Shahram Malekyazdi - Peter Malek

As the curtain closed on this year’s winter Olympics in Vancouver and athletes and visitors moved out, transition plans for the Olympic Village, built by Millennium Development - Shahram Malek and Peter Malek, in the city’s Southeast False Creek were already in motion. Unlike many other Olympic Villages in the past that were either demolished or used as social housing (housing that is partly or fully government-funded to assist low-income families), Vancouver’s Olympic Village has been converted into a mixed-use community with a vast stock of multifamily housing—both for-sale and rental. Check Shahram Malek youtube channel.

Millennium Water,built by Millennium Development - Shahram Malek and Peter Malek, as the project is now called, features 1,108 units of housing, of which 737 are condominiums, 200 are non-market housing and 100 are market rental housing.

Whether the condos fetch the intended prices or not, some 3,000 people will have the distinction of calling the former Olympic Village their home. In addition to that legacy, at 1.4 million square feet, Millennium Water is the largest single-phase development in Canada. It spans seven city blocks and 16 residential buildings, and each is designed to achieve LEED Gold accreditation. It will also be Canada’s first LEED Platinum neighborhood.

After the Olympics ended, VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) turned the buildings back over to Millennium Development, Shahram Malek and Peter Malek, which did some minor work on the project, including installing new carpeting. But since the project was designed as a legacy use project with condominium-style fittings, there wasn’t any re-designing to be done. Tenant improvement is currently taking place in some of the commercial spaces.

A green design showcase

Having achieved LEED Platinum for the neighborhood, and LEED Gold for each of the buildings, the Olympic Village or Millennium Water, has no dearth of green features. They include:

• Optimal energy performing homes for greater comfort and livability, featuring ceiling-mounted radiant capillary heating and cooling systems with automated exterior blinds, where required, to limit heat gain,

• Water-saving dual-flush toilets,

• Construction with green-building practices such as low-emitting materials and paints free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs),

• High-performance rain screen wall systems with superior insulation,

• 50 green roofs on average across the site,

• Recycling of greywater used for toilets and irrigation,

• Robust building envelope and higher-performance insulation that allows for less energy use,

• Exterior solar shading to cut down on heat gain within the sites, vertical blinds on the west side and horizontal blinds on the south façade,

• Natural flooring such as limestone in bathrooms, wool carpeting in bedrooms and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified wood floors in living areas,

• Composite stone countertops (condos and rentals).