The Jervis is a 19-storey market and non-market residential development in Vancouver’s West End neighborhood. The construction process was smooth, completed on schedule and officially opened in November 2018. NSDA’s project manager, Willem Doesburg, felt this was an amazing project to work on. He built strong relationships with the project team and says, “enthusiasm from the team is what made this a successful project.”
The Jervis is the first of several towers built in collaboration with Inform Interiors, Richard Henry Architects and NSDA Architects.
The tower component has 63 market housing, while the podium has 28 city-owned affordable rental suites, with a ground level commercial/retail space on the corner of Jervis and Davie.
The overall building design responds to the general characteristics of the West End built form for this location, and resists trying to stand out overtly from the existing context. The design recognizes that there are two contrasting scales to buildings throughout the area. Generally speaking, tower forms here are large-scaled, relatively simple and modular. Low-rise structures however, have a much finer grain and scale, with a higher degree of detail and interest at street level.
The Jervis recognizes these qualities and responds to them with a very simple and elegant concrete tower frame composition, together with a more complex and finely grained, pedestrian-scaled podium expression. The commercial element at Davie and Jervis, makes an important transition to Davie Village.
Amenities for the market housing include exceptionally large balconies and a roof terrace for each penthouse. In addition, a large amenity room off the main entrance lobby connects to a common outdoor amenity area. Amenity areas for the social housing include balconies for most of the units and a large indoor amenity space, complimented with a large grade level landscaped outdoor amenity space to the southwest.
The intent of the landscape design is two-fold; provide residents with a highly livable environment and root the building in its surroundings with a high quality public realm treatment.
“Design impacts everybody every day. Everything you touch, everything you look at,” – Niels Bendtsen, Inform Interiors