Vancouver's First Supertall Skyscraper is Inspired by Glass Sea Sponges

This unique design takes its cue from the sea

Vancouver, B.C. is no stranger to glass tower. Indeed, your first visit to the city might impress you by just how vertical this Pacific Northwest city is.

Well, it’s about to get more vertical. However with this new project, the city’s first supertall skyscraper is inspired by something far more down to earth. Underwater, in fact.

Aerial view of a vibrant city skyline with modern skyscrapers, water bodies, and mountains in the background during sunset.

Vancouver is getting its first supertall skyscraper, and it’s not looking to the usual skyline suspects for inspiration.

Henriquez Partners’ latest design takes a cue from an unlikely source: ancient glass sea sponge reefs found off the coast of British Columbia.

Underwater image of a cluster of white sea sponges with a textured surface against a dark background. — The sea sponge inspired the tower’s unique form.

Aerial view of a modern skyscraper surrounded by urban buildings, with a waterfront and mountains in the background, captured during twilight.

The 314-meter tower is part of the Georgia + Abbott development, a mixed-use project that brings together two other high-rises, retail, dining, and a new public plaza.

At the center of it all is the supertall hotel tower, a glass-and-steel form wrapped in a white exoskeleton that gives the building a crisp, almost skeletal presence.

A futuristic building with a unique, net-like design featuring green plants and terraces, overlooking a cityscape and waterfront at sunset.

That structural logic isn’t just decorative. The tower’s shape borrows from the geometry of sea sponge reefs, which grow in layered, delicate formations that feel both fragile and surprisingly strong. It’s an appealing contrast for a building meant to rise more than 1,000 feet into the air.

The design also nods to the site’s past. The Randall Building, a heritage structure dating to 1926, will be preserved and folded into the larger development. It’s one of several ways the project tries to bridge old and new, city and coast, architecture and ecology.

Aerial view of a modern urban plaza featuring unique architectural buildings, outdoor seating with people, greenery, and artistic structures.

There’s a lot of heavy lifting here — height, density, preservation, and public space — but the most interesting part may be the source of inspiration. Instead of chasing another glass monolith, Henriquez Partners looked underwater.

And the result feels right at home in Vancouver.

The architectural expression of the project tells a story that is unique to British Columbia and inspired by rare and ancient glass sea sponge reefs — living structures found off the BC coast that demonstrate strength and adaptability.

This natural metaphor is expressed not only in distinct silhouettes and the sculptural form of its tallest tower, but in their environmental performance towards a net-zero carbon operation.

Informed by the sea sponge’s structural ingenuity and ecological purpose, the towers offer a uniquely Vancouver expression of sustainability, beauty, and vertical urbanism.