrall streets in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside could be turned into social housing. Photograph by : Jason Payne, The Province

An ambitious plan to turn a dilapidated Downtown Eastside heritage building into a multimillion-dollar social housing complex is set to go before city council.

“The renovation of the Pennsylvania [Hotel] will address several city priorities,” Vancouver housing director Cameron Gray says in a report going to council next Tuesday.

Those priorities include the replacement of old, single-room-accommodation hotels, the preservation of heritage buildings and improving buildings along the soon-to-be-created Carrall Street Greenway.

Gray will ask Vancouver council to chip in $1.2 million toward the $11.5-million cost of converting the old 70-room hotel into 44, 250-square-foot self-contained units.

The balance of funds would come from the federal government, provincial government, the Greater Vancouver Housing Corporation and a heritage deal that allows the hotel’s owner to sell density from the site to a developer for $3.6 million.

The city would also provide $100,000 in grants to restore the building’s facade and a $1-million property-tax break.

The Pennsylvania Hotel, on the southeast corner of Carrall and Hastings, was built in 1909 when East Hastings was a prosperous commercial district.

In the 1990s, the hotel was used to house people who could not find housing elsewhere, including some who had been displaced from the Riverview mental-health facility.

The building has been closed for several years.

Social housing advocate Kim Kerr hopes council will back the plan.

“Anything that provides some housing for the 1,300 homeless people in the Downtown Eastside we like,” he said. “It’s an awful lot of money for 42 units, but the city can afford it.”

Carrall and Hastings was the scene last night of a protest by the Anti-Poverty Committee to create more social housing.

According to the city report, the Pennsylvania Hotel redevelopment would house singles who are either on welfare or earning less than $27,500 a year.

The development would also include commercial space on the ground floor.

B.C. Housing would be responsible for overseeing the development on behalf of the various levels of government involved.

The facility would be operated by a non-profit society.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

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Home loan demand rises as mortgage refinancing surges

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Julie Haviv
USA Today

NEW YORK — Mortgage applications rose sharply last week, reflecting a surge in refinancing loans as interest rates remained near recent lows, an industry trade group said Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and purchasing loans, increased 8.8% to 620.9 the week ended Nov. 3 from the previous week’s 570.8.

Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital in New York, said the indexes tend to be volatile but the steady decline in interest rates the past few months has been good news for the U.S. housing market.

“The bottom line is that the decline in mortgage rates has been a significant development and that combined with strong gains in real income for consumers does suggest that home sales are set to stabilize,” he said. “Overall economic growth is picking up in the fourth quarter even as housing stays weak.”

Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.24% last week, unchanged from the previous week, but well below a four-year high 6.86% in June. Interest rates were also below year-ago levels of 6.31%.

Fueling the rise in mortgage applications last week was an 11% rise in the MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications to 1,897.9. The refinance share of applications edged up to 46.3% from 45% the previous week.

Demand for home purchase loans was also robust.

The MBA’s seasonally adjusted purchase index, widely considered a timely gauge of U.S. home sales, rose 7.1% to 402.2. But the index was still substantially below its year-ago level of 465.7.

While mortgage lenders benefited from the increase in demand for home loans last week, several U.S. home builders said Tuesday that they are being hurt by the slowdown in the country’s once-soaring real estate market.

Toll Brothers (TOL), a luxury home builder, said it expects to report a 10% drop in quarterly home-building revenue, while Beazer Homes USA (BZH), which builds houses largely for first-time buyers, posted a 44% decline in quarterly earnings. Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV), another luxury home builder, said it expects a fourth-quarter net loss.

“We’re still in the midst of the housing construction downturn and that will go on for several more months,” said Maki. “We expect this environment of soft residential construction, but solid growth in the overall economy to continue.”

Maki also said that Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday should not have any near-term macro economic effects on housing and the economy.

The gap between some fixed- and floating-rate loan rates is slim. Fixed 15-year mortgage rates averaged 5.96% last week, up from 5.94%. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, dipped to 5.89% from 5.93%.

But a widening gap between these two types of loans may have spurred a rise in ARM demand last week.

The ARM share of activity increased to 26.4% of applications from 25.9% the previous week.

The MBA’s survey covers about half of U.S. retail residential loans. Respondents include mortgage banks, commercial banks and thrifts.

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Software gives architecture a new image

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

3-D images embedded in solid materials offer ‘wow’ factor

Brian Morton
Sun

IAN SMITH/VANCOUVER SUN Roderick Quin of Quin Media Arts & Sciences shows optical tiles that change with different lighting conditions and angles of view. His software program called Ombrae transforms any surface into a 3-D image.

A Vancouver company is offering architects and designers a new tool for adding that wow factor to their structures and spaces — a method of embedding 3-D hologram-like images into any solid material, even concrete walls.

“It can be any image in any material at any scale,” Roderick Quin, founder and CEO of Quin Media Arts & Sciences [Q-MAAS], said in an interview Tuesday. “The material is the image.”

Quin, previously a sculptor of props for many Hollywood productions, developed the Ombrae System software that creates the images.

Quin, who said Q-MAAS can transform any surface into a 3-D canvas that interacts with light and shadow, added that he’s getting a lot of interest from architects and designers, many from different parts of the world.

He said their tiles can be used in architecture, interior design, landscape design and more.

Q-MAAS has signed a contract to use its technology on an interior wall at the University of B.C.’s Ladha Science Student Centre. The 2.4 metre-by-4.8 metre “canvas” is called Counting Cloud #1, which is a photographic display of a cloud image.

Quin said that his company is still getting its financing in place, but is projecting $750,000 in sales over the next year. He wouldn’t give the cost of the UBC instalment.

According to a news release, Q-MAAS received approval by the National Research Council for software development and market research project funding.

Quin described the process as a “digital system that creates three-dimensional pixels, which are physically interacting with light that falls on them. It creates a 3-D image.”

As the viewer moves, the image changes, he added.

Kim Johnston, a partner with Johnston Davidson Architecture, architects for the Ladha Centre, said in an interview that she believes the technology will catch on in a big way.

“I think it has immense possibilities,” she said. “These guys have very interesting ideas. It [Counting Cloud #1] looks fantastic.”

Johnston said she first found out about Q-MAAS while judging a public art competition in Richmond.

“We loved the idea of big images being seen from several directions.”

She says the technology would be “absolutely fantastic” for the Olympics, because wall designs could create, for example, the appearance of a speed skater in motion.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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