New | In Vancouver's City of Glass punchy designs and a little showmanship go a long way

When Douglas Coupland called Vancouver the "City of Glass" in a 2000 book of the same name, the moniker stuck - not because the author/artist was making some kind of metaphorical statement about the city's character, but because it was literally true.

Vancouver's housing boom, which started in the mid-1980s and has continued until now, with few interruptions, has left it with a thicket of glass-walled apartment towers that seem almost apologetic about their intrusion into the city's beautiful natural surroundings.

Things seem ripe for a change. In recent years, some of the city's developers have made an attempt to break the mould with residential towers that stand taller, punchier and more eccentric than anything before.

Vancouver architecture lacked "really special moments", developer Ian Gillespie said last year. He seems prepared to put his money where his mouth is: his latest project is Vancouver House, a 59-storey apartment tower designed by Bjarke Ingels that twists its way up from a narrow space between two elevated roadways. It has nearly twice as much floor space on its upper floors as it does at ground level, which will make it a conspicuous presence in a city known for its skinny towers.

On the other side of Vancouver's downtown peninsula will be another top-heavy tower, the design for which was recently revealed by Beijing-based architect Ole Scheeren. The 51-storey structure's protruding apartments have already earned it comparisons to the block-stacking game Jenga.