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JULY/AUGUST 2017 BCBUSINESS 47 BCBUSINESS.CA Recession of 200709. Canada didn't suf- fer the same calamity, partly thanks to the strength of its banking and regula- tory systems, Gillespie says. The third reason: Canadian devel- opment expertise. "They can build single-family homes like nobody's busi- ness," Gillespie says of U.S. developers. "They're just not as good at building the type of building typologies that you need for a walkable, dense urban envi- ronment. And it isn't as simple as putting up taller buildings; there's a lot more that goes into it." A t B+B Scale Models Ltd.'s cluttered Granville Island studio, Bernd Zwick shows off his company's exqui- sitely detailed work. In one corner: a streetscape of downtown Vancouver highlighting Westbank's proposed luxury residential project at Burrard and Nelson, a curved 56-storey tower designed by Bing Thom Architects. B+B has built models for developments in Hawaii, Zwick says, pointing to a shelf —lled with rows of tiny palm trees. "We don't grow them; we just make them," jokes the German expat. Zwick, who co-founded B+B in 1969 and looks a decade younger than his 73 years, now has local rivals, but he's the grandfather of architectural model mak- ing in Vancouver. He began working for American clients in the 1980s; that busi- ness took o› during the next decade, thanks to exposure from Intrawest. But Zwick knows all too well how prone America is to booms and busts. By 2007, as much as three-quarters of B+B's out- put went to the U.S. Then came the 2008 crash. Zwick went four years without a single American job, and his sta› dwin- dled from 43 to fewer than 20 today. Westbank and other local clients helped žill the gap, and international customers began trickling back. Since 2012, B+B has done U.S. work for Bosa Development, Pittsburgh-based Urban Design Associates and Dallas- headquartered Howard Hughes Corp. Zwick admits that over the past 10 years, he hasn't chased business south of the border because Vancouver has kept him so busy. "Maybe we should have kept better in touch than we did," he says. Ref lecting on how his work has changed, Zwick notes that B+B now uses lasers to cut the pieces for its mod- els, a task once done by hand. "It was much slower, of course," he recalls of the old days. "But the architecture was simpler then." A developer building a project in Los Angeles has good reason to hire Zwick, contends Westbank's Gillespie. "Ship- ping the model down costs you almost as much as the model costs," he says. "So, why do they do it here? Well, because A, he's the best model maker in the world, and B, because probably his architects are here." I n ne a rby K it si l a no, Glot m a n Simpson's one-storey headquarters belie the fact that the structural engineering žirm has worked on about 500 high- rises in Canada and the U.S. Managing principal Geoffrey Glotman explains that during the 1970s his father, who founded the business in 1964, did what he believes was Vancouver's —rst condo development. Locally, Glotman Si mp s o n's p roj e c t s i n c lu d e t h e Vancouver Convention Centre and the Richmond Oval, but highrises account for much of its work. In downtown San Diego alone, his žirm has engineered some 50 such towers, the powerfully built Glotman says. "Most of the high- rise stu› down there, the large majority is Canadian developers, and they're all using Canadian architects." Glotman Simpson, which has o¥ces in Calgary and Los Angeles, followed companies such as Bosa Development, Intergulf, Onni, Pinnacle International and Westbank up the West Coast, Glotman explains. "We have so much experience out of Canada in terms of doing the built environment and high- rises here," Glotman says. "You would think the U.S. has it. They don't." Glotman, whose —rm is working for Westbank in Toronto as well as Seattle, also —nds Canadians more cooperative than their litigious American coun- terparts. "The ability to work with the teams here is just so easy, fast, doesn't require a whole bunch of meetings, con- tracts, all the peripheral stu›," he says. "We just get down to work." Wise to Canadian expertise, large U.S. contractors have been hiring his —rm, Glotman says. Roughly 40 per cent of Glotman Simpson's work is now for Design Build General Contracting Construction Management For more information please call us at 604-638-1212 or visit our website at www.walesmclelland.com Everywhere You Go, You'll See Our Signs... WHY? We Put Our Clients First, and They Just Keep Coming Back. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K BCB-one-third-vert-workfile-july.pdf 1 2017-06-07

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