The Irish Times

Most North American cities have been turned into doughnuts by decades of flight to the suburbs. Not so in Vancouver, the third largest metropolis in Canada. At least 45,000 people have moved downtown in the last 15 years - more than doubling its population, which is now expected to reach 120,000 by 2020. Much of the downtown area is now peppered with apartment blocks, rising to 30 storeys or more. But that's not what they're called. In Vancouver, as leading architect Peter Busby explains, "apartment block" is a pejorative term because it conjures up images of long corridors; "condo tower" is the thing. Tall and slender, with a maximum floorplate of 650 metres, these towers are all about access to light and views. At most, they have six to eight apartments per floor, with a central lift and staircase core. In some cases, two lifts are back-to-back so that residents of the larger units can walk straight into their apartments.